New Laws to force motorists to consider cycle and pedestrian safety needed urgently

[LadyDeliah]

There are thousands of cyclists and pedestrians injured, too many of whom are killed by motorists every year, but condemnation and vitriol seems to be reserved for cyclists.

After the death of a cyclist in West Dulwich in Thurlow Park road, the seventh this year alone, isn't it time to examine the dominance of lethal motorised vehicles on our roads with a view to changing the laws to make travel for cyclists and pedestrians alike safer and no longer treated as an inconvenience to drivers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23959657

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13040607

[Townleygreen]

well said, Lady D!

[henryb]

Absolutely. It would good if the police actually enforced the existing laws for cars.

[Parkdrive]

henryb Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Absolutely. It would good if the police actually

> enforced the existing laws for cars.

Agreed, but also think existing laws should be enforced for cyclists who insist on using pavements with scant regard for pedestrians.

[henryb]

So of the 77 pedestrians killed in London last year how many were killed by cyclists on the pavement?

[PeckhamRose]

And how many cyclists and pedestrians were on their mobiles at the time. Can we just stop always blaming just one or two sections of the road users?

[malumbu]

Quite the opposite. We need new laws to control pedestian behaviour. They should all be fitting with indicators and brake lights and a mirror, so that they can check before manoeuvering eg to stop to check a text or to do an instant video thingy.

Those who do not obbey the simple rule should risk being fined for dangerous pedestrianising, or pedestrianising without due care and attention.

Those who insist on totally flouting the laws, eg by not bothering to look at all because they are staring at a screen, should be made to wear a flashing warning light,or better still a person with a red flag walking in front of them.

Damn, I've just seen PR's post, which made this point far more succinctly.

Another thing is the myth that cyclists are busy killing pedestrians on the street. DfT collate cyclist/pedestrian injuries but not whether the pedestrian was on the street or crossing the road. Sadly a number of pedstrians die each year from cars mouting the pavement. Therefore most bikes are in collision with pedestrians because the latter are having to walk on the road to avoid cars that mount the pavement. Simple.

[Applespider]

If you haven't already, go and read the comments on the Standard's story about the Isle of Sheppey crash this morning.

There are quite a few tongue-in-cheek comments from regular cyclists about how it wouldn't have happened had all the cars been in high vis etc. Given how often any cycling story on there gets taken over by trolls, I found myself chuckling.

I'd support a law (like most of the rest of Europe) which enforces a presumption of liability in an accident to the less vulnerable - unless the vulnerable party was obviously at fault. So a cyclist is liable if they hit a pedestrian, a car driver is liable if they hit either cyclist or pedestrian and an HGV driver is liable if they hit anything smaller. It's not strict liability since if the vulnerable party acted in a negligent or a way that a reasonable driver wouldn't expect, they take their share of the blame.

I do wonder about those stats on cyclists hitting pedestrians. I'm not denying that there are idiots out there who do go through pedestrian crossing and pavements but the closest shaves I've ever had with pedestrians have always been on the road when the pedestrian has stepped off the kerb or into the cycle path without looking round. Can we bring back the green cross code?

[henryb]

Westminster council found that 60% of collisions between cyclists and pedestrians were the fault of the pedestrian. As the injury rate in such a collision is pretty much equal, pedestrians pose a bigger threat to cyclists than cyclists do to pedestrians.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/drivers-to-blame-for-twothirds-of-bicycle-collisions-in-westminster-8602166.html

[henryb]

PeckhamRose Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> And how many cyclists and pedestrians were on

> their mobiles at the time. Can we just stop always

> blaming just one or two sections of the road

> users?

We should focus our attention on the people who cause the most harm to others. That is true on the roads as it is anywhere else. When there is widespread killing of people who are not breaking the law and just going about their daily business in a city - then something needs to be done.

[malumbu]

Widespread killing of people sounds like there is natural born killer on a bike going round wiping people out.

Now if you want to talking about widespread killing then there are around 29,000 early deaths each year in the UK due to poor air quality, mainly due to emissions from diesel vehicles. That is of course a rather simplistic statistic, but still sobering.

