Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin says cyclists must "do their bit" on road safety

Quote:

lso about getting cyclists to do their bit too.

I guess that means helping the police and getting a shotgun to deal with crap driving....

Do their bit? Sure, but how? Kill ourselves to save the drunk doing it? Wear a helmet to make us invulnerable to the oncoming 2.5 tonne Range Rover Sport overtaking in a stupid place? Carry a light house to help the ignorant see us through the haze of their smoky tobacco filled cabin? Words of an idiot who clearly has no idea what he's talking about. Then again we could blame the child for the pedophile attack, or perhaps the Jewish for the holocaust...but that's not P.C. is it? Disgusting.

Let's up the ante. How about as cyclists we treat pedestrians with the same level of care as some motorists treat cyclists? We know for example that cyclists could kill (accidentally of course) around 100 people per year and government wouldn't get involved as those are the kind of figures we see each year between fatal attacks concerning motorist and cyclists.

Of course I'm not advocating the above but it gets you thinking. If a lynch mob were to start seriously injuring and killing pedestrians how long would it be before the public were up in arms about it and demanding action? Not long I'm sure. Can you imagine if say 100 pedestrians were killed by drunk/drugged/aggressive cyclists and another few hundred thousand maimed and seriously injured?

Of course when government did come knocking we could simply throw the excuse back that motoring die hards use

- sorry, mate didn't see you
- it's your own fault for being in the way
- you're a danger to yourself and others
- you don't pay pavement tax (non-existant just like road tax!)

How is the continual slaughtering of one group by another more aggressive group for the want of basic courtesy and respect for life not a human rights issue?!! Now that's a topic I would be interested to explore.

Even the absolute worst cyclist in the world - be they a hoodie on a BMX riding on a crowded pavement, or one of the minister's cabinet colleagues calling a police officer a f*cking pleb - is "doing their bit" for safety by using a vehicle that is approximately 100 times lighter and on average is about 3 times slower than the top selling car in the UK on clear roads. There is no excuse for law-breaking or inconsiderate behaviour when using any form of transport, but a roughly three orders of magnitude lower kinetic energy in the event of collisions is the sort of difference a member of the government should consider before taking a cheap shot at a vulnerable outgroup.

As for the stuff about how important transport is, I'm sure he thinks so... right up to the moment he is promoted to a more prestigious department in a few months. I imagine Philip Hammond hasn't given the economic and social impacts of transport policy a moment's thought since skipping merrily to the MoD just under a year ago. After all, defense contractors are so much better at hospitality, and they offer better-paid consultancy and directorship positions to ex-ministers when their careers in politics are over.

/www.20splentyforus.org.uk/

It's the future. Slowing things down is actually going to improve it for us all at very little cost. Linking increased traffic speed to increased productivity is unproven and just ridiculous. Actual time and money is spent clearing up accidents and compensating ruined lives. That's what should be concentrated on now. The way to save money and lives is to reduce residential areas to 20mph.

A report commissioned by the DfT and carried out by the Metropolitan Police looked at accidents involving motor vehicles and cyclists, where the cyclist was seriously injured. It found,

"With adult cyclists, police found the driver solely responsible in about 60%-75% of all cases, and riders solely at fault 17%-25% of the time."

"The study, carried out for the Department for Transport, found that in 2% of cases where cyclists were seriously injured in collisions with other road users police said that the rider disobeying a stop sign or traffic light was a likely contributing factor. Wearing dark clothing at night was seen as a potential cause in about 2.5% of cases, and failure to use lights was mentioned 2% of the time."

A report of the study with a link to it can be found at.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accident...

This study shows that if drivers were as careful at avoiding cyclists as cyclists are at avoiding vehicles, then accidents to cyclists would be cut by two thirds.

McLoughlin should tackle drivers first. Blaming cyclists for their own misfortunes might go down well with the Tory conference, but is a pretty nasty tactic. This study was presumably carried out in order that the policies of McLoughlin's Department are most effective. If he is ill informed about the main causes of accidents to cyclists he has no excuse and should ask his civil servants to advise him. If he ignored their advice his speech is inexcusable.

