2010-04-14 - Rider Down/Fatality, Oxford Street

I agree about perception. I was chatting to a copper at Southwark Street accident this morning, he was telling me he used to cycle but it was too dangerous. I told him its sad that he felt that.

It is one of the most bizarre factors about cycling that in this country that the first thing people will say to you that it's 'dangerous'. It isn't. There are billions of interactions between people in London traffic every day and the number of crashes or critical interactions is very low indeed. This makes the loss of life as in this case all the more tragic and makes it all the more urgent to prevent it. And this is also possible, as other countries show, but for this to work we need more cycling, not less, and of course a more supportive political environment which makes cycling as normal as it is in many other places. It is just not good enough right now.

He said, yeah but my route takes me through Elephant. Again, people are too inflexible about their routes. Take a longer route! And enjoy your ride more.

And recommend that he do cycle training. It is designed precisely to address such perceptions--helps people understand traffic better, works directly with their abilities, etc. He may not be able to ride through the E&C after one lesson, but he might competently use the E&C bypass and other parts of his route that he used to consider risky.