The Guardian's bike blog

spindrift: Did they write an apology for the bullshit article?

^^ Wow, that's a lovely film. Love the simplicity of those times. Just goes to show how much the sport-side of the Olympics has been lost over the years.

spindrift: Did they write an apology for the bullshit article?

Not yet, I don't think.

Mr Geffen has more

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.aspx?TabID=0&ItemID=739&mid=13641

Letter to the Guardian by Roger Geffen 29/12/2011

The article “Cyclist deaths rise during recessions, figures suggest” (Guardian, 28 December) is not only unbelievably gloomy; it is also quite literally ‘unbelievable’, as it contains some seriously insensitive errors of fact.

It also overstates the ‘bad news’ of increasing numbers of cyclist fatalities, by ignoring the fact that cycle use is also rising. Obviously every death is one death too many, so it may seem surprising that CTC, the national cyclists’ organisation, sees a silver lining in these figures. However, cycling would still be getting safer even though cyclist casualties are increasing slightly, if cycle use is increasing sharply, as is happening in London and several other UK cities.

Moreover, the health benefits of cycling are far greater than the risks involved – so if cycle use increases, the number of early deaths prevented per year (e.g. due to heart disease) will far outweigh any increase in cyclist fatalities. You are less likely to die in a mile of cycling than a mile of walking, and anyone who takes up cycling in mid-adulthood can expect to gain a level of fitness equivalent to being 10 years younger, and a very substantial statistical increase of 2 years in their overall life expectancy.

Finally, cyclists are far less likely than motor vehicles to cause serious injury to anyone else – hence a shift from car use to cycle use reduces the risks faced by everyone else who is using the road.

None of this is of any comfort to the bereaved families of cyclists who have been killed on Britain’s roads. The false implication of the paragraph in your article, suggesting that cyclists are mostly at fault for their own fatalities, is incorrect and grossly insulting, and I hope you will correct it separately.

There is also one seriously incorrect paragraph in your article, which appears to show that cyclists are to blame for most of the fatalities they suffer:

"DfT statistics reveal that the biggest single contributory factor in cycle deaths is the cyclist failing to look properly (25% of fatalities), followed by failing to judge the other person's path or speed (10%), the cyclist entering the road from the pavement (8%), and careless or reckless behaviour (8%)."

Actually the figures come from a Government statistical table (click on tab “RAS 50005”) which shows the police’s initial assessment of “contributory factors” to cyclists’ injuries, not fatalities – and the causes of fatalities are very different from the causes of minor injuries. Moreover, the police can record several “contributory factors” to any given injury, and may attribute contributory factors to more than one party in any given collision. The table quoted is only a list of the contributory factors attributed to cyclists in a collision – it says nothing about the factors attributed to the drivers involved in those collisions. Hence it is completely incorrect to say that "failing to look properly" is the "biggest single contributory factor" in cyclist collisions – it is merely the factor most commonly ascribed to the cyclist.

In fact the biggest category in the table quoted it is the 48% of collisions where no contributory factor was ascribed to the cyclist. That is higher than for any vehicle type apart from buses and coaches. Moreover, this figure varies greatly depending on the age of the cyclist – the proportion of collision where no blame is attributed to the cyclist is well over 60% if they are aged 25 or over. Conversely, the police are far more likely to allocate blame to the cyclist if they are a child (which seems harsh), or has been killed (which seems harsher still, given that they are not there to tell their side of the story). And incidentally, the contributory factor of “cyclist entering road from pavement” is far more common if the injured cyclist is a child rather than an adult.

However, the point still stands that cyclists are far more at risk on Britain’s roads than in many of our continental neighbours. The Government, local authorities and police forces should be giving a far higher priority to creating safer conditions – not just for cycling but for walking too. That means reducing traffic speeds (particularly at junctions), reducing the threat posed by large lorries (especially on urban streets), designing major roads and junctions to be cycle-friendly, and tackling lawless behaviour on the roads, whoever is at fault. CTC is strongly in favour of increased traffic policing, not least because cyclists are far more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators of illegal and irresponsible road use. We also support the provision of quality cycle training for people of all ages, to ensure they have the confidence and skills to use the roads safely and within the law.

These are solutions which will encourage more, as well as safer, cycling. And that in turn will help maximise cycling’s wider health and environmental benefits, as well as providing substantial cost-savings both to individual road users and to the public purse.

Roger Geffen
CTC Campaigns and Policy Director

^ a most excellent letter

+1 etc.

A news report about government statistics on accidents involving cyclists was wrong in saying that Department for Transport figures "reveal that the biggest single contributory factor in cycle deaths is the cyclist failing to look properly (25% of fatalities), followed by failing to judge the other person's path or speed (10%), the cyclist entering the road from the pavement (8%)", and so forth.

