If you support segregated cycling infrastructure in Hackney

Googles... back in a minute...

It's excellent. I remember reading it last year. Driving a car in Stevenage is easy and cheap, and you don't get wet or have to wear Rapha.

No-one has to wear Rapha.

Yes it was after his victory over Le Pen. "Vote for the crook, not for the fascist". He made the announcement towards the start of his second term. He then became the least popular President ever.
The French political system and Chirac's interpretation of it in particular allowed this kind of executive action. There's not a hope of change happening in the same way here.

Well I don't know - because of this commitment, did more people ride bikes? And if more people rode bikes afterwards, was it because this commitment, or was it just going to happen anyway for other reasons? And did riding a bike become safer? Did it become as safe as riding a bike in Holland? Did it become as much fun as riding a bike in Holland?

I'm not saying it's not really cool, but I am saying a lot of it depends on what you are shooting for. From what I've read - briefly - it seems that there was a general commitment to improve road safety, which from the sounds of it was very low hanging fruit, if not politically, as the deaths per capita were significantly larger than the UK - and still is. I can't find reference to the new laws to protect pedestrians and others, but I'd be interested to know if they were any stricter than those in the UK now.

Stevenage shows that no matter what you build there needs to be government will to encourage cycling as mass transport. When it was built the UK government were far more concerned that everyone bought a (UK built) car, or Trimphone or whatever. Bikes didn't fit into their worldview.

The big problem we have now is that while cycling has crept back into government consciousness, public discussion of it has become almost entirely predicated on 'safety'. Hence bollocks like Oval. ( Edit: or the fact that practically every time I mention cycling to non-cyclists, they always ask if I wear a helmet). It is still not taken seriously as mass transport, and it's that which will make us more Dutch, not infrastructure.

The French political system and Chirac's interpretation of it in particular allowed this kind of executive action.

Really interesting. How did the civil service get the police to actually go along with it? Sprayed them with money, I suppose.

Interesting reading. No mention of integration to other transport modes and workplace facilities.

The motorway between Leeds & Manchester is busy daily folks travelling daily who live in viconity of one and work in the vicinity of the other.

Driving door to door must seem a much more attractive proposition than ride - train - ride, esp as most rail services permit 2 bikes maximum and carriage layout makes it hard to get even 2 bikes on board most times. Not factoring in school run diversions or essential shopping detours.

(There's statisticslly v.likely to be people whose journeys cross each other daily to do same job in each others home city!)

Add to that the lack of secure storage / showers / changing at many workplaces still and car remains King for most people as to cycle you really have to a) want to and b) be prepared to take decisions differently about lifes logistics i.e. how far from work you live, where kids go to nursery/childcare, where you shop etc - "range" for choice much smaller if done by bike.

Re: Coffee I liked that comparisons, yes theres now alot of good independent coffee shops about but most folks still go Starbucks etc for easy option. A very British problem.

I don't think a gendarme has ever needed much persuasion to nick someone. They were employed, given the equipment and told to police with zero tolerance. Paramilitaries don't have to worry so much about being the friendly face of policing.

..I look forward to your data :)

hey.
this appears to be a thread in which people are actually discussing shit they don't already agree on in a potentially constructive way.
less data sneering would be helpful.

But there is always but hol(y)land for segregationists.

I enjoyed the data diversion.

(I'm not sure if that was a dig at me, but if it was I don't think you understood what I was getting at.. )

I preferred his evil brother.

Our standing in imternational road safety has also slipped severely in the last few years.

What do you mean by that?

We've got - and have had for some time - pretty much the lowest number of deaths per capita or per mile driven of any country in the world of any size. (The Scandinavian nations are better, but not by much, and the Dutch are pretty comparable - but they all have much smaller populations.)

Agreed that much of this may be down to vehicle improvements rather than changing driver behaviour (though those improved vehicles aren't only sold in the UK) and that we do comparatively badly with vulnerable road users - but the overall number of deaths here is low.

AFAICS, there's not a lot of slippage given that we're still very close to the statistical top.

We have one of the worst child casualty rates on the roads in Europe. Pedestrians and cyclists are at a far higher risk in the UK than most other European countries. Plus of course the biggest con the motoring lobby ever pulled was to allow vulnerable road users to be bullied off the roads and the correspondingly low casualty rate gets trumpeted as a success, when it's a complete failure.

