Has pedal power gone too far?

MadammeMarie

Check out on Monday 22nd Feb!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r0tbd

Already discussed in the "cake stop", but I thought, since this is will be shown in London, I should post it here also.

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15957239#15957239

Eau Rouge

There are about 2500 people killed every year in car accidents.
I can't see how this discussion can get past that point.

the_village_idiot

Eau Rouge wrote:

There are about 2500 people killed every year in car accidents.
I can't see how this discussion can get past that point.

thats a rather ignorant point of view though isn't it?! And the response to your second sentence is "very easily"

that figure (please name your source) is totally useless without knowing how many people DONT die in car accidents every year. Or better still, whats the death occurance per mile

compare that to cycling and TBH i would prob favour the car as the safer option- at least compared to commuting cycling

Compare the deaths per mile of cars, plane, train and cycling and you would get a more relevent figure. You would also have to factor in how serious an accident actually is in each different mode of transport- clearly plan & train accidents are vv rare- but they are almost always fatal. Cycling and cars crash more frequently- but your more likely to survive

Eau Rouge

Depends on how you look at it.
The stats are from the Dept of Transport (http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... esults2008) though more detailed info is available from that website and others. The Office for National Statistics webpages are dissapointing though.
The 2008 figures are down, no 2009 numbers yet, but 2500 seems a decent round number.

You could go figure it out as a percentage of miles travelled (I've seen a table of that somewhere, probably on the DfT website somehere, can't find it again) but that's if you care about "whats the safest mode of transport" or "where should be focus to save lives", stats that make motorbikes look unsafe, and I'm sure make cars out to be not terrible at all (I still drive)

It's not really the question here. This is specifically if cycling has "gone too far" and is becoming a problem to solve. Cycling does not kill 2500(or 2000) people a year, car driving does. No matter how you spin it as percentages, there are still about 2,500 (or 2000) people killed in or by cars and that has to be a bigger problem on the roads than the idiots on bikes who think traffic laws don't apply to them. When the idiots are killing as many people as the cars, then we can talk travel miles and percentages.

(BTW, how many people are killed by cyclists a year? As a percenatge of cyclists I'm going to bet thats a far better number than when you run it for cars)

cjw

I love the start...

With one in five cyclists riding roughshod over the laws of the road,

Of course, motorists never drive faster than 30 in a 30 zone, 60 in 60 etc... :roll:

I seem to recall last time I saw research on this it was close to 100% drivers break the law.

Also implies that if cyclists do wrong things there are drastic consequences. Cyclists riding roughshod cause negligable impact to anyone. Car drivers doing the same kill people.

Ho Humm.. rant over...

(and I do over 20,000 miles a year in the car)

Wallace1492

I think cycling is inherently more dangerous than car or train. And dangerous cycling, could have more serious consequences than dangerous driving, though mostly always for the cyclist.

Cyclists should learn how to cycle safely, and get good road awareness skills to protect them. However that will not protect them from bad drivers, and that is why cycling is more dangerous. We are in constant contact with vehicles, unlike pedestrians.

The per mile cyclist accidents will be higher that the per car mile accidents, so both are quite relevent to try and reduce the rates. Its all relative.