Let's take away all ministerial cars. Then government ministers would suddenly become very interested in safer roads for cycling.

If by "do their bit" he mean obide by the laws of the road, I have no problem.
Better enforcement of the law on the road would make the roads a lot safer.

Good points made by Qwerky et al about the proper investment in cycling infrastructure which is urgently needed to encourage cars to be left at home for short journeys.

Indeed it's a shame that there was no announcement about investment in such cycling infrastructure. IMO investment is required in both cycling and transport infrastructure to improve the economic and physical health of the nation.

Cyclists do have a duty of care to themselves as do car drivers (to the cyclists, that is!)

Not surprising, but predictably boring, are the other class-warrior comments made on here. No government, to date, has done much to improve cycling infrastructure.

My 4 mile trip into Birmingham (venue for the Tory conference as happens) today entailed 4 'near misses', pretty much par for the course:

i.) 4 policemen cross the road on the hill I am descending - 2 stop at the pedestrian island (its not a pedestrian x-ing though) the other two look at me and then just step out into my path! where am I supposed to go? - lots of braking, swerving amd cussing!

ii)more pedestrians - a couple walking on the pavement with their backs to me just suddenly decide to walk in the road to pass someone else, just as I'm being overtaken by a taxi - its a good job for them that I wasnt the taxi.

iii) on a left hand exit from an island an overtaking van gets close enough for me to bang on his side panel with my fist - he took no notice at all, I could have been sprawled in the road for all he knew.

iv) on the way home, approaching a mini roundabout up a steep suburban hill I see a van approach from the left andkeep looking at him. He stops at the junction as I get to it and then just as I'm infront of him he starts driving forward missing me by inches and then has the temerity to say he didnt see me.

Tell me - what have I got to do to do 'my bit' for road safety? Drive a car?

Ps 4 miles of this 8 mile round trip were on canals so this makes 1 serious near miss per mile of public road - chew on that Patrick!

Quote:

"You can't just click your fingers to solve it [transport problems]. You need to think big and hold your nerve for decades."

yup, that's what the dutch did

There are a couple of problems with the pervasive idea that we have to get our own house in order before anyone makes concessions to us.

As John The Monkey says, the harm done by bad cyclists is, while reprehensible, bugger all in the grand scheme of things. Imagine if these berks were driving cars... actually, don't imagine, just go and find some statistics. Several hundred people are killed every year as a result of drivers ignoring red lights and mounting pavements. The infractions of cyclists don't even come close to causing that sort of carnage.

As a cyclist you have a powerful incentive to avoid reckless riding in the first place, because you'll also be hurt, quite possibly more seriously than whoever you collide with. The constant tabloid drone that cyclists are free to break traffic laws with impunity and are the outlaws of the road ignores this fact. I wouldn't be surprised if the bloke running the red light on your morning commute has started believing this hype.

As for the idea that we'll somehow be able to influence the behaviour of an irresponsible minority if we moan about them enough, frankly you are micturating into the wind. Pavement cycling in particular is done out of well-founded and rational fear; you're not going to get rid of that by having a whinge.

I'd love the corpulent politician to tell me what the cyclist who was hit by a police van, doing 68 in a 30, careering over a hump back bridge with all four wheels off the ground before hitting the poor cyclist and leaving him with permanent brain damage.

What do you expect the cyclist to do? Oh hang on I know, just get on with it - cause no-one is gonna throw the book at the copper for dangerous driving are they?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19881927

Sure cyclists sometimes break rules but they mostly endanger themselves. The other way round, tho, and the results are horrific.

@John the monkey - you forgot about the ones that raise holy hell if you take primary position through junctions or pinch points!

I hope to be meeting under sec Norman Baker in a week or so and will be sure to make some of these points known toh im. Not that it'll change anything.

Much as I would expect from the blue-rinse brigade that makes up a typical Tory Party conference audience. Although of course you might imagine that they would be more sympathetic as they must surely have similar issues as they are wheeled around town in their bath chairs.

