DfT's new Think Cyclist campaign fails to get cycling organisations on board

All sensible advice aside from the inevitable 'If I hit you it's your fault for not wearing a helmet' one.

This is good advice for life - we should ALL wear helmets, ALL the time, just in case we might get hit by someone in a pub, or something land on our head from above... but if it's just cyclists, then it rather looks as if it's their fault.
So - a campaign to get people to wear a helmet all the time?
Yes. Sounds sensible - after all, it might make you look a bit silly but it would be dangerous to NOT wear it on that one in a million chance - and who'd want THAT on their conscience?

surprised that the Government is running a 'campaign' on this. Coalition mantra is that Gov should not do such things because they do not work - all have to be approved centrally by the Cabinet office and usually the answer is 'No'.

I wonder if the "nudge unit" were consulted or this is more of the DfTs famously poor quality research? Ideally should look at better ways to influence Motorist behaviour - the French road signs highlighted above are one such route and its cheap! If this was coupled with enforcement of existing laws, would work like smoking campaign

I'm sure a better line would be to ask how much room a driver would allow for his/her daughter/son/wife/husband/whatever, if passing them on their bike. i.e. Make it personal and tangible. Half a car width is pretty meaningless, especially when most drivers are clueless about the width of their vehicles and/or the distance needed to stop.

The continuing growth in the use of phones while driving is pretty indicative of the priorities of many drivers, and it would appear that full attention to the task of driving is not one of them.

I still want to see the current cycling royalty fronting a high-profile campaign to raise the awareness of cycle safety, especially the need to allow sufficient room. Joe Public will perhaps listen to Wiggo, Cav, His Hoyness or Queen Victoria, whereas I'm pretty sure that a dull DfT message will be largely ignored. It needs to be done soon, though, before the memory begins to fade and the sideburns are removed.

@chrisboredman

Jederich is right the Highway Code advice on safe passing distance could definitely do with clarification. "Half a car width" is at least specific - trouble is it isn't very much. A Peugeot 405 is 1.7m wide - half of one is 850cm, in old money a tad over two and a half foot, or to use another analogy about the size of an average flat screen TV.

I know I don't feel very safe when cars, vans and lorries give me a TVs width of passing space as they hurtle pass above the speed limit on the two A-roads I commute. Usually about one a day gets that close - when it's a bus (which it often is) the backwash of air can knock me off-line.

It doesn't have a moon-walking bear in it.

For that reason, I'm out.

Bear in mind that the budget for this campaign is the same as the subsidy for 16 electric cars and you will see how little time, effort and money is being put into this.

The comment about wearing light or reflective clothing during the day - what about grey or black cars then?

This could have been so much better, had they got the cycling organisations on board properly and put some decent money up. the only people happy with this are the driving organisations, which speaks volumes.

I just think that it is a cynical minimal box-ticking exercise, which could lead to more victim blame when accidents happen.

Or maybe I've been watching too much "The Thick Of It"!

Hi, first post :0

Speaking unscientifically, the thing that would make the most difference to me as a cyclist on the road would be drivers paying 100% attention to what they're doing. For me that is more important than speed as a factor of danger. I'd say that here near Folkestone, around 80% of drivers give me enough space when overtaking and the other 20% are a sliding scale of closer and scarier, regardless of their speed. Some of my closest calls have been with vehicles around the 25mph mark, their drivers not really minding the road totally.

As we acknowledge, hi-vis and helmets are personal choice and I choose both whenever I go out. I've had some scary near misses as a driver with riders in black with no lights in the dark. Just trying to give myself every chance out there.

I suppose we can hope that Steve Hammond will be an improvement on Mike Penning. Certainly he can't be any worse - thinking cyclists are safer here than in the Netherlands, I ask you!

Also the new transport secretary seems to have said some sensible things about speed - he emphasises that it is the principal cause of road deaths these days and he is clearly sceptical about increasing motorway speed limits.

I agree with other commenters that the HIghway Code's "as much as you woudl give a car" doesn't actually mean, textually, a car's width, but I think you have to read the photo alongside the words in the Code and the photo is pretty explicit. In any case, there are recommendations for the minimum space needed between a cyclist and overtaking vehicles (in cycle lane design guidamce from the DfT) which I think talk of 1.2m for a car passing at 20mph, and about 2.5m for a bus passing at 30. In general, bigger or faster vehicles require a wider margin in the design standards.

