What percentage of cycle related deaths are purely caused by poor drivers ?

redjeepǃ

Folks,

Back in 2009 the Guardian ran this article showing that only a tiny proportion of cyclist related 'accidents' (don't really like that word in this context), were down to the action of the cyclist and the vast majority were the fault of poor drivers.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study

Does anybody know if there's a more up to date report that breaks down the same factors? Ie of all uk accidents by who caused them ( cyclist, driver or combined)?

Thanks.

mully79

If there were no cars there would be only a handful of cycling deaths.
If there were no cyclists there would still be loads of car accidents and deaths.
Therefore, my logic dictates all accidents are mostly due to car drivers.

sophia.carter598

Do not agree. It sounds like cyclists never do stupid things on a road.
They do. And this can be a cause of an accident.
Therefore, my logic is - if there were no people, there would be no cycling deaths

pblakeney

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

redjeepǃ

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

It's the hard evidence I'm looking for.
Do you have any for the 90% number ?

redjeepǃ

mully79 said:

If there were no cars there would be only a handful of cycling deaths.
If there were no cyclists there would still be loads of car accidents and deaths.
Therefore, my logic dictates all accidents are mostly due to car drivers.

Thats not really logic that proves its the motorists fault, that just proves that the environment in which we cycle is dangerous.

pblakeney

redjeepǃ said:

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

It's the hard evidence I'm looking for.
Do you have any for the 90% number ?

You won't find it.

joeyhalloran

It's pretty hard to lay all the blame on a single party in any accident, even if you knew exactly what happened. To workout an exact portion of the blame once the dust has settled would be impossible.

sophia.carter598

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

pblakeney said:

redjeepǃ said:

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

It's the hard evidence I'm looking for.
Do you have any for the 90% number ?

You won't find it.

I see some contradiction here.
Even if so, who are the other 10%?

pblakeney

sophia.carter598 said:

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

pblakeney said:

redjeepǃ said:

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

It's the hard evidence I'm looking for.
Do you have any for the 90% number ?

You won't find it.

I see some contradiction here.
Even if so, who are the other 10%?

To sum up. This thread is pointless.

redjeepǃ

pblakeney said:

sophia.carter598 said:

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

pblakeney said:

redjeepǃ said:

pblakeney said:

90% of accidents are car drivers fault.
Disagree? Prove me wrong with hard evidence.

It's the hard evidence I'm looking for.
Do you have any for the 90% number ?

You won't find it.

I see some contradiction here.
Even if so, who are the other 10%?

To sum up. This thread is pointless.

Thats certainly possible, but there used to be data available that looked at collisions and was able to determine blame. That's what the link was to.
All that I was trying to see was if there was anything more up to date.
I'd have thought certain collisions could be categorised fairly easily ie rear end collisions in broad daylight ( which are a high proportion of all fatalities) and others less easily so.

davidof

There's been a lot of research on cycle related deaths and accidents.

The more cyclists there are on the roads, the fewer deaths due to critical mass

In the UK around 80% of serious accidents for cyclists involve a motor vehicle according to research.

https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/report/Study_on_serious_road_traffic_injuries_in_the_EU/9353702 etc.

How many are badly driven is another matter, but quite a high percentage I would imagine. 20% of serious accidents are cyclists on their own crashing. So lets say 20% of the road collisions are really the cyclist's fault as well we have about 60% of serious accidents and deaths down to driver error.

You are welcome

First.Aspect

I recall there was a study from NZ a while ago on this. They concluded that even the 75% dricer mostly at fault stat was biased towards drivers, because dead cyclists can't explain that they didn't in fact appear from nowhere. Or something like that.

davep1

redjeepǃ said:

mully79 said:

If there were no cars there would be only a handful of cycling deaths.
If there were no cyclists there would still be loads of car accidents and deaths.
Therefore, my logic dictates all accidents are mostly due to car drivers.

Thats not really logic that proves its the motorists fault, that just proves that the environment in which we cycle is dangerous.

...it's only dangerous because of the drivers though...

drhaggis

davidof said:

How many are badly driven is another matter, but quite a high percentage I would imagine. 20% of serious accidents are cyclists on their own crashing. So lets say 20% of the road collisions are really the cyclist's fault as well we have about 60% of serious accidents and deaths down to driver error.

You are welcome

Your maths are off. If the cyclist is to blame in 20% of the remaining 80% of the car-bike serious RTA's, drivers would be responsible in ~65% of KSI cyclists.

Still doesn't change anything, and I have the impression drivers are to blame in somewhat more than 80% of those accidents (anecdotical evidence, I know).

davidof

drhaggis said:

I have the impression drivers are to blame in somewhat more than 80% of those accidents (anecdotical evidence, I know).

Yes, maybe but I see some pretty poor cyclists on the roads as well. When you are on your bike you have to appreciate you are sharing the roads not king of the road.

wolfsbane2k

There are a number of issues around this issue and how the determination of "only responsible" for is assessed and measured, and it's primarily driven by the assessements of a police officer who attends a collision in which someone is injured and records it as a "contributing factor" (CF) in that injury.

