Risk assessment of assertive cycling

Use as much of the road you need for safe and comfortable trip. Sacrifice the comfortable part momentarily if someone seems to be stuck behind you forever. Say 'please' and 'thank you' without words. When you co-operate, streets are filled with luv and sharing and caring. Yes, there are idiots who don't get it, they think that you should use less of the roadway than you need. Ignore those twats and concentrate on the positive!

Festus you make some excellent points about behaviour in bus lanes. Bus drivers are being trained in cyclist awareness classes accross london now (they call it cyclist tolerance classes:-). Some of these classes are delivered by CTUK and some by bus driver instructors who have been accredited as cycling instructors.

The key messages to the drivers from this training are:
Expect cyclists to ride centrally in the bus lane.
Avoid overtaking them unless drivers can move into the next lane.
Drivers should hang back and not overtake in most cases.
Expect some cyclists not to ride centrally and behave the same way towards them.

They are also given the opportunity to give advice to cyclists.
Their advice to cyclists includes:
Let a driver signalling pull out so don't race to overtake if a driver is indicating right.
Avoid passing on the nearside (left) at lights wait behind or pass on the right to get to the advanced stop box.
Pass a bus wide when overtaking where the rider is more likely to be visible to the drivers
Avoid swearing abuse at drivers who try to edge out of bus stops. (I was shocked at how much abuse they claim they get from cyclists)
Avoid pulling in front of a bus causing the driver to brake suddenly. Their braking is monitored centrally as are the drivers with around 8 cameras on a bus, one is in the drivers cab

The drivers I have worked with have been really keen to work to improve thier relationship with cyclists and they relished the opportunity to express their views to a cyclist (There will be a write up of this project in the next issue of London Cyclist magazine)

Many drivers also cycle to the depots

And Chainwhip, Love your advice from scandinavia. Are your roads filled with luv caring and sharing? (Did you notice i said please and thank you to you without words?)

One risk element is rarely discussed or even analysed in detail as far as i know. That is the risk of being 'punished' by drivers for riding in this manner. Unfortunately too many people I know have recently experienced drivers swerving into them or recieved serious abuse for 'taking the lane' (including myself who was assaulted by a car passenger for this on petherton road N1). There are numerous posts about such incidents on the forum (the 101 W***kers and c*nt of the day threads for example).

Yes, but your incident was completely untypical. It wasn't just a moment's impatience but full-bodied assault, and all you were doing at the time was waiting at a junction. I really would place this in a separate category.

I did have a trainee who got beeped at while we were riding; we were practicing taking the lane at road narrowings and a taxi driver didn't like it. She was surprised when I told her I was glad it had happened: because it showed her that being beeped at doesn't hurt and looking back at the part of road where it had happened she could see that, had she been by the curb, the impatient driver would have squeezed by her in a much more frightening way. So taking the lane worked for her and being beeped, while unpleasant and annoying, is harmless.
It also helped that it was a situation where the driver clearly had nothing to gain so the trainee could see that the fault was all his, he was the one being a jerk and from that she could, in a paradoxical way, take confidence.
I've also had a couple of trainees assume that a driver using his horn was beeping at them when they weren't; which is also useful too as you can talk to them about the assumptions they are making about drivers' attitudes.

Absolutely. When you get honked at, you've got a reaction. You've been seen. That's not a bad thing. Smile and carry on.

One of the keys about the primary position is, of course, that you don't always have to be in the primary position. The point has been made above but I thought I'd pull it out into a shorter post.

^ Poachers ... gamekeepers, I know. :)

You are right oliver It was extreme yet something must've provoked this attack. It is impossible to truly understand why the bloke did what he did and i have been puzzled about that since the incident.

Top 3 motives IMO are

1. road rage at me taking the lane along petherton road and waiting behind me before joining the roundabout
   
2. he didn't like my long hair
   
3. racially motivated -I look a bit mediterranian as was very tanned in the summer
   
   

Who knows?
I have heard stories from many people recently about incidents related to their assertive riding position (not only Dancing James:-) hence this thread.

One of the keys about the primary position is, of course, that you don't always have to be in the primary position. The point has been made above but I thought I'd pull it out into a shorter post.

Well pulled. I think this can get lost sometimes.