Does anyone know how much Forsters were paid for the campaign, bet it was more than the £80k spent on advertising, what a waste of money.

I guess half a car's width is ok if said vehicle is travelling at 20mph or less. At 30 or 40? Sorry, that's just not enough. How about a lorry or bus driver? Should they only allow half a car's width with their wide vehicles?

What about the 'wear reflective clothing during the day' advice. Should I go an buy a top with sequins or mirrors on? I guess they mean hi-viz (gah!) but don't know the terminology. Pretty poor from a Govt Dept imo and obviously not written by anyone who really knows anything about cycling. Plus ca change.

And no, I shall not mention the H word.

While cycling in the French Alps, I came across this clear and sensible road sign:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72952135@N07/8006093518/in/photostream

Something else we could learn from the French.

agree with above think the highway code passing guidance is hard to understand "at least 1/2 a cars width" seems simple - mind you £80k isn't going to really impact that many people anyway

didn't really understand this: Use your indicators - signal your intentions so that cyclists can react

first bit yes - but so can react? - react defensively as in not filter or as in give way?? - reads like a get out for the "well i indicated left" and the cyclist was going faster than i thought" driver

Going in the right direction. The advice is pretty sensible over all. Could argue till the cows come home over helmet, but it's a detail over trying to make sure fewer people gets knocked off in the first place.

I read the highway code in the same way as Jaderich and Zoxed. Half a car space would do nicely for me.

A previous study (sorry, can't recall who or provide a link) said that traffic-calming could include narrowing of roads, which turns cyclists into 'rolling speed humps', and pinch-points to reduce speed. I suppose they do reduce vehicle speed, but they also make conditions worse for cyclists.

Interestingly, I was just tidying my hard drive and came upon the DfT's Infrastructure and Cyclist Safety document, published in November 2011 (53kb). The very first point in the Main Findings section on page one is:

"Of all interventions to increase cycle safety, the greatest benefits come from reducing motor vehicle speeds. Interventions that achieve this are also likely to result in casualty reductions for all classes of road user. This may be achieved by a variety of methods, including physical traffic calming; urban design that changes the appearance and pedestrian use of a street; and, possibly, the wider use of 20 mph speed limits."

So while not looking properly, SMIDSY etc are all good things to point out, I think lots of people know in the hearts that the way to reduce casualties is to reduce vehicle speed. That won't go down well with the road lobby and pricks in BMWs, so a nice (and brief) tokenistic pink-and-fluffy, smiley-facey campaign would be much more agreeable.

But asking people to "be nice" while driving just doesn't work. If Hammond and his department really want to take cyclist safety seriously, as they claim, then they need to focus more on what's causing the casualties in the first place. And for the benefit of Daily Mail types, no, that's not a clampdown on cyclists RLJing or riding on the pavement.

It's a start, but "quotes from organisations such as the RAC, the AA and the IAM" just screams CAR MENTALITY!

Still, moving in the right direction.

"The campaign encourages drivers to give cyclists “at least half a car’s width” of space – but that’s half the distance set out in the Highway Code, Rule 163 of which tells motorists to "give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car."

We as cyclists are guilty of misinterpreting the highway code I think. We see that picture of the car overtaking the cyclist and the gap in between and think "aha - a vehicle's width between me and the car". But if it was two cars in the picture (instead of a car and a bike) there wouldn't be another car's width between the two.

I don't disagree that the ideal scenario is for a car to overtake a bike by crossing right over to the other side of the road, indeed I would encourage it, but technically "as much room as you would when overtaking a car" isn't that much.

You could argue that the DfT is being generous in this new advice.

Perhaps the Highway Code should be revised to be more specific.

Er, £80k for a 'Think Cyclist' campaign.

In March 2012 a £1.2million 'Think Bike' campaign for motorcyclists was launched; this followed a similar one in 2010.

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2012/Mar...

These included TV adverts, back of bus signs, all sorts.

Let's have some parity here.

The modal share of motorcycles, as a percentage of traffic on the road, was 1% in 2002.

In 2011 the modal share for bicycles was 2%.

Come on.