The UK had a child pedestrian death rate double the rates of Norway and the Netherlands.
In the UK, 48% of children killed on the roads were child pedestrians - this is the highest proportion in western European countries.
Including all ages, 23% of UK road deaths were pedestrians - again the highest proportion in western European countries.
It is not clear why UK pedestrians take such a high share of UK road casualties, but some possible factors are poor speed limit enforcement, high urban speed limits, lack of legal protection for pedestrians, and the high UK drink-driving limit.

http://www.travelindependent.org.uk/casualties_european.html

Poor speed limit enforcement

The UK issues fewer speeding tickets per head than almost all of the other 13 countries in this comparison [2]. The Netherlands and Austria issue about 20 times as many speeding tickets as the UK per head.
High urban speed limits

Some countries have extensive 30km/h (20mph) speed limits in residential areas. The UK is now starting to introduce these, but there are uncertainties over the commitment of the police to enforce them [3] [4].

Lack of legal protection (assumed liability)

In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, liability for personal injury damages suffered by a pedestrian after being hit by a vehicle rests with the driver involved, unless it can be shown that the pedestrian acted in a way that was clearly illegal and/or seriously negligent [5]. This is said to make drivers very careful not to risk collisions with pedestrians or cyclists.

The high UK drink-driving limit.

The drink-driving limit is higher in the UK (and the Republic of Ireland) at 80mg/ml than it is in the rest of Europe, where it is 50mg/ml or less. [6].

What can I say, I have good Data. ;)

Someone should tell the government all that, they should probably do something about it.

thanks you made me laugh.

I'm not looking forward to the increased agression I will get from drivers due to the segregated lanes at Vauxhaul bridge etc. Luckily I have the hilarity of Lfgss to take my mind off it :)

the correspondingly low casualty rate gets trumpeted as a success, when it's a complete failure.

Except it's not a complete failure. At all.

We kill about 1700 people on the roads every year. The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Poles all make it well over 3000 and are significantly worse in per capita terms as well as in absolute numbers.

Pedestrians and cyclists are at a far higher risk in the UK than most other European countries.

Breaking down the figures is interesting but I'm too lazy (or google-challenged) to find decent ones. Skimming the absolute numbers by transport mode, about a quarter of our casualties seem to be pedestrians, while most other countries manage to keep it to ten percent or one in eight.

That seems bad, but my impression is that our per capita pedestrian death toll is broadly comparable to other countries (France, Spain; a bit worse than Germany, a bit better than Italy), not far higher.

(The stats I found don't give a breakdown by population, hence "impression." But just looking at the pedestrian figures as a proportion of overall casualties doesn't give a complete picture.)

But we've got 110 cyclist deaths out of 1770 (2013 figures), while the Netherlands has 112 out of 476. Per capita, that makes the cycling idyll of Holland three or four times riskier than the hell of the UK. (I'm sure that casualty figures per distance travelled tell a different story.)

It would be good if you had links to stats which offer a more detailed breakdown than the superficial ones I've quoted, but meantime the rhetoric of "complete failure" really isn't helpful.

we've got 110 cyclist deaths out of 1770 (2013 figures), while the Netherlands has 112 out of 476.

Our transport minister made the same mistake:

https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/tthose-baffling-and-misleading-comments-on-dutch-cycle-safety-from-penning-and-baker-in-full/

If nobody cycled in the UK our cycling safety stats would be impressive.

Nescafé instant is as good as any coffee. All other opinion on this is HOKUM. @spotter and @Fox would agree.

Lies. Damn lies. Instant is pish.

I am drinking a very nice Square Mile Costa Rican filter right now actually, notes of raspberry and nectarine.

Yeah, I'm not sure why I put that 'severely' in. That's a mistake. I think there has been a complacency in the UK because of our history of comparatively low road deaths and, until recently, falling casualty figures. Compared to many European nations there isn't the opportunity to reduce death and injury here to the same degree but we have been overtaken in road safety terms by countries like Sweden with 'Vision Zero' policies. As cyclists we are more aware of the behavioural factors that make cycling less safe and less pleasant than it should be and how the laissez faire political approach to road safety in the UK does little to address these factors across all transport modes.