To ask how we stop dangerous cyclists

We can all quote examples, these are just this month.
The school children killed in Essex by a driver who failed to stop on 1 Feb
13 Feb a driver of a smart car killed a 41 year old woman and failed to stop
A woman in her 20s was killed on 11 February after being struck by a lorry
A pedestrian in his 30s was killed on Feb 2nd following a collision
yesterday morning a man in his 50s was killed when he was hit by a lorry.
I stopped looking after I found five, I’m sure there are more.

Well the only place in the world that has one is North Korea, to my knowledge.

Again, I’m not saying it’s ok for cyclists to jump lights or cycle on the pavement or any of the other road rule breaking - but we should be realistic and pragmatic about dealing with the situation we have.

There aren’t enough resources to deal with the more serious issue (cars) so I’m not in favour of diverting any at all to something that, on a population level, confers less risk than cows.

To your point of MND v cancer - it’s not the same thing. Investigation, scientific endeavour has more benefits than just to the specific disease. There are also lots of other factors at play in how scientific research is funded - where the diseases hit (how deep the pockets of the potential recipients), what researchers want to devote their lives to, availability of subjects etc.

More appropriate would be looking at how policing resources are allocated. With so few officers and so little money, I support the use of them for more serious & violent crimes, rather than phone snatching and burglary.

Do I think those lesser crimes don’t matter? Of course not - they are abhorrent and can deeply affect the victims. But when you have to make a choice, which sadly we do, it must, imo, be to help prevent the most serious injuries and deaths.

@DdraigGoch has explained much better than I how to actually address dangerous cycling.

But you won't find a solution by licencing and registering bikes. There's a reason no democracy does this, it's not effective. We need to learn from successful countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as cities in other countries like Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel and Malmo.

Yes, there are cameras at that junction. And I don't know to what extent a licensing scheme for cyclists would be feasible, but if it could be made to work, I would support it, because it would force cyclists to take responsibility for their own actions.

Possibly education campaigns would help to make it less socially acceptable for cyclists to blithely ignore laws and endanger other people, although as with motorists, some will always think they're above the law.

In the hierarchy of hazard controls, administrative controls (i.e. rules and signage) are second-least effective (after PPE, for all those who witter on about helmets and hivis). Consider how effective rules and signs are with cars? Speeding is endemic, no matter how many signs are up.

Engineering controls (so traffic calming and decent cycle infrastructure) are far more effective at changing behaviour and this has been proven in the Netherlands. If speeding is a persistent issue on a Dutch street, the Dutch traffic engineers don't just stick up a camera and some more signs. No, they rebuild the street from the ground up, modifying the surface and the layout to make speeding feel unnatural to drivers.

More effective than either of these are the elimination and substitution of hazards. In other words the more car journeys you can eliminate or replace with active travel or public transport the safer the roads will be.

With limited money and resources, it makes more sense to fight for the thing that poses the most danger.

By that logic, we shouldn't spend money on research into motor neuron disease, because it's far less common than cancer. And we shouldn't fund research into ovarian cancer, because it's far less common than breast cancer.

Of course there need to be priorities in spending, but we don't ignore lesser problems because other problems are more serious.

It's possible to find solutions to reduce the amount of bad cyclist behaviour, as well as solutions to reduce the amount of bad motorist behaviour.

I don't know how many more times I have to keep saying this, but yes, badly-behaved motorists are a big problem.

And as I said, a car hitting me on that junction could kill me.

But frequency does matter. If I'm more likely to be hit (or even narrowly missed) by a cyclist, even if they don't kill me my overall risk of harm is greater from cyclists than the risk of a car hitting me, because that's more unlikely to happen.

As people get older, they are less steady on their feet, and more likely to break bones than younger people. So a cyclist who narrowly misses an older person, because they are "more agile", could well startle them enough that they will fall, potentially with life-changing consequences (e.g. a broken hip).

Yes, there are cameras at that junction. And I don't know to what extent a licensing scheme for cyclists would be feasible, but if it could be made to work, I would support it, because it would force cyclists to take responsibility for their own actions.

Possibly education campaigns would help to make it less socially acceptable for cyclists to blithely ignore laws and endanger other people, although as with motorists, some will always think they're above the law.

It isn’t correct to equate frequency with overall risk.

One single car jumping the red whilst you were crossing in 20 years would have caused you much more harm if they had hit you. Cyclists jumping reds, whenever they do it, are unlikely to hit you, because they are smaller, more agile. If they do, they are less likely to injure or kill you because of the weight and speed.

I’m not saying it’s right to jump lights in any vehicle, but overall, cycling is much less dangerous to society than car driving.

Allocation of public resources on harm reduction is done by looking at the problem at a societal level. That’s why an expensive, hard to administer and all but impossible to enforce cycle registration scheme won’t happen.

The bad actors would still be bad actors - see illegally modded cars, unlicensed and uninsured drivers for an example of how it doesn’t work in motoring.

The plates would be either so large they are unsafe or so small they are unreadable by ANPR systems.

Any extra barriers to active travel will have negative affects on overall health, costing the NHS more money.

Enforcement won’t happen - see all the drivers on mobiles or jumping reds.

The junction you mentioned - does it have cameras? Do you think all the drivers who jumped ‘just a little bit’ on red got points and a fine? Doubtful - so how would it work for cyclists?

Someone has to install, maintain and monitor the cameras, then send the letters and collect the fine - or maintain the computer systems that automate it. If they aren’t spending that money on cracking down on motorists who actually kill and injure in the thousands every year, do you honestly think it’s available for cyclists who are 1/400th of the problem?

With limited money and resources, it makes more sense to fight for the thing that poses the most danger. Fighting for both splits resources and dilutes any affect.

