The Bradley Wiggins and Shane Sutton cycling accidents will no doubt put cycle safety firmly back in the spotlight – and rightly so – but more than two months into becoming a daily cycle commuter, my own view on bike safety in London has changed somewhat.
Firstly to put it in context. Last year there were 107 cycle deaths, compared to 256 in 1990. However, injuries were up, from 2,660 to 3,085. In London itself fatality figures* vary enormously. Last year there were 16; in 2010 there were 10; while in 2005 there were 21. There have been 12 cycling related deaths so far.When you see the ghost bikes around London, it’s a sobering sight.
What isn’t known is whether the rise in popularity of cycling in London, particularly channeled through the Boris Bike scheme, will increase accidents and fatalities.
I’ve cycled for years, but riding regularly in London in relatively new to me. The received wisdom is that truck drivers are deadly dangerous, especially when turning, and taxi drivers are a menace. That hasn’t been my experience so far.
The biggest danger to cyclists – at least from an injury rather than fatality perspective – is the cyclists themselves.
Every day I see at least one near miss and it’s usually a cyclist’s fault (although pedestrians not looking where they’re going, while on iPhones come a close second).
Cyclists without helmets. Cyclists without lights. Cyclists playing headphones (usually those massive Dr Dre-style ones). Cyclists cutting each other up. Cyclists riding the wrong way down a cycle path (that’s a scary one, I can tell you). And worse of all, cyclists running red lights across crossroads.
OK, aside from jumping lights at crossroads, I know most of these “misdemeanors” are unlikely to cause fatalities, but it’s intimidating for new cyclists and, as Bradley Wiggins would attest, broken ribs aren’t fun. I agree with calls for transport plans in London to be built around cyclists – the pleasure I get from cycling is enormous and I love to share it with others. But if London cyclists want more of the road to be built around them, they need to respect each other a lot more.
* Figures via the London Cycle Safety Wikipedia page and the Daily Telegraph – don’t shoot me down if there are errors
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Post-Wiggins & Sutton tumbles, London cycle safety comes back into the spotlight, so here’s my perspective http://t.co/2dnlWfzk
Yes, there are some idiots on bikes, just like in cars, but I’m not quite sure about your final comment Phil. Plenty of drivers drive uninsured (1 in 10 in London – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9119456/Nearly-four-per-cent-of-drivers-uninsured.html), speed, drive on the phone, jump lights etc etc but nobody says “they need to behave before we’ll build more roads”.
Thanks for the comment. I didn’t realise that many people were uninsured, which is worrying in itself.
The post was more to say that there’s a great deal of positivity about cycling in London at the moment, but a (significantly sized) minority are riding around like morons, potentially spoiling all the good PR, creating possible accidents and invalidating their claim for roads to be geared towards them rather than other users.
I expected cars, lorries, taxis and buses to be a problem, but they’re actually not as bad as a lot of people make out.