"When I am cycling I control the speed and direction of my bike.
If we agree that the road is more dangerous then should we not take steps to mitigate the increased risk ?
Changing the road layout is a seperate issue to dealing with what is currently there."
Statements 1 and 2 are 100% correct. However statement 3 isn't really. Because yes, you are in control, and yes there are things you can do to mitigate, but if the road makes those mitigations difficult, if not impossible, then changing the road layout is the only relevant mitigation (save taking an entirely separate route).
See, the thing is, to cross the tracks 'safely' (in itself a slightly ambiguous and impossible to accurately define) phrase, you cross at 90 degrees. You don't cross at a shallower angle than 60 (I think) degrees (certainly be advice provided at the time the tracks were first being laid). The layout at Haymarket makes this impossible in any practical sense. Certainly you can cross at those angles, but then you factor in having a car or bus behind you, the weather, weight of traffic affecting those around you, night or day. So yes, I'm in control of that bike. I am not, unfortunately, in control of those around me with whom I have been put into conflict by that road design.
The other aspect is that getting through without falling off is not equivalent to getting through safely. Perhaps a certain proportion are getting through luckily (as luck appears to have played an important part in anyone falling not having done so in front of a vehicle that then hasn't stopped so far). But even if we couny 'safely' as not falling off, then as Insto says, 1 in 100 is a AWFUL record. F'rinstance, y'know when drivers complain about a road being dangerous - now that's usually because there are 3 or 4 incidents a year at that spot. Can you imagine if there was a corner on a road where 1 in 100 cars were sliding off and into the field beyond.
I think Morningsider has summed it up perfectly: "However, there is a huge cluster of falls at Haymarket that is not repeated elsewhere. I would argue this means there is some kind of systemic fault at Haymarket, rather than with the cyclists passing though there"
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