I regularly ride down a 3 lane radial into Manchester, and spend very little time in Primary. What I do is spend alot of time looking over my shoulder, so I know what each vehicle is doing as it approaches to pass me & can tell if they've acknowledged my presence.

This approach (right or wrong) may well be based on my development as a trainer in Cov, not in London or elsewhere, where it's easier to ride in this manner.

Yes, it basically depends on your risk assessment. If the speed differential is very big, the usual techniques like looking behind and negotiating just don't work as well. Better to be predictable in those circumstances, and to increase visibility if you get to a junction, or pass roadworks in the rain, etc.

Interesting discussion...

I got pulled over by two city cops while taking the lane on tabernacle st a couple of weeks ago. From the subsequent discussion it became apparent the driver felt I was "in his way" and had "given him a dirty look". As far as I was concerned I was riding in a safe, assertive position and making eye contact to make sure the aggressive, in terms of his proximity to my rear wheel, driver behind had seen me. My explanation of this seemed to fall on deaf ears, and I'm certain he got back into his vehicle having manipulated the discussion to reinforce his prejudicial views of cyclists.

Raising driver awareness and altering this type of behaviour is a massive task, and as much as we can do as cycle instructors to prepare individuals for these situations it really needs a strategic public campaign to initiate what would a be a massive cultural shift. From what I remember, and do correct me if I'm wrong, my driving test, combined with society's attitude to driving as a right rather then a privilege, taught me to be a rule following (or not if I could get away with it) automaton, rather than an active, considerate member of a community of road users.

its pretty quiet around here but ive lost count of how many times ive been pulled out on, nearly killed, clipped etc and thats just on pushrods
the only way to ever make people aware would be make everyone ride a pushbike to some sort of test level in school, then at 16/17 make them do a full bike license, after passing the cycle course, then at 19/20 they could do the car test.
i ride/drive all 3 and im a hell of alot better and more aware on the road than any of my mates

^ agree re bike skills being pre-req to driving. It'd take upto 70yrs to filter through to all road users tho, unless all existing drivers were made to go back and do. This'd cause uproar and an admin nightmare.

Just posting this up here having not read all the other posts: this is my reply to David's original message, as sent to other CTUK instructors on Monday night.

Look forward to catching up on the rest of this thread and perhaps adding some more comments later this week.

I do not discuss the specific possibility of drivers physically threatening a cyclist as a 'punishment' for riding assertively with trainees at present, though I have noted it happening more often to me in its 'light' variety - people deliberately passing close or swerving near me - of late.

What I do discuss with trainees is honking or verbal abuse: i tell trainees not to be discouraged by drivers' perceptions of their assertive riding and to consider what makes them safe first and foremost, making their own judgements as any other road user should.

I do think it is a difficult subject to broach and although I obviously have no figures to back up this perspective I would judge that the chances of it happening are low and that the risk mitigation benefits of assertive riding thus outweigh it significantly overall.

I might discuss with a trainee how to mitigate the possibility of such a situation developing in the first place by always being a polite and not provocative/aggressive road user - in the way someone might suggest someone driving mitigate the possibility that a physical confrontation erupt from their interaction with another driver (so-called 'road rage' incidents) or someone drinking mitigate the possibilty of dragging their friends into a fight over a spilled pint. :)

As when young trainees mention 'the mad person' or 'the fleeing criminal' on the road as a reason not to ride assertively, I would definitely emphasise that such incidents are very much the exception rather than the rule, and thus should not be the examples which guide one's overall riding style

As with the criticism sometimes levelled by other road users at assertive riders, I would emphasise that a trainee's decision to minimise risk to themselves by riding assertively is not a provocative act in itself, and that they should not feel responsible for the unreasonable actions of others.

I would emphasise that a trainee's decision to minimise risk to themselves by riding assertively is not a provocative act in itself, and that they should not feel responsible for the unreasonable actions of others.

I wholeheartedly agree with this and its been mentioned above....just cos someone else is having a bad day/ is wholeheartedly selfish/ has an ego problem or doesn't undertand the theory behind assertive cyclist road positioning (and lets face it, very few people do, which is how come we are spending every waking hour posting on blogs about teaching it to them), it doesn't mean that people who chose to use a bike to get from place to place should acquiesce and place themselves in a position where they are at greater risk of becoming a KSI (Killed/ seriously injured statistic).

