"High death and injury rates among cyclists alarm road safety campaigners"

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 10:12AM

By analogues, I mean this sort of thing:

Motorists have to wear seatbelts, you should have helmets, hi-viz, whatever.

Daytime running lights would be good for cyclists as well as motorists.

Motorists have airbags, so you need helmets.

Motorists were kind enough to consent to this restriction, now it's your turn.

That sort of logic, which doesn't acknowledge that the devices in one case are part of the vehicle and therefore not an encumbrance or likely to put people off taking a journey.

The more important bit is that we end up treating the responsibility to avoid being hurt by fast heavy vehicles as the same thing as the responsibility not to hurt others in your fast heavy vehicle.

galwaycyclist · 06-08-2015 10:14AM

tomasrojo wrote: »

Motorists have to wear seatbelts, you should have helmets, hiviz, whatever.

Daytime running lights would be good for cyclists as well as motorists.

Motorists have airbags, so you need helmets.

That sort of logic, which doesn't acknowledge that the devices in one case are part of the vehicle and therefore not an encumbrance or likely to put people off taking a journey.

Also known as the "arms race" model of "road safety"

Buchaill_Mor · 06-08-2015 10:14AM

Flatzie_poo wrote: »

Charges aren't needed to reduce traffic to make it easier for cyclists.

I personally am no longer of the position that Dublin City Centre should necessarily be made easier for cyclists.

I think I want to see it made easier, and a more welcoming place for pedestrians and cyclists, and more difficult for private, non PSV cars. I am coming around to the position of it being a quality of life thing.

I also think I would like to see more people moving into the city as a viable proposition as opposed to the burbs. In the long run, I think it is more economically beneficial, as it is easier to provide services such as power, sewage, water, health services, etc. Not knocking peoples right to live in the countryside, and I see advantages to that also, but at least make the proposition of city living more palatable?? I know this is not going to happen in my life time, even if some politician were brave enough to start taking the steps now.

Flatzie_poo · 06-08-2015 10:16AM

Agreed that it's another debate, but seatbelts weren't always part of a car, that was a retrospective safety feature.

Other cyclists are welcome to do whatever they want, but I wear my helmet in case I have an accident that I cause. I don't view it as something I need to do in case a motorist hits me...

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 10:17AM

This kind of thing:
http://rdrf.org.uk/2014/11/12/road-safety-week-whats-wrong-with-it/

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 10:22AM

Flatzie_poo wrote: »

Agreed that it's another debate, but seatbelts weren't always part of a car, that was a retrospective safety feature.

The manufacturers were forced (against their will) to include them in all new cars. Then laws were passed gradually to make people wear them at all times.

The provenance doesn't make much difference to the way the argument ends up running though: motorists generously consented to this restriction, now it's your turn.

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 10:23AM

What did people make of the Irish Times editorial, by the way? (To steer the thread back around to its subject.)

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 10:35AM

Buchaill_Mor wrote: »

I personally am no longer of the position that Dublin City Centre should necessarily be made easier for cyclists.

I think I want to see it made easier, and a more welcoming place for pedestrians and cyclists, and more difficult for private, non PSV cars. I am coming around to the position of it being a quality of life thing.

It would probably be a good strategy to emphasise the benefits for people on foot above all others, as everyone travels by foot at times, and pedstrians are the single largest transport mode in the city centre. To be fair, I think the emphasis on the new street designs being for cyclists has been placed mostly by the media, who see that as a more effective means of opposing changes, because "everybody hates cyclists", and "they don't deserve" the changes, because they're lawless, annoying, don't pay fictional taxes, whatever.

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 10:56AM

Irish Times gets it wrong on cycling road safety stats two days in a row

http://irishcycle.com/2015/08/06/irish-times-gets-it-wrong-on-cycling-road-safety-stats-two-days-in-a-row/

buffalo · 06-08-2015 11:06AM

tomasrojo wrote: »

What did people make of the Irish Times editorial, by the way? (To steer the thread back around to its subject.)

I think the IT is the only decent national paper in the country, but their track record on cycling rivals the Indo's coverage at times. Call me a cynic, but this is how the editorial sounded to me...

Something had to be done to change behavioural patterns and raise public awareness about the rising number of cyclists being killed and injured

Read as: "we need to make people scared of cycling, and tell them to wear helmets and high-viz, rather than reminding drivers to check their mirrors and blind spots".

motorists... must learn to share available road space with this slower, more vulnerable, means of transport.

