Cyclists experience a "scary" near miss once a week according to study

Just read the section in the actual report that covers the relationship between speed of cycling and incidents - this does contain the comment about red light jumping - I thought that maybe the Guardian journalist added it! The section, I believe, misses an important issue which most who post on here are familiar with - that of road positioning, faster cyclists are generally more confident and position themselves out from the gutter where they will be seen early and driver tendency to try to squeeze past is reduced ( to some extent), cyclists who take a "commanding" position on the road and ride "big" are more visible at junctions and less likely to be hidden by parked vehicles and as said above in city traffic especially with multiple lanes I'll choose to ride faster to merge easier and give message that I am part of the traffic. Think the researchers need to kill the red light press bait line by revisiting the guinea pigs and finding out what they consider to be an appropriate position to be riding in on the road and if they always move in between parked cars.
Still good to see the barriers to cycling being addressed - have a specific hatred of road safety only looking at ksi data and not what stops people choosing to walk or cycle
edit
for those interested here is a similar but possibly more rigorous piece of work from here in Australia this has a relatively low "near miss" count but does report a lot of evasive action. From memory the riders were already regular cycle commuters
http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/reports/muarc322.pdf

Interesting Article, All commuter riders should check out the DING bike light currently being launched on Kickstarter it has two independent beams in the one light so you can be seen from all angles. My wife was nearly hit last week, coming home from late from work, not good. I showed her the DING Light and she immediately said yes I need one.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dingbikelight/ding-bike-lights

Ready just in time for next winter season

Once a week? Been commuting into Manchester for ten years and not had a single one yet. Guess it depends on your definition of 'scary' and/or 'near miss'...

Only once a week? Can I come and ride there? It sounds lovely. I'm passed too close about once a ride.

I'd like to see the evidence about this myth that's being perpetuated that "faster" cyclists jump red lights....
Like some of the above comments, where I cycle, it tends to be the roadies that always stop at the lights, and the pootling old women in town sauntering through

How objective is the definition of 'near miss'?

It may be that the faster cyclists are more experienced and confident, and have lower standards for what they expect of motorists (cos they've been out there experiencing motorist behaviour for a long time) - hence they discount and don't even notice things that a less experienced cyclist would perceive (quite possibly entirely correctly) as a scary near-miss.

Oh, and probably there's a correlation between being a faster cyclist and 'assuming primary'. Riding in the gutter probably invites near-misses (though taking the lane of course invites abuse from angry entitled drivers).

"For the first time in the UK the project, led by Dr Rachel Aldred, shows the rate of near misses experienced by people cycling and shows those travelling below 8mph experience three times as many near misses than those travelling over 12mph"

This doesn't surprise me in general, but could we get some clarification on precisely what it means? Is this measured with respect to time or distance travelled?

All other things being equal, if someone is travelling 3 times faster than someone else over a given distance, it would 1/3 as much time and you would expect 1/3 as much stuff to happen.

Which is a massive oversimplification in any case, but the fact that faster people aren't on the road as long (for a given distance) may have some relevance.

What I think is more relevant is the speed differential. I generally ride a lot faster around town than I would like, simply to try and 'fit in' with the established 'correct' speed dictated by the current motor-centric hierarchy of the roads. I try and be 'part of the traffic', on the basis that a car can't overtake something that is going at the same speed. I deliberately ride at that speed to give me some autonomy on the roads that I don't feel if I'm going at my own, comfortable pace. I'm too scared to ride slowly.

In short, if a rider can perfectly 'slot into' an existing chain, then they will carried along with it until their destination, and not be subjected to a single overtake, let alone a bad one. Conversely, the slower the rider, the greater the speed differential, and the overtakes - good and bad - they will be subjected to.

I think the red-light jumping conjecture is unnecessary and probably inaccurate.

yeah I dont agree faster cyclists have less closer passes because they jump red lights, because generally they dont, its always the slow ones on BSOs I see jumping lights, I think faster cyclists are probably going to have more experience on the road and are probably more inured to the road conditions that face them

Ive certainly grown accustomed to close passes that would have been well within the distance limit the study used and would feel now they are hardly worth mentioning,whereas rewing to when I was a total newbie I found those far harder to cope with. thesedays its only really the ones where I feel I have to make an avoidance move to avoid contact Id mention.

so it becomes a really subjective measure, which is fine because the study was about what influenced peoples behaviours towards cycling, but its not going to be easy to turn the data into a "and this is how we fix this", the debate in the Guardian comments section quickly descended into fixing all kinds of non issues usual bingo list of insurance, registration,licensing riding two up, etc etc, not one suggestion actually said well we can fix close passing simply by just giving cyclists more room when we overtake.

Whenever i have the misfortune to cycle down Wilmslow Road in Manchester it is very much 'safer' to ride faster. If you can match or be faster than the buses that go up down there you are less likely to be experience close passes as your interaction with them is lessened.
As a passneger on the same buses i observe slower, less confident cyclist riding the same route and they are passed by the same bus several times. If im lucky i will never be passed by a bus because im matching their speed or ahead of them and able to stay on their outside.
As for a dangerous close pass every week? I'd say you will have one once a day in manchester.

I find it interesting that they think faster cyclists are more likely to jump red lights. My experience, outside of London is that it's the people on the old rusty mountain bike or on a boardman C2W bike that sail through red lights at between 8-10 mph. Its the people on road bikes at are waiting at the lights. I'd always put this down to, people who might consider themselves a "cyclist" are aware of the red light jumping perception, where as the general person on a bike isn't.

I had an interesting chat with a guy at work a couple of months ago who had just got a bike on the cycle to work scheme. We had left the office at the same time the day before. I saw him use the pavement on a couple of occations and jump two red lights. I asked him about it and he didn't think it was a problem as he was on a bike. In reality he's just a motorist who happens to be on a bike.

I ride into Manchester, I'd agree with the sentiment about once a week generally...

I find that thinking like a driver helps considerably, it is amazing how many cyclists pootle along near the kerb, they have no where to go in the event a car gets close... Feels like they are mentally in a cycling bubble, that the dashed white line of the cycle lane will protect them rather than taking control, riding in the primary position and owning their bit of the road for their own protection.

No excuse the regular abuse from drivers who'd get to the next set of ride lights a fraction of second quicker if we 'got out of their way'...

Somewhat disappointed that it's assumed faster cyclists are jumping red lights. I took part in this survey, and as a 'faster' cyclist (18-20mph in urban areas) I don't jump lights, and have been abused by drivers a number of times because I won't enter a junction on yellow.

Sadly, I worry that the assumption voiced here, that fast = law breaking, will come back to bite us.

I find if I ride up-tempo to ambient traffic speed, say 18-20 mph then I have less "stress". I ride in London; down the Kingsland Road towards London Bridge. The only time it gets stressful is in and around Liverpool Street.

Confidence and alertness are key - but that's just me. There are many ways to ride a bike (and drive my car), but you shouldn't be made to feel scared or be intimidated.

It's worrying if people have scary moments so often.

From experience it would be once a day. But I ride in London. Can't say anything about other places.

No surprises there but good to have some hard evidence. About time someone in power started speaking out about this - they do us all a disservice with their silence.