CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Herald: Worrying rise in cycling injuries
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Posted 11 years ago #
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"cycling in Scotland was statistically twice as safe as in the rest of the UK."
Really??
You mean the rest is worse!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Is this in today's print edition? I might send a few copies to local politicians.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The article includes stories from several CCE people, I think. It's worth a read.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
(Thanks to citycyclingedinburgh for help finding cyclists.)"
Posted 11 years ago # -
"You mean the rest is worse!"
I suspect some parts of England have a lot more people cycling on "rural" roads which are very busy. The memsahib watches a lot of housey shows where extremely busy roads go right through villages. We don't have as much traffic in many places. I also find they have more over grown roads where trees meet above the carriageway and make it dark during the day. Even worse is that it goes from full sunlight to deep shade so you don't get time to adapt. Yorkshire roads have hairpin bends on junctions and gradients which Wade wasn't daft enough to use here. Cornwall has wee roads with big hedges.There may be some generalisations there I haven't lived in England since '91…
EDIT
And, with recent incidents in mind, I can't think of somewhere with a gas station right on a busy road. There is one on the A80 at Cumbernauld but it has acceleration lanes which didn't seem to the case with the one in the news.Posted 11 years ago # -
A good article, odd that it is by the environment editor rather than the transport correspondent. How ironic that, on the website, it is above an article entitled "Plan to increase lorry speed limit" - who cares about those extra pedestrian and cyclist deaths - Iceland get to deliver family sized packs of beige "food style snack products" 10 minutes quicker to Inverness.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Do we think this piece encouraged anyone to get on their bike or might it have reinforced prejudice that the only safe way to travel is in a steel cage with four wheels?
Posted 11 years ago # -
@wfb
I don't think that's the purpose of the article - more additional pressure on politicians to DO something.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
This is why we need to go further than the demands made by British cycling today. They are right in demanding government has to stop pussyfooting around, and put cycling at the heart of our transport policy.Now government has spent millions on cycle lanes and mirrors and the rest of it – but we need more than that. We need to change the very culture of British roads. Drivers who injure or kill cyclists need to stop being treated with kid gloves, and let off the hook with charges of “careless driving”. They need to be labelled “dangerous drivers”, and taken off the roads.
"
Posted 11 years ago # -
Both really good articles. The Scottish Government will claim that it's spending more than ever on 'active travel' (which avoids being specific about cycling) and will reiterate its publication of the ATAP and providing £x million of funding to Cycling Scotland and/or Sustrans, and state, quite fairly, that LAs manage their own budgets but are free to match funding for projects.
LAs are too busy mending crap roads and trying to stop the bins overflowing. Cycling Scotland isn't going to change the lenience towards motorists who kill and injure. The Government is trying to stop the NHS imploding, while breaking the bank on massive infrastructure that isn't required.
No-one will take responsibility to make the roads safe, because that means taking away some of motorists' so-called rights, and the Government will not do this because it anticipates only the loss in fuel duty and VAT revenue and not the balancing upturn in local economy that comes from citizens spending time and money where it matters.
Posted 11 years ago # -
How ironic that, on the website, it is above an article entitled "Plan to increase lorry speed limit"
Yes. The lorry article quotes the director of the Road Haulage Association Scotland: "Our argument has long been that the 20mph differential between lorries and cars is too high."
Well, yes. Now what about the speed difference between lorries, cars and bicycles, hmm?
Posted 11 years ago # -
It's a democracy so if there are votes in it something will happen. If there a no votes to win then there are other things which will take priority. I'd like tv channels to not show sport, soap opera and strictly dancing x factor but there are more people who want them so they will stay.
Do I take that as a yes, this piece will not encourage people to ride their bike then? And we are supposed to be happy about this? I'm particularly unimpressed by it.
Posted 11 years ago # -
WFB - but as you like to keep reminding us, you almost never have any issues with drivers and when you do the Police take care of it. Most of the rest of us have neither of those luxuries. Do you think it will all go away if we just ignore it?
Posted 11 years ago # -
@wfb 'if there are votes in it, something will be done"
Charmingly naive view of politics you have. In addition to votes, political decisions are also influenced by lobbysists, especially those of big corps, and their civil servants, many of whom are strategically planning to leave and take up jobs in said corps.
That's not to say that politicians don't listen to voters, but it is by no means the only factors. The MSPs we met at Parliament last week for the 'stop climate chaos' lobby, were keen to have us send them goodmaterial they could use within their parties. MSPs also come with their own prejudices and assumptions. Some are good and listen and learn, but many are sure they are right.
Despite all that, there is a lot of evidence that concerted lobbying, which reflects a normative change within society, can have an effect. And that's why I'menthused about the combination of newspapers, cycle industry, and groups like OP all coming together.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@wfb - I;m sorry you don't like the Glasgow guest blog. I'm afraid that it resonates with many of us, who are perhaps less tough than you. I read this yesterday, and thought of you while reaidng it. You may be strong and fearless; I'm enthused and confident, but most folk are interested but concerned. I'd like to get more of them out there with me:
http://girlbikelove.com/2012/11/research-blog-a-new-focus-on-the-interested-but-concerned/
Posted 11 years ago # -
Min, well… I don't. No excuse to buy a camera for the bike because it would be so boring. Traffic passing me, me passing traffic. The occasional wave from someone who knows me but I don't know them. Rinse, repeat. I'm mystified by these people who feel threatened several times on a short trip.