"Cycling is slower than driving, and you're more likely to be killed. Sure why would you bother?"

But while overtaking manoeuvres can be dangerous, most fatal collisions happen at road junctions.

"Shut up moaning about close overtaking".

Visual black spots on trucks and driver inattention are major contributing factors. But cyclists can do more to protect themselves by wearing high visibility clothing and anticipating the prospect of not being seen. Obeying the rules of the road is a priority.

"Drivers can be crap, but it's your own fault if you get hit by a car. Probably because you jumped a red light at some point earlier in your life".

Motorists must have regard for the growing number of these road users and anticipate their needs, just as cyclists should obey the rules of the road.

"If you see any cyclists breaking red lights, disregard all cyclists' safety".

tomasrojo · 06-08-2015 11:09AM

"Fault lies with both sides, but red-light jumping. Wear hi-viz. We didn't read the report after the introduction."

Jawgap · 06-08-2015 11:27AM

rp wrote: »

Nice of the RSA to admit that people are driving around in "potential murder vehicles". Hi-viz won't mitigate for that.

Read that phrase and thought of this......

Jawgap · 06-08-2015 11:30AM

From their 'data journalism' feed....

CLpp1kAUYAAumPj.png:large

Buchaill_Mor · 06-08-2015 11:44AM

So, being male between 35 and 49, I should not cycle any Wednesday in September, in a built up area in Daylight. At least in 2012. How did I and a lot of my colleagues who cycle survive the massacre??

Jawgap · 06-08-2015 11:47AM

Buchaill_Mor wrote: »

So, being male between 35 and 49, I should not cycle any Wednesday in September, in a built up area in Daylight. At least in 2012. How did I and a lot of my colleagues who cycle survive the massacre??

Hi viz and helmets

mirrorwall14 · 06-08-2015 12:06PM

Landed on this page accidentally. However this articles gonna make some great misleading/manipulating statistics lessons for school next year. Thanks guys!

Moflojo · 06-08-2015 12:33PM

tomasrojo wrote: »

What did people make of the Irish Times editorial, by the way? (To steer the thread back around to its subject.)

I thought the editorial attempted to be balanced but, because this is such a polarising debate, either of the opposing sides could read it as not giving enough acknowledgement to, or misrepresenting, their side of the argument.

I find the anti-infrastructure arguments on this thread to be a bit extremist; there's no empathy for beginner or inexperienced cyclists and what their attitudes towards cycling might be.

magicbastarder · 06-08-2015 12:53PM

i keep reading the thread title as "High death and injury rates among cyclists and road safety campaigners"; which would give it a sinister edge.

LaGlisse · 06-08-2015 12:58PM

I live in a rural area and the amount of goons out cycling at dusk/on overcast days with no lights and reflective gear on narrow roads id just astounding.
Used to cycle to work myself on a national road but a few close calls just put paid to that, too much distracted/ignorant driving

rollingscone · 06-08-2015 01:10PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

i keep reading the thread title as "High death and injury rates among cyclists and road safety campaigners"; which would give it a sinister edge.

me too!

Flatzie_poo · 06-08-2015 02:10PM

LaGlisse wrote: »

I live in a rural area and the amount of goons out cycling at dusk/on overcast days with no lights and reflective gear on narrow roads id just astounding.
Used to cycle to work myself on a national road but a few close calls just put paid to that, too much distracted/ignorant driving

Any distracted/ignorant driving is just as much matched by distracted/ignorant cycling on a daily basis...

buffalo · 06-08-2015 02:24PM

Flatzie_poo wrote: »

Any distracted/ignorant driving is just as much matched by distracted/ignorant cycling on a daily basis...

FITE FITE FITE!

HivemindXX · 06-08-2015 02:28PM

Flatzie_poo wrote: »

Any distracted/ignorant driving is just as much matched by distracted/ignorant cycling on a daily basis...

Citation needed.

Even if that was true, which to be blunt, I consider a load of week old tripe, the fact is that careless distracted twats in cars kill other people the worst thing a crappy cyclist will do is get themselves killed.

Moflojo · 06-08-2015 02:48PM

HivemindXX wrote: »

...the worst thing a crappy cyclist will do is get themselves killed.

But it's only a matter of time until a cyclist kills someone...

It's a war out there, don't you know.

hardCopy · 06-08-2015 03:26PM

Absolutely awful journalism. Why have the RSA put out a press release about 2012 figures?
Why are deaths and injuries constantly mentioned as one figure?
Why is the number of "vulnerable road users" mentioned in an article about cyclists?