The problem is that the Tories are deep in the pockets of the industries which spend most on advertising and political lobbying, ie the industries which are least able to stand on their own feet in a free market - arms, motor, oil, farming. Apparently in the USA (and I have no reason to believe that it wouuld be much different here) the auto industry is the largest single spender on advertising and lobbying, and that is before you include peripheral sectors such as oil, components etc. In fact if you were to take the wider car-related industries you woudl probably find they account for more than half the total spend.

The other problem is that Labour is deep in the pockets of...........

Until we see that Damascene moment when our rulers see the revelation that the auto industry has been allowed to spiral out of all political control - rather like they had that revelation about the tobacco industry a couple of decades or so ago - not much is going to change.

This sounds no different to the usual twaddle that Boris rolls out about his commitment to cycling in the capital. All waffle, no bollocks and pedestrian and cyclist KSI's are still on the increase.

I'm surprised he didn't say that they were going to set up a framework of self regulation and be completely hands off about.

"It gets people to work, children to school, food to shops. Everyone depends on it, every day. When transport slows, everything slows. When transport stops, everything stops.”

The first two generally involve short, urban journeys*. If his answer is to;

invest in infrastructure

then this surely means getting as many cars as possible out of the urban environment. The successful evolution of the car into such a good means of transport has created this problem. Cars are an amazingly cheap, effective and convenient method of transport. If you want to remove cars from the urban environment then you need to make the altenatives more attractive. Current schemes such as;

• Bus
• Park and ride
• Train

all tend to be slower, more expensive, less comfortable, less reliable than driving a car.

The best option of course is to cycle; it is the quickest, cheapest and most reliable method of making an urban journey of 5 miles or less. If investment in infrastructure is the answer then lets build proper** cycle routes that will encourage people out of their cars.

*69% of all car journeys were less than
5 miles long in 2005; http://www.sustrans.org.uk/assets/files/connect2/guidelines%2016.pdf

**proper means;
-physically segregated from the road
-quality surface
-well maintained
-not shared use (no pedestrians/dog walkers/parked cars)
-wide enough for two way traffic
-continuous (isn't broken up with the dreaded give way/cyclists dismount signs)

It all goes round and round but to be honest, he kind of has a point. There is some shocking cycling on UK roads, I mean really poor, to the point at which as I driver as well as a cyclist I am beginning to see how the view points about "cyclists needing to do their bit" comes about.

I live in cambridge, and the general level of cycling proficiency is so low, that no matter how carefully I drive (taking into account that a poor cyclist may do anything at any time), I am still afraid that one day I will be involved in an accident with a cyclist which I had no chance of avoiding (for example the guys who run the blind set of red lights at the end of my road).

Until as a community we accept that there are some terrible cyclists as well as terrible drivers, and stop biting the head of anybody who suggests that cyclists may be in the wrong ("THATS RIGHT, BLAME THE VICTIMS!"), then its unlikely we are really going to get any respect from the majority of non cyclist drivers.

It's the Tory conference. They hate te gays, cyclists and foreigns in hats, and their big preoccupations are inheritance tax, the right to shoot burglars and the menace of speed cameras.

It's not an insane point: a proportion of people on bikes get run over because they're too daft to have lights, or because they cycle on the wrong side of the road, or talk on their phones while cycling on the wrong side of the road with no lights. It happens, and if you could stop it, you'd reduce cycle casualties (a bit). But it's basically like promising to reduce government expenditure by "clamping down on waste". It's easy to say but essentially impossible to achieve because the people you're trying to change aren't listening. So it's not really a policy as such, it's just noise...

Sustrans

He's fatter and older than the photo at the top!

I do my bit for road safety every day.

It involves this clever system whereby I somehow survive the daily examples of motorists driving dangerously, carelessly or aggressively, jumping lights, texting and speeding.

My clever system for avoiding all this carnage may occasionally involve some of my own rule breaking...

"Oi! You lot on the push bikes. Do your bit and stop getting run over. Perhaps you should just leave the bike at home. That way cycling fatalities will drop dramatically. Thanks awfully."

What a prat.