Safe Speed Forums

Indeed!


I don’t doubt you get the odd nutter, but if these people want to race a speed camera won’t stop them, directly or indirectly. I would think use of a defined crossing point should alleviate much of the problem, I’ve never seen anyone race though such crossings.

Pavements do create conflict points between pedestrians and vehicles, which is why, mile for mile, it's safer to cycle on the road than it is to walk. 700 deaths a year is a lot for a group who are notionally kept seperated from the danger.
It is impossible to design a cyclepath which is safer to ride on than the road. It certainly couldn't be imposed on the existing road network in London, and the famous redways in Milton Keynes and the new bits of Stevenage have not proved to be any safer for cyclists than the roads in those places.
On roads, junctions are the most dangerous place fo all traffic, lights and roundabouts are "fixes" but the problem can't be eliminated.

“Every cycle track is used by pedestrians as well and the accident rate on them is 12 times higher than on the real roads”
Why is this? Can you link the source?


It doesn’t matter how it is interpreted. The fact remains, accidents involving cyclists are not ‘freak accidents’, it just seems that way because there are relatively few incidents, which is not surprising given that there is (disproportionately) less exposure. If this exposure is substantially increased, regulation of cyclists will become inevitable!

The design of the road encourages racing, not by odd nutters, but by most drivers going up the hill. The ones in the inside lane know that they'll be blocked at the top unless they avoid being overtaken. The ones in the outside lane aren't going to let themselves be overtaken on the inside, so it's a race to the top. The answer would be to have just one lane and a solid white line, but I don't see that happening, so it's:- "Pedestrians! Watch out!"
Changing the road in this way would almost certainly stop the speeding and therefore obviate the need for a camera, and would be the better solution.

Is that figure for pedestrians?


I don’t know the other places you mention but having lived in west London for several years, going everywhere by bike (usually going faster than the traffic), it’s obvious that the traffic isn’t going fast enough to worry about. It’s the taxis doing u-turns that get...... got me.

Cycle lanes should become a real benefit in areas where cyclists are most at risk, where the traffic is speeding past at 60mph or more. A speed camera won’t stop a car squishing a cyclist at 60, but a cycle path will surely help. It’s also very unlikely to have a significant number of pedestrians where cars are allowed to do 60 anyway.


Let me sum up: are you saying that, all things being equal, you as a cyclist would not use a cycle path/lane?

Wikipedia is not always right, but this artical seems to be well researched.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregated ... facilities

"For urban roads, with many junctions, accident analysis suggests ... that segregated cycling facilities are likely to increase collisions. These conclusions are supported by the experience of countries that have implemented segregated cycling facilities. In the U.S.[2], UK[3], Germany, Sweden[4], Denmark[5], and Finland[6], it has been found that cycling on roadside urban cycle tracks/sidepaths results in significant, up to 12 fold, increases in the rate of car/bicycle collisions. At a 1991 European conference on cycling, the term Russian roulette was openly used to describe the use of roadside cycle paths."

Thanks. This looks interesting. Let me have a read (and a break from my PC) and I’ll get back

I'd only use a cycle lane on a road if it happened to be exactly where I'd be riding anyway, which is usually not the case. I prefer roads without them, research has shown that motorists give cyclists less clearance when overtaking if there's a white line painted on the road between them. (Actually that's something you'd understand here: give a motorist a target and he'll aim for the target; don't give him a target and he'll use his own judgement.) I'd never use a roadside cycle path, I'd ride on the road. I have used cycle paths which take me well away from he road in order to enjoy the quiet and clean air, but this means giving way to pedestrians and taking a lot of extra care at junctions, and generally riding at a much more sedate pace. (And even being attacked by dogs.) Only an option if I have a lot of time.

I won't use cyclepaths much at all .They don't go where i want to go ,and they are way so much slower than the roads .It's like drivers being sent on B roads when there is a motorway.(Yeah i know the law is different)

Now ,the icon man hasn't been back but "c) there is a nother site which you could look up - Dianetrics. This will help you confront whatever stress in your life which is causing you such unproductive and negative stress. " is bad stuff if he ment it.

I got done by those people ,did a test and they were going to help me .I was with them f two years then i needed a year with psychiatrist .Stay away from the Sceintologists .Believe me.