Your socialist friend was, imo, misguided because lack of women’s rights does more societal harm, but I imagine she would have had a good argument for her way.

There is no possibly argument for thinking cyclists do more harm than drivers.

I think that the constant feeling of being under attack (whether from the internet, the tabloids, or worse physically by an SUV) prompts a very defensive culture. This is why clickbait threads like the OP has set up make matters worse.

Let's stop indulging motorists and start holding them accountable for their actions before moving on to cyclists.

It's possible to do both at the same time.

I remember hearing the same argument from a housemate when I was at university nearly 50 years ago. She was a socialist, and when I said the trade unions ought to be fighting for women's rights and equality in the workplace, she said it was more important to fight for working men's rights first. Women's rights could be dealt with after that. 🙄

I think you're right.

I visited Copenhagen a few years ago and was struck by how well-ordered the provision for cyclists was, and how well-behaved they were. The cycle lanes at the side of the road were separated from the main part of the road by a kerb, so cyclists had a safe lane in which to ride. I only saw one cyclist riding on the pavement while I was there, out of the hundreds that I saw.

There seemed to be a better culture of cycling there, with ordinary people feeling comfortable riding on the roads, and a general expectation that everyone would behave properly.

The reckless, selfish attitude prevalent in part of the cycling community in the UK seemed to be absent in Denmark.

I'm not arguing that motorists aren't a big problem - they cause way more deaths and injuries than cyclists do.

I'm simply saying that cyclists are also a problem. Why on earth can't we deal with both problems?

I'm sick of feeling terrorised on pavements by cyclists, having near misses with them on the pavements (and on the roads), and having them ride randomly through red lights when I'm on a pedestrian crossing.

Motorists jump red lights too, but they tend to do it just after the light has turned red, so you can anticipate when they're going to do it. But cyclists jump the red light at any time during the red phase, while pedestrians are on the crossing. And they often come out of the shadow of a big van or lorry, so you don't see them until they're almost on top of you.

On the junction I mentioned earlier, the one I crossed every day on my way to the station to go to work, cyclists would shoot past me on the pavement as I walked towards it almost every day, sometimes two or more in the space of a few seconds. I occasionally saw cars go through a red light just after it had gone red. But I never, ever saw a car go through a red light randomly, long after it had gone red, while pedestrians were on the crossing. And yet I saw that done many, many times by cyclists.

Yes, if a car had gone through red while I was legitimately on the crossing it could have killed me.

But over nearly 20 years of walking past that junction on my way to work, the biggest danger to me on and around the junction was from cyclists, not from cars.

And the more people who cycle, the better behaviour will be. Where it's dangerous to cycle, the only people who will do so are the daredevils, who behave predictably. Where infrastructure (and driver behaviour) means that it's safe enough for your grandmother to cycle to bingo, or for parents to take their toddler to nursery in a bakfiets then people will ride appropriately.

I’ve always said reversing an HGV round a corner should be part of the driving test (you’d need some sort of off road facility somewhere) to teach car drivers about how long vehicles take roundabouts/tight corners and how the different parts of the vehicle move in relation to the axles. An understanding of the challenges of deferent types of road user can only be helpful!

Lets not forget time on a moped and motorbike.

Cycling proficiency tests should be mandatory. For motorists. They should also have to ride a horse on a road, cross a busy junction as a pedestrian and navigate a pavement full of parked cars with a pram and/or a mobility/visual impairment. Might give motorists in their high-speed metal onesies a tiny insight into what a fucking danger they are to all other road users.

When ds started cycling to school (at about 8), I initially cycled with him. I would wear a high-viz jacket and have my front and back lights on, even in daylight. The number of times, when I was cycling home back up a steep hill, that cars would drive straight across the road (ignoring the "Give Way" that they were supposed to do: I was on the main road so had right of way) right in front of me and I'd have to do an emergency stop

I did occasionally ponder not stopping and going into the side of the car but the sad fact is that even though I was in the right and they were in the wrong, I would be the one that risked coming off worst

When we started letting ds cycle on his own, we got him to go a slightly different route, even though it was slightly longer.

but it will teach them road safety skills.

Yes they do exist somewhere.

North Korea.

Which I think tells you everything you need to know about their feasibility and purpose.

a cycling proficiency test is great, but won't generally save a kid from a dangerous driver

Eh? Think what?

This is useful https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/whats-legal-and-whats-not-your-bike#:~:text=Pavement%20cycling&text=The%20law%20also%20applies%20to,to%20increase%20this%20to%2012.

Basically cycling on a pavement is always against the law but it’s allowed up to age 8 in Scotland due to their laws and 10 elsewhere in the UK due to the age of criminal responsibility.

I noticed how much safer and quieter is was around DS’s schools (infant then junior) during bike to school week due to the reduction in children being driven to school. Children should be encouraged to cycle to school, not have more barriers put in place.

That would take into account the cycling proficiency at 10/11 that I posted about.

sorry it is from between 8 and 10 depending on your source for the UK

Not all deaths and injuries caused by drivers are included in the official statistics either! First, the incident must have been reported to the police, and whilst this happens for the vast majority of KSI's, they believe that a considerable proportion of non-fatal casualties are not reported. (They know this because hospital and insurance data suggest a far greater number.) Second, as you also cite for cyclists, incidents on private roads and land, service stations, car parks etc. are not included.

Also, your examples of deaths/injuries being inaccurately recorded because of time delays also applies to incidents involving motor vehicles. So, official statistics under-represent these cases too.

Honestly, whatever way you want to spin it, cyclists really aren't the problem. Interesting graphic included below to illustrate this (I hope it works!).

Edit: Can't seem to include the graphic, so here's the link: https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-03/collision_matrix_2024_update.png