To be scared of cycling on the road in this day and age?

[poshsinglemum]

I'd love to take up cycling but I would just be terrified of taking a bike out on the roads as they are so busy nowadays. I always think that parents with their kids on the seat on the back of the bike are really cool but I'm too chicken to do it myself.
I know there are cycle paths. No doubt if dd takes up cycling I won't sleep at night.

Joanne, your posts are rather on the extreme side and simply do not reflect the reality of road cycling in my 20 years of experience.

Firstly, you are choosing the relatively few stories of accidents/ mishaps and trying to say that this paints an accurate picture of what it's like cycling on the road. It doesn't. I say these stories are "relatively few" because every day thousands and thousands of people cycle on UK roads without a whisper of a hair of a bump.

Secondly, I have cycled in Waltham Forest - on all of the roads featured in that blog. I did so for about 6 years, including throughout my first pregnancy. Waltham Forest is extremely unrepresentative of driving on British roads, so it's a bad example to use. The drivers there are spectacularly bad, compared to drivers just about anywhere else in the country. In any case, even when cycling there for 6 years, I was FINE. It's awful that the poor 'Indiana Jones' character in that blog was hit by a lorry, but did you notice that he said he was hit because he wasn't looking where he was going? And not for the first time - earlier on he hit several potholes (in 20 years I've never hit one - I've always spotted them in good time). Just prior to his accident he was distracted by a road sign, then swerved to avoid an obstruction (rather than slowing down to a stop) and that's when the accident happened. So the accident has absolutely nothing to do with road cycling being unsafe, and everything to do with unobservant road users being unsafe.

Studies show that there are lots of things cyclists can do to make their road journeys much, much safer (such as looking where they're going!). I have already detailed some of those measures in my first post, and my experience taught me that the more confident and assertive I became, the safer I was on the road. If you chose not to take those measures whilst road cycling, it's no wonder that you are so fearful of it.

The thing is, telling everyone to cycle to work is all well and good so long as those people either have showers provided at work or don't mind paying for a gym membership so they can have a shower before work (assuming there's a gym close enough to work to walk from one to the other easily).

Cycling (eg) 10 miles slowly enough not to get sweaty would be torturous plus work gear is hardly practical cycle attire.

Also, our habit of building light industrial/office units on main road corridors that are not accessible by bike and have no public transport.

Maybe a requirement on developers to subsidise public transport to new sites until it gets to self-sustaining volume would work better.

Coalition- that's exactly what I thought when I saw the article. Almost all companies that provide subtantial amounts of employee car parking (ie which would be impacted by this)are basically on industrial parks off motorway junctions where there is often little practical alternative than to drive.

Arguably, motorway traffic isn't the real issue anyway. It's city centre traffic.

I agree they could look at public transport, but the issue with many of these huge sites is that the employee catchment area is also massive so it's difficult to know where to start the bus from.

Joanne, your posts are rather on the extreme side and simply do not reflect the reality of road cycling in my 20 years of experience.

I don't entirely disagree with you, the point however is that you are a small minority. Pretty much everyone drives, but how many people have 20 years of road cycling experience? Not many. Why? Because people perceive cycling as inconvenient and dangerous. The perception is what matters, and the sort of things on that blog are by no means exclusive to Waltham Forest, cycle lanes are crap everywhere, cycle routes don't link up properly, and any non-cyclist gets the perception that cycling is crap, unvalued and dangerous.

Re sweating, you can get electric-assisted batteries, they make up 52% (by value, 35% by volume) of new bikes sold in Holland. Should help with the sweating issue.

But, but, but that's just cheating!

I used to not worry about cycling and was a keen and careful cyclist.

One evening a car turned right in front of me and left me with compound fractured femures etc etc.

After lots of surgery I decided I won't cycle on roads again.

I live in London and drivers are often in a hurry, make quick decisions and imo sometimes simply 'don't see' cyclists.

killer drivers should be banned for life, but that never happens.

