Railings removed

by taking a strong line on the road as per the cycle training i had recently you should not be in the position to be crushed

this was one of the most important lessons i was given when doing the cycle training, your position at a left turn should beat least 1/2 a cars width from the kerb, this will make it nearly impossible for a car to try to overtake you on the corner, so they are very unlikely to crush you against the railings

since doing the cycle training i am a lot more reluctant to filter if I cannot see that it will lead me to a safe, assertive position on the road.

so yes the railings can make accidents worse, but we need to be safety conscious about where we are putting ourselves on the road

From the article:

There's very clear evidence based reasons to believe that vehicles will indeed mount the pavement.

If vehicles mount the pavement when railings aren't there, then we should be thinking... what's the escape route for a cyclist? My point about the curb is the turning left will just lay you down on the pavement, in the way of the vehicle (as it mounts the curb).