The department's document, Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain: 2010, does not attempt a table ranking factors in cases where cyclists have died. Our article misunderstood the report's Table RAS50005, which actually lists contributory factors – by any vehicle, cycle included – in any accident involving a bicycle, not rider fatalities (Hard times bring rise in cyclist deaths, government research suggests, 28 December, page 4).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/jan/03/corrections-and-clarifications

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/14260525

I am a cyclist.

[QUOTE]Some days I still don the full gimp outfit and ride to work on the lightweight machine, showering when I get in.

Unfortunately, garish-coloured lycra isn't even useful as gimp costume. I find cycling lycra to be both sexually and platonically, repulsively ugly on both men and women, whether I see them in Britain, Europe, or North America.

It is amazing that cycling has been dominated by people who have well-paid jobs who blow all the income from their high-earning years on over-priced bicycles and ugly, ugly clothing, and are then actually convinced that they are kings of the road.

I thought that was bad enough, but then I discovered that on the continent, lycra-cyclists not only are more common than dust, but they buy motor-homes and DRIVE Kilometers and Kilometers to cycling race-meets with their delicate, fragile little racing bikes. What precisely is sustainable about this hobby of lycra cycle racing, would someone tell me, if this is required practice?

I suppose people who are born with more than their fair share of good health and fitness are not necessarily also born with their fair share of intelligence or economic fairness. The sheep-like behaviour of the average racing cyclist is almost as tragic as that of every other leisure sport category - footballers, marathon runners, golfers, and even car-racing.

Leisure sport is a travesty of the modern human condition. Too impotent to engage in physical work, the modern human being delegates all manual labour to machines and illiterate immigrants, while squandering their energy on leisure sports. It does make the very activity of leisure sport only mildly more superior to depressive obesity, and certainly not deserving of very much admiration. I won't be bothering with watching the Olympics, obviously, and I also shall not bother to read your response if you are pissed off by my opinion. I have held this opinion since before lycra cyclng became ubiquitous, and I have held this opinion since I have become a 7-days a week, 365 days a year, non-car-owning, cyclist whom never takes a taxi even to the airport... as I have been for the past 8 continuous years.

[/QUOTE]

Ha!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jan/27/hgv-cyclists-safety-bike-blog?intcmp=122

Photo of the HGV parked outside my college on wednesday as part of the thing that you could climb in the cab and got a little one-to-one talk with a policeman including a demo of another policeman on a bike coming along the inside of the lorry and stopping at the relevant visible and blind spots. It was pretty scary, the cab is so high and the visibility is absolutely dire, and even though there are mirrors to address that there's so many that there's no way even the most vigilant driver could be checking them constantly enough to catch every single movement in each, especially while driving. Scary. I stay the fuck away from HGVs as it is and only pass them if they are stationary and I can see that the light is still red and if I have to stop in front of them I go way ahead and make eye contact...but even so I'm going to be even more careful now.

DSC_4241 by wiganwill, on Flickr

For anyone who enjoys The Guardian's cycling feed in the summer, they're taking suggestions on what to improve:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jan/31/hack-day-guardian-cycling-coverage

...for the hack day that was... today.

Just saw they've signed Wiggo up as a columnist. First entry not that exciting, but has potential.
Linky: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/bradleywiggins

...which has the homepage too today.

Go Wiggaz.

For a second I thought you meant they'd signed up Wiganwill, which would have been inspired.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/bike-blog/2012/feb/20/cycling-unsafe-uk-urban-areas-poll

not sure whether this is a reaction to the times campaign, but another article/blogpost which uses a poll from Sustrans to say cycling in urban areas is unsafe in the eyes of those polled.

blog post actually made me want to pull out my non existent hair...

Bit of a dredge here but thought this was pretty interesting about how in some of the charity sportives only a small fraction of the money raised actually goes to the charity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jun/20/charity-bike-ride

Yeah well done.interested in the take over of cycle sport by event promotors that don't really provide much.
Also the way that insurers of charity-run events are forcing charities hands to insist on helmet use.very worrying in light of fact that insurers are such slippery operators.

^ I might chat to you more about this J, once something ongoing at work is finished.

Sure.its getting.silly, really is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jul/10/olympics-regulations-cyclists

I am hoping to still be able to cycle in to work every day. But I'm finding it difficult to find consistent information about how my route is going to be affected. Guardian sums up my frustrations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/audioslideshow/2012/jul/18/cycling-fashion-paul-smith

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jul/24/cyclists-threat-parked-cars

Skydancer quoted

"Unfortunately I later developed an ugly scar on my shoulder which had taken the impact of my fall. I tried having the scar removed and even had radiotherapy but the scar is back bigger than ever."

get a fucking life

not so sure, they incurred an injury due to someone else' stupidity and inattention. and are left with a scar as a result.

left with a scar.

I have endless scars. I tend to worry about the broken ligaments, lost cartilage, strained muscles etc a bit more

James I dont really give a toss im just pissed and bored. fancy a ride? now?

Oi bum chums, get a room