Gullible fool

It would appear many readers missed the sarcasm in IG post. Even if so, from that there is no way to conclude that IG is a scientologist, let alone "the Swiss" - as some in C+ have indeed done; but hey, don’t let straight forward logic get in the way of a good troll.

Those people really should grow up.

So two forms of treatment didn't work then?

www.rentokil.co.uk/troll_infestations/bait_traps

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Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...

So surely the answer here would actually be better driver attitude? A bit more 'give and take' and a bit less 'me first'? I see this kind of behaviour everywhere - selfish, aggressive and POINTLESS. Cameras won't change attitudes.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Eh? Cameras have changed attitudes massively. For the worse, that is.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

We could all benefit from a massive change in driver attitude, and traffic planner atttude, too; roads seem to be designed by people who know what driving is but don't actually do it; and have no clue about cycling at all. Badly designed roads can lead to bad driving which then becomes a habit. Perhaps the test could be made much harder so that the period of instruction is longer: I still remember the things I was taught and I see some of the most important points ignored by motorists who will risk everything to get one car's length ahead.
Until roads are designed by God and cars are driven by angels we will have to provide constraints, such as speed limits for instance, and enforce them.
SS aims to improve driving skills and target the genuinely dangerous but all people see of it is an anti-enforcement campaign. The opposition to it on C+ comes from cyclists who do not want to share roads with Nigel Mansell wannabees.

The opposition on C+ is from one member with a obsessive grudge, a few people with an anti-car political agenda which they keep mostly hidden and half a dozen lazy sheep who can't be bothered to read the SS site properly and follow on

I think we used to be excellent at roads design, but sense has gone out of the window as 'trasnport ideology' and dreams of 'modal shift' have crept in.



Making the driving test harder is no use, because the skills that we depend on are acquired after we pass the test. See: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11112

Random enforcement of technical violations is positively harmful. We have to target the resources on the real safety problems.



I don't know about 'people'. Lots of the people who matter are very well aware of what we're saying and why we're here. And I think the opposition on C+ basically comes from loonies.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I took 1 look at this sketch (for some reason SS won't display this) and soon appreciated what you meant. However, as I suspected:

“Accident analysis suggests that there is merit in providing segregated space for cyclists on arterial routes with few junctions to minimize the number of collisions.”

I can only assume these are where a higher proportion of fatalities and serious injuries occur.


The weighting for arterial and urban roads must be correctly accounted for to determine if there is an overall net benefit. Simply quoting “the accident rate on them is 12 times higher” is misleading as it clearly does not factor in the benefit from arterial cycle paths. Also, it is “up to 12 times”, not “is 12 times”. Furthermore, only the collisions are quantified; what about the overall injury and overall fatality rates? Surely casualty stats are what is important?

Let’s consider the urban cycle paths as it is only these that have a negative impact. The problem here, as you already highlighted, are at the junctions. It would seem that with incidents here are a result of inattention of drivers turning in/out of the junction. It is reasonable to conclude that the use of a cycle lane further hides the cyclist from a driver’s nominal view (especially the oncoming cyclists), resulting with an increased risk of SMIDSY. A driver won’t be exceeding the speed limit when turning in/out of a junction, so a camera placed here can’t have any positive benefit for cyclists crossing these junctions. In fact, the attention deficit is likely to be increased from the speedo gazing resulting from the placement of speed cameras for those driving straight on. Weigh this up against the less than 5% benefit of likelihood/severity (discussed previously) from camera use and you’ll begin to see the bigger picture that we see.

Speed cameras may be of small benefit if there are no/few junctions, but clearly there is greater benefit using a cycle path.

I take your point and agree that cycle paths crossing over frequent junctions could be a significant determent to the safety of cyclists, but placement of a speed camera instead certainly won’t help either. How about you post something in the brainstorming section regarding better cycle path design?



As usual, things are not quite as black and white as they seem.
Consider the car following behind another. That driver will see the lead car move right but due to the geometry he won’t be able to see why so perhaps assumes the driver is turning right (especially if the lead driver is slowing down, if only to pass the cyclist at a safer speed). The following driver will be tempted to position themselves for a pass, a painted cycle lane will discourage this dangerous displacement to the left. No cycle lane and the cyclist ahead is in real danger of being shunted.

It'd be nice if the sensible majority made themselves heard.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

nope, people just treat them as an extension of the 'normal' road and dive into them regardless.

Are such actions socially wrong? Would that be an offence? if not, should it be?