Ghost Bikes

(Demonstrating proper use of multi-quoting. ;) )

i'd rather cyclists campaigned in a more positive manner

This is exactly what needs doing--remember that if you only ever tell people the negatives about something that you do, they are going to be unlikely to take it up.

Firstly, given the current levels of ghost bikes, I think that ghost bikes would cause cyclists to avoid specific junctions rather than entirely discourage them. This is a good thing.

Actually, ghost bikes will have more of an effect on passers-by on foot than on cyclists.

It is certainly possible to discourage individual cyclists from using specific junctions for a while, although the utility of the route that they had initially chosen is not going to go away and they will return.

However, causing cyclists to avoid certain junctions is most definitely not a good thing, as there is nothing inherently unsafe about most junctions.

What is most definitely a good thing is to encourage a cyclist who negotiates a junction that requires a certain level of skill beyond theirs, to acquire this skill level first.

If the upshot of not having minicabs trying to kill me every time I get on a bike is that there are a few less noddys in flourescent vests, I'll quite happily accept that.

Unwise. It is that safety in numbers that the 'noddies' (why do you have to discriminate?) provide to you, too.

we* need* more cyclists. that's how the critical mass theory works - you can see it working in cities like copenhagen and amsterdam.

+1. And you can see it working in London's famous London, too. A near doubling of cycling has caused the rate of collisions to fall considerably.

But did Copenhagen and/or Amsterdam ever have the same attitudes towards car use as London?

They are of course very different cases with very different demographics. Compared to London, they're both tiny, and average trip length is incredibly short compared to London. The key factor for both is that people consider cycling an empowered majority activity, and not something that only a few strange weirdos do. Modal share of cycling in even A and C dropped post-war like in all cities, but not as far as in London, and it was higher there than here in the first place.

I can't see that critical mass is going to work unless the jump can be sudden. At the moment, we are so far off the point in which road use tips towards cyclists that more cyclists will just equal more fatalities.

The exact opposite is the case. Slow, steady growth is the answer, as it is sustainable (*). It has been happening in London continuously for more than ten years now. The rate of collisions keeps falling, and cycling keeps getting safer. In London, it's a bit of a perception problem, as there are already huge levels of cycling in the centre that would be much more visible in a smaller city. Overall, the modal share is still under or around 2%, but that includes Outer London.

(* Congestion charging was a good policy that did a lot for cycling and that caused the biggest exceptional increase, but it's not massively significant compared to what's happened since. Unless another exceptional policy comes along it's the boring stuff that works. Perhaps the bike hire scheme will work as well in London as in Paris, we'll see by 2010.)