Why should this woman be allowed on the roads again? www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/4025445.HIGHAMS_PARK__Finlay_Woods__killer_jailed_for_seven_years/

Or this man? www.echo-news.co.uk/news/2130434.0/

Back in the 70's one of my fathers work mates commuted to work cycling - I say commute as it was from Derby to Coventry, 12 hour shifts and a cycle to and fro work, 52 miles one way, so 104 miles round trip.

he had lost his job, got another but didn't have the money for a car - took him just over 2 hours each way

PSM
This is a real wasps' nest, isn't it ?
and can see your POV.

One piece of advice:
Try to get DD to cycle with someone who is really confident and competent; it will rub off and quite quickly too.

JOA, So weird that the echo example only got a 5 year ban. Bizarre.

Not weird, it's policy. Drivers are not made accountable for their actions, killing people with cars is a-ok.

45 pounds per person killed is about the going rate: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-398901/Fury-driver-killed-cyclists-fined-180.html (And don't expect the police to investigate properly 'the police failed to announce the tyres were defective until 26 weeks after the crash, by which time it was too late' And if they do, they'll still let drivers who run over cyclists then throw the evidence in the bushes drive again, after only 3 years: www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Family-slam-jailed-trucker-who.5780942.jp)

Human life is valued much lower than motor vehicles. 4.5 dead cyclists = 1 keyed car. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239258/The-kindly-grandmother-vandalised-20-000-Mercedes-keys.html

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. It has been very useful for me.

My DD aged 10 wasn't allowed to ride a bike for medical reasons until recently. Her doctors realised that she is at an age when she will have increased freedom and opportunity to do it anyway so with their permission and risk-management she has been learning and never goes out without trousers / long sleeves / wrist / elbow / knee pads / helmet and a sanitary pad for a bit of extra protection.

DD is doing really really well and has had no real tumbles. She has been taught how to fall if she wobbles and I am very proud of her.

I'm thirty nine at the end of the year, hadn't ridden a bike since I was ten myself but DH bought me one and one for him plus a trailer for DS aged 3.

We have had so much fun in the summer evenings going around the cycle lanes nearby. We're very lucky to have good ones.

Can't drive a car and need to learn because DS has SN and may need to go to a school miles away.

I hope to learn soon and I have been heartened to hear how people on this thread consider themselves to be better drivers thanks to cycling.

Certainly I have polished up on road skills myself since being out on the bike and they'll stand me in good stead when I take lessons.

Cheers again

You can get some bikes well-equipped to go long distances with large children, such as this: www.dutchbike.co.uk/Family1.htm That's equipped with zero-maintenance hub gears, enclosed chain, dynamo lights, and will depreciate much less than a car.

There are other options too:

www.practicalcycles.com/page49.htm

The Kona Ute is fairly swift and light: www.practicalcycles.com/page48.htm

For regular bikes, you can fit seats, like this one www.bobike.nl/products/en/bobike_junior.htm?fluxmenu=m12____m2 for children age 5-10.

Riven: I would love to see people charged for parking at work, but it won't make any difference to whether they drive. £250 per year will be mopped up by their firms.

A partner in a law firm who lives next door and works 50m away from where I work always drives because he has free parking.

Home to work: The distance in question? 1.5 miles.

Time by car? 30 minutes. Time on foot? 30 minutes. Time by bike? 12 minutes.

Re pavement parking. That is also a big problem where I live and neither the Police nor the Council is interested. National legislation against it (and then proper enforcement) would be enough to get my vote in the next election!

Interestingly, the Police run massive local campaigns cracking down on pavement cycling!

Mums round where I live have made some fake Police warning stickers that we put on illegally parked cars that are blocking the pavement. They look like penalty notices, but make clear in 'small print' that they're just a personal request. They are really hard to get off the glass!!!

Freewheeler has a nice post today about how to solve the problem of pavement cycling: crapwalthamforest.blogspot.com/2010/08/pavement-cycling-danger-solution.html

I would like to add - I was cycling on the B4040 last week, I had come to the juncion with the B4040 (I had come from upper mintey) and realised that large lorries where using the road as tow passed as i was at the junction.

i cycled along aorund 1.5 miles (towards malesmbury) of this road and three lorries passed me - though they all three went over the white lines and where comptley on the other side of the road as far away as possible from me, the last lorry waited patiently until he could overtake in this manner.

TBH I have found the larger vehicles including lorries and trucks do overtake and put there nearside wheels over the white line so all four wheels are over completly away form the cyclist.