2009-04-08 - Rider Down/Fatality, Elephant & Castle

its to wide with far to many filters around that round about. sadly the only way i attack it is fast as i can. few others do that and there is no surprise you have these accidents.

can't believe the other cars sounded the horns!!

Roundabouts, even of the scale and rubbish layout of the northern E&C roundabout, are not a problem if you're Stage 3 cycle trained, as the techniques to master one are really quite simple and don't require particularly fast speed. But that's in a situation where the funding for cycle training is so low that it simply can't keep up with a rapidly-growing cyclist population.

No blame intended at all for any cyclists riding through the E&C who are not cycle trained, BTW. It's a natural assumption we make that we can make mistakes in a social environment like traffic and not be too severely punished, but the current state of things is not right and shows up fundamental problems in which people interact with one another, and not just in traffic, where they often just import general bad attitudes or sociophobia and mix it with additional stress.

And I'd rather get rid of the roundabouts for millions of other reasons that have nothing to do with cyclist safety, than train everybody, as they are just bomb craters in the urban grain that must be radically altered to form part of the cityscape again.