As a cycling instructor its part of our job to
a) give trainees lessons in real situations with realistic expectations of driver behaviour
whilst
b) not freaking them out (our aim is to promote cycling)
we can do this by
c) equipping them with the understanding and skills to deal with these types of situations.

This leads on to a further questions that Skydancer and I were discussing with TFL the other day....
"Which is the default cycling position that should be recommended to cyclist? Primary or Secondary?"
(we think there might be a clue in the name).
Is it possible to say there is a default position?
Many people who are new to cycling would be grateful of clear guidance I am sure, and a simple message needs to be communicated to both them and to drivers of other types of vehicle. The greater the numbers of other road/vehicle users that understand the reasoning behind assertive cyclist positioning (or at the very least are told that this is a "normal" position to expect to see a cyclist riding in) the less of this aggression/ retribution taking cyclists are going to have to put up with.

Any thoughts on this? (or is that a whole other thread?)

(This thread is fine scratchy)
your point

The greater the numbers of other road/vehicle users that understand the reasoning behind assertive cyclist positioning (or at the very least are told that this is a "normal" position to expect to see a cyclist riding in) the less of this aggression/ retribution taking cyclists are going to have to put up with.
is an extension of the "safety in numbers" concept and is about managing driver's expectations. In london cyclists are expected and accepted on the road, cyclists riding in the traffic stream are not common enough yet and will become more accepted and even understood as more riders do that.

So off to meet my trainee now to to coax/coach another rider into the traffic stream...

Mr Skydancer, "safety in numbers" is very dubious concept. One thing is its existence and other thing is its use as a safety strategy.

As for its existence, Dr Pasanen who works for the City of Helsinki, did a study of Finnish towns that have bike modal shares between 5%-20% and, gosh, no safety in numbers effect noticeable.

John Forester, MS, PE, Bicycle Transportation Engineer does somekind of a mathematical thing in a paper in his website to the famous Jacobsen safety in numbers paper. I've studied university level math and don't understand shit of the thing done there.(google it)

I remember an Unknown Internet Expert once writing somewhere that he was in correspondence with John Franklin once about safety in numbers, and Franklin explained that he supported the safety in numbers concept, because it was the least uncomfortable explanation of certain nations having lower accidents rates and the said nations having pushed cyclist off the roadway to facilities next to roadway...

As an accident reduction strategy it is borderline between unethical and a joke.

I know your cycling training program is about increasing cycling by making people feeling good and confident and you don't want to put people off by talking about negative things like accidents, but your training program has a very close resemblance to an accident reduction program. An accident reduction program is a safety-in-safety program. I don't know how safety-in-numbers fits into that picture. Also considering increasing cycling, which will be more effective: telling that you can avoid the most accidents by following simple guidelines OR telling that cycling will be safe for you only when all the other people have started to do it first?

I know that many of you wish for the numbers of cyclists to increase and you are have nicety-nice programs of hot towels and free cheese-cake for cyclists, that will surely turn the "near market" aka "the excuses folks" into avid cycle users. Yeah right. And I bet some of you hippies write letters to your government, that the "government should increase the number of cyclists". Face it, advocates and governments do not control the number of cyclist. Baseline numbers is dictated by availability of other modes, topography, economics, history, weather, the share of short distances in urban area, etc. On top of the baseline is the fashion and trend effect. When cycling becomes trendy, cycle advocacy and cycle politics become trendy. The trend produces the modal share increase and the politics. The politicians of course want to take credit for creating the good things, same thing as with employment rates and economical trends. The point of this rant was, that even if safety in numbers was a valid safety strategy, it is very questionable that the actors in the field have the powers to change the modal share so much that it will having any noticeable effect. (But don't get cynical like me. Keep on pushing! I'd love to see you succeed.)

One thing you might have hard to understand on your little sunny island is the depth of the darkness in the parts of Europe surrounding you. The safety in numbers concept originates from the heart of darkness: Sweden. Sweden like other Nordic countries got it fundamentally wrong in the sixties and began to think of cyclists as a form of pedestrians. After that followed four decades of wonderment why cyclists refuse to act like other pedestrians and get into all kinds of trouble. Denmark, Germany and Netherlands had a little bit different flavor of being fundamentally wrong; the cyclist as a third class of road users (vehicle operators and pedestrians being the other two). You have to understand that the safety-in-numbers theories were invented to patch this fundamentally flawed world of dysfunctional cyclist traffic rules. In UK you have been traditionally fundamentally right about cycling traffic rules and thus only thing you should do with bicycle "science" papers coming from other northern European countries is wipe your butt.

