West Midland’s Police’s close pass operation sees number of cyclists killed or seriously injured fall by a fifth

I have cycled about 10000km a year in West Mids for last 7 years. I have certainly experienced less close passes (Wiggins exploits in 2012 seemed to blast cycling into publics' awareness) over the last few years.

Every single close pass this year that I have experienced has been from one of two distinct groups. 1) Elderley drivers (one Doris this Saturday had no clue - not sure her peripheral vision was functioning as far as near kerb)

2) Young male drivers in hatchbacks

The biggest single change in attitude would come from a law change to presumed guilt on the motorist's behalf, like the rest of Europe (pretty much). Now way is that happening soon though. 

Bit soon to be drawing conclusions like that over the stats. If you used such a time scale for most things it wouldn't be used as definitive proof of cause and effect.

It could have simply been a reduction in car use over the period and no actual behaviour change. Maybe there was also a police operation to remove uninsured drivers going on as those sort of people are the sort that don't give a shit.

It's a good start though.

Sounds like a promising start! I ride on thier patch but would say that close passes are getting worse, in fact driving around cyclists in general is getting worse and getting more into the us and them mentality.

Out last night and my partner actually had a lady close up the gap to the kerb and the car in front in a queue to actively stop her getting past.  She then went to overtake me in a 20mph zone outside a school with traffic waiting in front, cars coming the other way and speed bumps to negotiate. She didn't appreciate me point out all of that whilst I was riding along at 20mph......

Later in the same ride though we had a van following us for around 2 miles. No attempt to overtake although it was primarily downhill. Took me a minute or two to realise why though as the lady driver was going to meet her husband at the pub at the bottom of the hill after his bike ride and both her daughters are cyclists with one being a World Champion. Make everone cycle and attitudes to cyclists will eventually get to that point as they appreciate how it feels

Starting from a high point it could really only go one way, we need long term data including that of numbers cycled (it's been a particularly wet 12 months which can and does affect numbers), what other factors are going on in the area, more infra, better road layout, fewer motorvehicles at X times of day and so on.

We cannot discount the validity of the outcome, however merely concluding that doing x gives you y result oversimplifies matters massively. One 12 month set of data points whilst encouraging on the face of it doesn't and never could tell the whole story.

If numbers of cyclists/miles/exposure is the same or even gone up then the trend is welcomed, let's hope it stays that way and continues to go down, 

I would suggest that Mark Hodson and Steve Hudson apply copious quantities of hand cream, and the CUK people on the stand, they're going to have their hands shaken a lot.  I won't be there, but thanks from me, and consider your hands well and truly shaken.

20% is significant, but could be within the natural variation in KSI cyclist figures, and cause and effect is always difficult to prove, but it certainly looks good.  Let's hope that the police bosses allow them to continue this for enough time to be sure that it really is this that's making the effect.

I guess we need graphs by month comparing to last year, but 20% decrease seems fairly significant.

Has there really been a shift in driver behaviour? Or has the number of impacts just been lower recently?

Anyone who cycles in the region care to comment?

No, no, no: this is all wrong!   Everyone knows that police enforcement is just a way of collecting revenue and pressing further on the hard-pressed motorist!  In no way does it actually save lives. Ever. (says the Daily Mail...).