No mention of amount/mileage in two cities.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
"City has twice as many cyclist deaths as Glasgow"
(20 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
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Similarly I'm going to try and sell Glasgow's hippo safety strategies to Africa, because we have very few deaths from them as well.
Cracking journalism there.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Good stock photo of car encroaching the ASL. Irony entirely lost on the churnalist.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"
05/01/2015 9:48 AM GST
ATThomson This is a nonsense story! Edinburgh has a much, much higher number of cyclists than Glasgow. Therefore, as a proportion of total cyclists, Glasgow's accident rate is a lot higher than Edinburgh's. So it is not a "shock statistic" at all - just poor journalism"
Posted 10 years ago # -
Possibly the worst EEN "article" I have ever read - and it is up against some pretty tough competition. Obviously, it doesn't take account of cycling modal share in both cities. There is no link to the source data, so it is impossible to tell what time period is covered or what geographic areas are used.
Also, the comments are open. I see there are already mentions of red light jumping and the Highway Code. As far as I am aware, none of the cyclists killed on Edinburgh's roads over the last few years were found to have been breaking the law. Unlike the drivers responsible for their deaths.
EEN - please close the comments. The article mentions one cyclist killed on Edinburgh's roads by name. Their family may well read these ill-informed rants. There is simply no need for this.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Even if cycling rates were same ,in theory, with such small numbers may expect some lumpiness not sure can draw any conclusions from these figures.
On left turns red light jumping may be safer at times, if lorries and buses behind that are also turning left and is clear to turn left may be safer at times than following highway code. Not sure what the relationship with red light jumping and accidents would be, would depend on the type of red light and circumstances. If jumped a red light against the traffic in to the path of vehicle then yes this would be unsafe. For safety may be better to cross some intersections as a pedestrians yet this is not following the high way code. Following the highway code exactly may be less safe than not always following it where it is safer not do to so.
I now use the pavement when going round the large round about that crosses the bi pass past, Westerhailes after noticing many cyclists doing this and would imagine this would be safer than taking the 3 lane round about where people often speed after coming of the bi pass.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Perhaps the headline should read:
Drivers in Edinburgh may not be as safe as in Glasgow.
and...
The shock statistic is revealed on a map showing the locations of the 41 fatal car crashes across Scotland from 2009 to 2013
There have been many times more fatal crashes than that on Scotland's roads during those 4 years I'm sure
Posted 10 years ago # -
904 killed on the roads throughout that period. And, strangely enough, 2011 census data suggests roughly twice as many people cycling in Edinburgh as Glasgow (3.9% vs 1.4%).
Posted 10 years ago # -
"41 fatal car crashes across Scotland from 2009 to 2013" - There were 41 cyclists killed in accidents/crashes in Scotland in these years. The numbers of people killed in car crashes was over 700, and for all vehicles was over 900
Of the 41 cyclists killed, 19 crashes also involved cars, 10 involved goods vehicles, and 3 involved buses, according to data I have seen. Some crashes involved cyclists only.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Got a source for that last paragraph @slowcoach?
Drafted a full rebuttal of the article to put up tonight, and that would be a handy stat to include.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Darkerside - Transport Scotland has produced a pretty good overview of cyclist casualties over the past few years. See:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/statistics/j340611-06.htm
Posted 10 years ago # -
Just to summarise the post SRD linked above; there is definitely a story here, but EEN completely missed it.
Twice as many cyclists were killed in the City of Edinburgh as Glasgow City between 2009-2013 (specifically looking at the two city centre council regions). The 2011 census data (so nice and central in that period) shows a cycling rate just over twice as high in Edinburgh. The sample size in both cities was comparable.
There's no reason to think the average distance of a trip in Glasgow is significantly higher, so a fair conclusions is something about Edinburgh is encouraging twice as many people to cycle, but the death rate from cycle crashes is the same in both cities.
Glasgow has effectively no cycle infrastructure. Edinburgh has lots of painted cycle lanes.
Tentative conclusion; painted cycle lanes double the percentage of people prepared to cycle, but provide no extra protection from being killed.
Lots of caveats to that conclusion (see the post!). It would be interesting to include the full KSI stats, and some other cities. What's the cycle infrastructure like in Aberdeen and Dundee?
Posted 10 years ago # -
I've never cycled in Dundee, but Aberdeen's infrastructure is either tokenistic i.e. painted cycle lanes/shared bus lanes or non-existant. There are a few good sections e.g. eastern bit of the Westhill path, but very little comparable to the meadows or NEPN.
The centre of Dundee would be pleasant to cycle in as traffic has been minimised but you'd be across it in less than five minutes so possibly not representative of cycling there in general.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I'd argue that Edinburgh has more off road routes (e.g. NEPN/canal/WoL) than Glasgow, but I may be wrong
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Edd1e_h: certainly true (we've only really got the north bank of the Clyde), but from my brief experiences Edinburgh offroad stuff is pretty well hidden. It can be effective, but you have to know it's there.
Does it really drag people into cycling?
Dunno!
Posted 10 years ago # -
I think off-road routes probably are quite key to getting people cycling, especially if they live near them (and know about them). I think there's been some research in both the US and UK recently finding that. Whether that translates into utility cycling would probably depend on where the off-road routes go...
Posted 10 years ago # -
I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to learn about edinburgh's off-road routes.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Outside the wol/canal path I'm pretty ignorant of Edinburgh off road cycle routes, and I've lived and cycled there on and off for decades (eek!).
Whether that says things about me or about the signing/publicising of such routes is for you guys to say... :-oPosted 10 years ago # -
"Whether that says things about me or about the signing/publicising of such routes is for you guys to say... :-o"
Must 'revisit' (update) this site.
https://connectingedinburgh.wordpress.com/around-the-city/north-edinburgh-path-network
Posted 10 years ago #
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