One last thing about using the word "safety".
Word "safety" should be used in context of actual accident risks.
Not in context of "feeling of legitimacy", "feeling of being accepted by car drivers" or "feeling of safety".
That "being accepted by car-drivers" equals "safety" is the original sin in thinking about cycling safety and should be done away with.
Safety-in-safety cycling is safe considering the world of actual accident risks (visibility cones or whateveryoucallit, failures to notice, failures to yield etc..)
I've read your accident statistics, they have many cyclist killed when undertaking trucks but not many killed by lynch mobs angered by uppity cyclists.
I agree that increased feeling of legitimacy might increase numbers of cyclists taking up safe cycling practice, and may be that can be called safety-in-numbers.
But the safety comes from the safety-in-safety cycling and motorists should accept that despite the number of cyclists. Period.

I must agree with you that IF safety-in-numbers effect exists, riding assertively makes you a much bigger number and increases the perceived number of cyclist perceived by the motorists.

ps. I might write more about "luv" later.

^ my head is now spinning.

Things i thought of whilst reading all that:

Cycle Training isn't necessarily for increasing numbers but for helping the current cycling population become safer cyclists. Trained cyclists are very much the minority still. If all of those riding today followed the National Standard, drivers would come to accept the practices displayed as the norm.

European approach is wrong? If you've the space and the support of the people, why not segregate? The numbers in Holland and Copenhagen stack up.

I do agree we should focus more on road cycling and interaction between motor vehicles and riders here in the UK though as there's simply not the space (or ease of planning process) to build enough of a segregated infrastructure.

Unrelated afterthought... I'm sat here in Whitefield drinking coffee watching an endless stream of almost entirely sole occupancy car traffic heading along the A56 and it's very depressing to think our gov't wants to keep growing this for the sake of the economy.

Chainwhip, you have to distinguish two separate things: One, the historical shape of the 'safety in numbers' concept, which you quite rightly criticise. Forester is right to say that Jacobsen's paper is duff. (For anyone who's interested, Forester's critique is here.) Two, the simple fact that people on bikes are less likely to cause harm to others and as the modal share of cycling increases, we should expect a reduction in road danger.

Jacobsen's application of Smeed's Law is quite self-defeating, for the reasons outlined by Forester. My take on it is that Smeed was right about the effect of adverse driving conditions (e.g. congestion) on motor traffic volumes, but wrong about the relationship between levels of casualties and driving. (He thought that the level of casualties would essentially behave like congestion, i.e. that it would remain roughly constant in line with people's expectations and tolerances.)

However, I don't think that people have the same relationship to casualty levels as they do to adverse driving conditions--casualties, unless they affect their nearest and dearest, are seen as fairly abstract and instead of maintaining a level of consciousness of casualty levels, people actually turn away and don't want to know. This is unlikely to lead to a modification of their driving behaviour. By contrast, they will take to other modes if driving becomes intolerable to them. If you want, there is a similar psychological mechanism here, avoidance of some kind, but the effects are very different.

In my view, it is not necessary to demonstrate a safety in numbers effect by modal share. After all, it is called 'safety in (higher) numbers' and not 'safety in a higher proportion'. Modal share is very difficult to determine. Even a good modal share model will never accurately represent actual conditions on the ground.

For instance, in London the Inner Cordon counts do a good job of producing very robust data on vehicular trips across that cordon. We use these numbers as one of the main sources of data to estimate total cycling trips in London. It is demonstrable with reasonable certainty that cycling has increased considerably in the last 10-20 years. However, this data does not enable us to calculate modal share.

We can use this data (and some other data that's also available) to compare raw trip numbers to raw crash statistics (these are incomplete, as there is under-reporting of crashes, but it is not thought that the level of under-reporting has changed much over time). On that measure, there is an indication that the rate of collisions has declined against number of cycle trips compared to the 1994-98 baseline.