It's all aimed at making the number of cycling deaths sound bigger than it is so that the RSA can advocate for mandatory helmets and hi viz. Which I have no doubt they are building up to.

I can't understand why Death and Injury are even mentioned in the same sentence. The number of deaths is tiny in proportion to the number of injuries and far too small to have any value in tracking a 'trend'.

galwaycyclist · 06-08-2015 03:37PM

hardCopy wrote: »

It's all aimed at making the number of cycling deaths sound bigger than it is so that the RSA can advocate for mandatory helmets and hi viz. Which I have no doubt they are building up to.

There are several threads this could go into but I'll put it here. At the moment the RSA are advertising a bursary - effectively a grant - for a post graduate student to do a PhD project on the safety of vulnerable road users. The grant is worth EU35,000 a year.

http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/RSA-Statistics/Bursary-Awards/

This is taken straight from the explanatory document.

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Bursary/RSA_PhD_Bursary_Award_2015_Background_Information_for_Applicants.doc

In my view this passage speaks eloquently for the attitude of the RSA to vulnerable road users. In this document the word "car" appears once and there is no mention of the words "driver" or "motorist".

A number of specific topics have been put forward as being of particular interest to the RSA, and these may be considered by candidates as potential topics; these would require expansion and testing for suitability for a PhD:

• An evaluation of the impact of primary school education measures on children’s road safety knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, potentially involving a longitudinal study of children exposed to RSA formal education interventions and those not exposed to these. Recommendations for the enhancement of the RSA suite of education initiatives to be included.

• A study of the barriers and facilitators to the wearing of high-visibility clothing by vulnerable road users, including a review of the optimum design of clothing and accessories to afford maximum protection; this could potentially also encompass a cost benefit analysis of the RSA’s investment in high visibility clothing and recommendations to enhance the programme to save lives and reduce casualties.

• The protective effects of helmets, with a specific focus on new technology and design to increase the protective effects of helmets for cyclists and/or motorcyclists in primary and secondary impacts, set in the context of collisions occurring at different speed limits.

• The protective effects of car seats for babies and young children including engineering/design enhancements, crash-testing, vehicle compatibility and barriers/facilitators to usage among parents/guardians.

• A review of human factors associated with older pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries and recommendations for initiatives to reduce the number and severity of these casualties.

Flatzie_poo · 06-08-2015 03:42PM

HivemindXX wrote: »

Citation needed.

Since when do you need a citation for an opinion? :rolleyes:

HivemindXX wrote: »

Even if that was true, which to be blunt, I consider a load of week old tripe,

Can you please provide a citation for this?

HivemindXX wrote: »

the fact is that careless distracted twats in cars kill other people the worst thing a crappy cyclist will do is get themselves killed.

If you think no pedestrian has ever been killed by a poor cyclist through collision you need your head examined.

I'm surprised your 'tripe-meter' didn't go off while writing that post...

The fact is both sides need to be thought defensive commuting. too many egos and supposed road owners about.

hardCopy · 06-08-2015 03:49PM

galwaycyclist wrote: »

There are several threads this could go into but I'll put it here. At the moment the RSA are advertising a bursary - effectively a grant - for a post graduate student to do a PhD project on the safety of vulnerable road users. The grant is worth EU35,000 a year.

http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/RSA-Statistics/Bursary-Awards/

This is taken straight from the explanatory document.

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Bursary/RSA_PhD_Bursary_Award_2015_Background_Information_for_Applicants.doc

In my view this passage speaks eloquently for the attitude of the RSA to vulnerable road users. In this document the word "car" appears once and there is no mention of the words "driver" or "motorist".

So a 35K bounty to anyone who can "prove" the need for helmet laws. The RSA is a joke shop.

Skrynesaver · 06-08-2015 03:55PM

hardCopy wrote: »

So a 35K bounty to anyone who can "prove" the need for helmet laws. The RSA is a joke shop.

In fairness you have to justify an enhanced hi-viz campaign too.

galwaycyclist · 06-08-2015 04:08PM

hardCopy wrote: »

So a 35K bounty to anyone who can "prove" the need for helmet laws. The RSA is a joke shop.

Actually its an annual bursary so we are looking at EU105,000 to EU140,000 if its a 3 or 4 year PhD.

"High death and injury rates among cyclists alarm road safety campaigners"

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