Now a western soicety needs the motor vehicle, but does not need to use it to the exent that we do, nor drive it the way we do. So next time you see someone sitting in their diesel car or van, parked on their phone for several minutes with the engine idling, not only are they adding unecessarily to global warming, they are also killing you. There is your real mass murderer.

Oh read all this in the 'Mayor's air quality strategy' of the Commitee on the medical effects of air pollution, in case think I am making this up!

[henryb]

> Widespread killing of people sounds like there is natural born killer on a bike going round wiping people out.

That wasn't my intention.

> Now if you want to talking about widespread killing then there are around 29,000 early deaths each year in the UK due to

> poor air quality, mainly due to emissions from diesel vehicles. That is of course a rather simplistic statistic, but

> still sobering.

Yes we live in one of the most polluted cities in Europe yet very little is being done about it.

[LadyDeliah]

If anything else was causing the quantity of deaths and serious injuries / health problems that motoring causes, there would be a public outcry and calls to ban it.

Why are people so compacent when it comes to the amount of serious damage caused by motorists?

[Louisa]

I'm so glad the only thing I really care about is class, wine and Iceland. Some people need to take a chill pill.

Louisa.

[????]

:)

[????]

Anyway, I thought most of the deaths were actually Lorries and Bus drivers rather than motorists (millions of whom are of course both cyclists and pedestraianns too) but lumping them all together is a convenient narrative for anti-car driver rants

[LadyDeliah]

Haven't got the stats to hand, but from personal experience, the number of near misses I've suffered from arsehole drivers have been roughly equally distributed between car, truck and bus drivers.

The only ones that have actually hit me have been cars, but I guess I wouldn't be typing this if I'd been hit by a truck or a bus.

[titch juicy]

I personally reckon at least 3/4 of cycling deaths could have been avoided if the cyclists use more common sense. How many drivers of long vehicles have been prosecuted for killing cyclists? Very few I'd guess, for good reason.

ALL the blame and vitriol in the media for these incidents is directed towards the lorries and drivers and NONE to the careless cyclists. As a cyclist myself it drives me mad and it won't get any better until people stop starting knee-jerk, ill thought out threads like this.

Take some responsibility for your own actions.

[henryb]

That is like blaming rape victims for wearing short skirts. If you have any evidence that cyclists killed by HGVs were breaking the law then let's see it. The reality of it is that law abiding people who are choosing get about in a legal, safe way are being killed by people breaking the law.

[titch juicy]

Your post is so full of inaccuracies and emotional language that it renders it completely redundant.

How are the motorists breaking the law? If a cyclist rides up the inside of a long vehicle turning left with a blind spot, how is the motorist breaking the law? How can a lorry driver avoid hitting something they can't see?

I didn't mention anywhere about cyclists breaking the law- I said using common sense.

But, now you mention it, the thousands of cyclists that zoom theough red lights every day are breaking the law. And while you may consider it 'safe' to do so, at the very least it is antagonising other road users and pedestrians and making our wider cause as cyclists more difficult.

Cyclists NEED to stop putting ALL the blame on everyone else and start looking at their own behaviour.

[henryb]

Louisa Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm so glad the only thing I really care about is

> class, wine and Iceland. Some people need to take

> a chill pill.

>

> Louisa.

Are you prepared to say that to the bereaved families of these accidents? These are not ordinary deaths - they are violent, sudden and often young lives are cut short. The financial and emotional cost to both the family and wider society are huge.

Slightly more important than whether there are more middle class people eating salmon in your area or not. I would say.

[malumbu]

Titch juicy, it is not common sense it is having to anticipate drivers not seeing you and/or doing daft things and constant awareness of what is around you. Something that after 30 years of road use I am now resonably good at, to the extent that I can usually predict sudden lane changing etc. But even then I still get caught out, if for whatever reason I am thinking about something else. Car does a u-turn and it takes me an extra half a second to yell and have to swerve out of the way. Totally the driver's fault yet because I was not expecting it I could have been the one knocked to the ground.