SRD, Less tough and fearless more it just easier and more pleasant than using a car. As a result of unlikely circumstance involving a kid and the GFT I happened to be driving down Renfield/Union/Jamaica St this afternoon. It was a pure pest. A bike would have been down there in 1/4 the time.
That road seems a strange choice of bogie man. There is no uncontrolled junction, outwith the back lanes, and no oncoming traffic crossing in front of you as it either goes the same direction or turns away.
If your correspondent really needs to get from the city centre to Govan and not use Union St then there is a contraflow lane on West Nile St which leads into setts on Gordon St (don't like them as they look slippery in the rain), which can then be used to get to the short contraflow on Hope St. Once the peds are out of the way you can roll along to Anderston or head down to the river and use the squiggly bridge but access to Govan is blocked by a private development and you would need to go onto Paisley Rd at the Quay cinema. Failing that head west on the north of the river and use the squinty bridge or either of the two bridges at the Science Centre. Glasgow being square means that there are few real short cuts in the centre, geometry levels them all.
I'd probably use the road and squinty, well not probably, I do because I go that way heading to my parent's house in Barrhead. Not great in mid July or on match days but other than that it's fine and on the problem days a car would be worse. There is one of the rare bits of bike lane which isn't an encumbrance which lets you cut across the front of Cessnock subway. An odd station built into a tenement block.
Keep telling politicians that it's dangerous and you get this guy:
Posted 11 years ago # -
Well this is what the writer thinks -
"
Rob Edwards (@robedwards53)
11/11/2012 09:38Big rise in cyclist and pedestrian injuries puts ministers under pressure
"
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
It demonstrates that motivations for walking and cycling are mostly personal (health and local environment) and that the complexities and contingencies of everyday travel for many households, combined with inadequate infrastructure, safety concerns and the fact that walking and cycling are seen by many as abnormal modes of travel, mean that increasing rates of walking and cycling will be hard."
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?chapterid=17042551&show=abstract
Give up or try harder??
Posted 11 years ago # -
Give up or try harder??
Try to avoid own goals?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Meanwhile…
** Fire services count obesity cost **
UK fire and rescue services have responded to over 2,700 calls over the past five years to assist severely obese people.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20255141 >Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't think it would be an own goal Folders. Of course you are going to get the people who think every death and injury could be avoided if cyclists just wore more safety gear but the fact is that h*lm*ts and h*-v*z have never been so popular and yet KSIs on cyclists still go up. Demanding compulsory gear on cyclists would also do nothing for the rising KSIs on peds either.
Posted 11 years ago # -
SRD - I have to dispute your view that there is some kind of revolving door between the civil service and major corporations, particularly in Scotland. There may be a handful of senior civil servants who do go on to top flight corporate jobs, but the vast majority of civil servants see out their time in the public sector. A lot of very smart people work very hard in the civil service for less reward than they could get in the private sector - yes there is lots wrong with the way the machinery of government runs but criticising the people who keep the creaking machinery of Government working doesn't really help anyone. I would argue that one of the reasons for cycling's lowly standing is the fact that it is the responsibility of fairly junior civil servants - it would have a much higher profile if an actual senior civil servant had sole responsibility for it.
Posted 11 years ago # -
No Min, I think an article in the Herald which makes cycling look dangerous is an own goal.
Of course not many people read the Herald anymore. Even I usually just read the two Ians, Bell And McWhirter.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I think an article in the Herald which makes cycling look dangerous is an own goal"
Only if you think there were people just about to start cycling who have changed their minds.
There are plenty of people with no intention of cycling (on roads - at least), but plenty who would like things improved so that they can.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't think I follow the distinction.
We told people that cycling is dangerous. People use this as a reason to not cycle, obviously it's not just because they can't be bothered to get out of their car.
We just confirmed the suspicions of many people who do not cycle. True it wasn't many people as Sunday Hersld circulation has dropped so low they changed it to a local paper to dodge the audit… allegedly.
Posted 11 years ago # -
We told people that cycling is dangerous. People use this as
a reasonan excuse to not cycle, obviously it'snotjust because they can't be bothered to get out of their car.FTFY ;-)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Thanks. I knew I had missed something.
I seem to have conflated a couple of manys too but that's because I'm annoyed at what the Herald has become.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Compare Edinburgh with cities where most people routinely cycle. The difference is not that people in those cities don't say anything nasty about cycling in case it puts people off. The main difference is that for a long time they have been so vocal about the problems (and opportunities) of cycling that their governments have dedicated themselves to massively improving infrastructure, law enforcement, and everything else that here in Edinburgh puts most people off cycling in the city. And those improvements have made cycling simply the easiest, quickest and most attractive way of getting about.
For some people it feels that way in Scotland already. For most people it's not, and with our existing roads and police and driver attitudes (shaped by the road layouts) that's not going to change much.
Posted 11 years ago #
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