Note that this does not use anything like 'number of bicycles' or 'number of vehicles' owned by the population. For population data, we can simply substitute the number and nature of trips, as this is the sort of activity undertaken by the population that interests us here.

The 'safety in numbers' concept taken in the bare sense I outline need not be used to justify the construction of cycle facilities, as has been done in the past, or indeed other forms of intervention. We cannot easily conclude from limited data to actual causes, a common mistake made by all sorts of people, but we do know a few of the variables in London. One is that very few cycle facilities, both lanes or tracks, were actually constructed in London during that time. As far as I can see, the main conclusion that can be assumed is usually that where high levels of political support indicate that cycling is considered 'normal', people will cycle.

The historical debate has focused strongly on the safety of cyclists in interaction with motor vehicles. We all know the highly problematic status that 'safety' has as a major red herring and how fear of road danger has far outstripped actual road danger as a result of its widespread application. The real issues, as you rightly say, lie elsewhere. Not only has the focus of the historical debate been misapplied, but also the method. This is of course not something that can serve as a sound basis of policy. Any such discussion needs to be broadened out to include the many different factors that play into it.

The article below has some interesting observations from paragraph 10 on which relate a little to this discussion - though they primarily concern riding in new York. Maybe the writer is over-optimistic about the current level of the critical mass effect in London? The grass always looks greener - especially from the other side of the pond.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2010/nov/24/newyork-cycling-bike

Just when I thought the forum was disappearing up its own rectum with multiple alias's
and plain unneccessary unpleasantness comes this page.Plenty to think about and throwing a Finnish writer in the mix brings another cultural slant to it.
Has Oliver met his match?
for my contribution I would like to say that if the figures for deaths in motor accidents were well publicised might people be less likely to drive so merrily.?
also, during 1999 when I was trying for Aussie citizenship, some expats there said to me "nothing changes back home, except the cars" and it stayed with me,
above mentioned hippies like us cycle trainers must all wonder why this is still so true, and still so depressing in 2011.

One quick thought: regarding speaking to trainees, I was recently thinking that a good way to approach the issue of 'poor manners' and worse from other road users in response to assertive riding might be to make an analogy to driving (especially if the trainee drives). If you are driving the speed limit in, for example, a 20 or 30 zone and a driver behind you becomes agitated or abusive, this is not an indication that you should have increased your level of risk or the risk to other road users (or broken the law, indeed) and the best response as a driver is to ignore the abusive driver, in my view. Interested to hear others' thoughts - and yes, sometimes I do drive! :)

Since assertive riding is a legal way to use a bike as a road vehicle, I feel analogies to how one would use another vehicle (car, scooter, motorcycle) are well worth exploring and often, in my experience, make a positive impression on trainees (especially if they take to roads in a vehicle other than a bike).

One correction to my own post, #38.

Where I said 'i tell trainees... to consider what makes them safe first and foremost' this is broadly correct. I do tend to fall into the trap of using the language 'think about what makes you safe'. But actually, what I try to drill myself to say to adults in particular (and children as they become more mature) is that they should think about what behaviour minimises risk most effectively. Conceptualising road use in terms of minimising risk makes much more sense of the reality of the situation than 'being safe'. Indeed, in the case of this particular discussion, I think the notion of minimising risk rather than 'keeping safe' is crucial.

When local authorities were charged, some years back, with reducing absolute numbers of accidents involving cyclists, the reponse in some cases was to keep people 'safe' by keeping them from cycling (no cyclists = no accidents involving cyclists).

So I'll be more careful with my language in future, with trainees and in my posts.

Agree completely with Shwaz . I avoid using the word safe with people i teach. Using 'low Risk' is more neutral while 'safe' implies danger. And yes chainwhip ,teaching people how to minimise risk by training them in a positive encouraging manner will not only help them ride efficiently and confidently it will also brng then enjoyment and they'll want to ride more. So less likely to crash *and *nore likely to cycle. ftw "More trips more safely more often" as the mantra goes

Managing drivers expectations will go a long way to minimising conflict. Some people do lash-out out of fear when expectations don't get met.

'Safety in numbers' is a lazy yet useful shortcut way to comminicate the possibility that when people get exposed to something initially scary then get used to it, accept it as normal.

Thats two of the best threads on the forum you have created.

^^ Dave, surely by your own reasoning that quote should read 'More trips less risk more often'? ;)