Should all cyclists be expected to be as good as me? That's nothing to do with common sense (the latter is not doing daft things like trying to go through on the inside whilst vehicles are turning).

So what I have noticed more and more is essentially so many drivers (and this may apply to some cyclists as well, and certainly more and more pedestrians) are not carrying out the most essential thing when on the road (and also on the pavement).

Mirror (or look behind you), signal (tell people what you are doing), manoever. So bloody simple.

But no, manoeuvre (suddenly) and perhaps signal whilst you are doing it, and don't bother looking. Oh there is my turnin, swerve. Oh I must check my phone, sudden stop.

And just for some balance, who was the arse who cycled all the way up the Forest Hill Road pavement from outside the pharmacist to the cemetery this evening? Pavement narrows at the top to hardly the width for a single pedestrian let alone space for someone to cycle through past a couple of walkers. And the white van on its mobile. And the traffic doing 45mph going down the hil. Think I will just give up.....

[henryb]

titch juicy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Your post is so full of inaccuracies and emotional

> language that it renders it completely redundant.

>

>

> How are the motorists breaking the law? If a

> cyclist rides up the inside of a long vehicle

> turning left with a blind spot, how is the

> motorist breaking the law? How can a lorry driver

> avoid hitting something they can't see?

If you can't see where you are going and you hit something - you are driving without due care and attention and you are breaking the law. It is very likely you will get prosecuted. If you kill someone - it will be your fault. Saying "I couldn't see" - is NOT an excuse.

I really don't understand why so many drivers don't understand this.

> But, now you mention it, the thousands of cyclists that zoom theough red lights every day are breaking the law.

Yes but not as many as car drivers breaking the speed limit, stopping in ASZs, over taking too closely. And the big difference is when cyclists do they are mostly putting themselves at danger not other people.

[titch juicy]

I cycle to and from work every day, and have done for more than 4 years, on busy central London streets and can honestly say that the vast majority of motorists are considerate to cyclists. I just wish I could say that the vast majority of cyclists were as considerate. They simply are not.

My examples above were quite specific regarding cyclists being killed by cycling upmthe inside of vehicles turning left, I can't say for sure whether or not they were indicating to do so, but imagine they were as I very rarely see vehicles, particularly large ones that don't. This can be avoided by adding a not so precious ten seconds to your journey by waiting behind and letting the vehicle turn, eliminating the risk that they might not see you in their blind spot. It really is as simple as that.

Oh, and stop jumping red lights.

The overriding sense I get from being around other cyclists in London is that because they/we have the ability to get somewhere faster than a vehicle then every tiny time advantage HAS to be eked out all the time, in doing so. Regardless of whether it's law-abiding or safe.

I would put it to any cyclist that says they don't see this, that they are lying or not paying enough attention themselves to what is going on around them.

[titch juicy]

henryb Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> titch juicy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Your post is so full of inaccuracies and

> emotional

> > language that it renders it completely

> redundant.

> >

> >

> > How are the motorists breaking the law? If a

> > cyclist rides up the inside of a long vehicle

> > turning left with a blind spot, how is the

> > motorist breaking the law? How can a lorry

> driver

> > avoid hitting something they can't see?

>

> If you can't see where you are going and you hit

> something - you are driving without due care and

> attention and you are breaking the law. It is very

> likely you will get prosecuted. If you kill

> someone - it will be your fault. Saying "I

> couldn't see" - is NOT an excuse.

>

> I really don't understand why so many drivers

> don't understand this.

>

> > But, now you mention it, the thousands of

> cyclists that zoom theough red lights every day

> are breaking the law.

>

> Yes but not as many as car drivers breaking the

> speed limit, stopping in ASZs, over taking too

> closely. And the big difference is when cyclists

> do they are mostly putting themselves at danger

> not other people.

Find me a single example of a long vehicle driver successfully prosecuted for killing a cyclist simply for not seeing them in their blind spot.

TFL have it right

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/14799.aspx