Primarily, this is because
1) The police officer may not have actually attended the incident
2) The decision is/can be based on witness statements/hearsay from either side
3) It's possible to input multiple, different contributing factors are possible to any party involved in an incident that leads to an injury, without setting a "priority":

for example, a collision in which a rider pulls out of a side road onto a 30mph main road and is hit by a driver doing 100mph is likely to be recorded as both cyclist failing to look, and failing to assess other road users speed, and the driver having excessive speed, when if the driver had been doing 30mph, the cyclist would have been fine.

In that incident (sadly, a real one), 2 Contributing factors are allocated to the cyclist, 1 to the driver, so using the raw stats 19 data which doesn't assign blame, is likely to acertain that the cyclist was "more" at fault.

However, in that guise:
In 2015 in portsmouth a road traffic collision assessment specifically looking at PHV safety, used this approach and determined that PHV drivers were solely at fault for 74% of collisions involving bike riders.

This aligns with previous assessments by west midlands police etc that kicked off the whole OpClosePass thing that came to the conclusion that at junctions in an incident where a rider was injured, a driver, solely, was 99% at fault, and elsewhere approx 77% at fault ( I have the report somewhere)

Make of that what you will

redjeepǃ

Thanks wolfsbane2k. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

If you could find the report, or a link, that would be great. 👍

wolfsbane2k

redjeepǃ said:

Thanks wolfsbane2k. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

If you could find the report, or a link, that would be great. 👍

Portsmouth PHV report
https://democracy.portsmouth.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=3555

Report 10, Section 7.11
"During the period 1 Sept 2011 - 30 September 2014 (3 year's data) taxis and
PHVs were involved in 120 reported road traffic incidents.
36 of these incidents involved taxis/PHVs and pedal cyclists. Of these, the
taxi/PHV driver was recorded as "at fault" in 29 cases, the pedal cyclist in 5
cases, and joint fault in 2 cases."

So apologises, it's not 74%, but 80% driver at fault.
(Not sure how at fault was determined, as that's not in Stats19 data. Probably from the Hampshire Police input into that report)


The West Midlands report is here:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/request_for_report_that_inspired?nocache=incoming-1687531#incoming-1687531
Under attachments, called "KSI RTCs involving bicycles 2010 2014 v2.pdf"

I understand that that's the "first iteration" of that report; requests for later updates were rejected, but it includes the line

"From this, it is inferred that most KSI RTCs in the West Midlands involving bicycles occur when a car has pulled out of a junction in front of a bicycle that is mid-junction because the car driver has failed to spot the bicycle"

redjeepǃ

Brilliant. Thanks wolfsbane2k.

wolfsbane2k

redjeepǃ said:

Brilliant. Thanks wolfsbane2k.

No probs. Don't let opinion get in the way of facts, obviously...

sophia.carter598

davep1 said:

redjeepǃ said:

mully79 said:

If there were no cars there would be only a handful of cycling deaths.
If there were no cyclists there would still be loads of car accidents and deaths.
Therefore, my logic dictates all accidents are mostly due to car drivers.

Thats not really logic that proves its the motorists fault, that just proves that the environment in which we cycle is dangerous.

...it's only dangerous because of the drivers though...

Roads are dangerous because of high speeds and traffic. We shouldn't separate accidents on motorists and cyclists. Because, cyclists agree to become a part of this deadly game, when they get on a bike.

pblakeney

...so too do people getting in cars.
To the tune of around 1800 dead per year in the UK, 36,000 in the USA in RTA.

wolfsbane2k

sophia.carter598 said:

Because, cyclists agree to become a part of this deadly game, when they get on a bike.

Not sure about you, but i, and many others, don't "agree" to be part of any deadly game.

It's forced on us through numerous factors, not least the appropriate authorities not providing protected infrastructure for people to travel on.

and why is it called protected infra? Because people cycling and walking need protection from the potential killing machines at the hands of other people.

sophia.carter598

wolfsbane2k said:

appropriate authorities not providing protected infrastructure for people to travel on.

Knowing this, we keep driving down the road and putting ourselves in danger

sophia.carter598

Thank you Oxoman, you are completely right. Instead of blaming drivers, we have to understand that rules are for both

john80

The highway code asks you to stop in the distance you can see. If we include this to include hazards then there would be little or no deaths. As a driver and a cyclist as most are I regard all incidences where a driver hits a cyclist from behind or sideswipes as fully the drivers fault. The risk is obvious but people generally don't care.

mully79

Whilst I’m sure the Highway Code has some valuable information there isn’t any reason for a driver to read it once they’ve passed their test.

Even now they’ve changed it, who’s going to read it other than vulnerable road users on social media and lawyers ?

pblakeney

sophia.carter598 said:

Thank you Oxoman, you are completely right. Instead of blaming drivers, we have to understand that rules are for both

I'm sure that we do.
What is your point?

redjeepǃ

sophia.carter598 said:

Thank you Oxoman, you are completely right. Instead of blaming drivers, we have to understand that rules are for both

Yes, the rules apply to all road users, however the sad fact is that the vast majority of cyclist deaths are down to mistakes by drivers, not themselves, so it's clear where the focus needs to lie. It would also help if the courts and the media accepted this and give out meaningful sentences and change the way that they're reported.

Whilst I can accept a certain amount of risk when I go out on by bike, I do not agree that other roadusers are free to increase this risk to me (but not themselves generally), by their actions such as carelessness, driving under the influence, complacency or allowing themselves to be distracted.

First.Aspect

sophia.carter598 said:

Thank you Oxoman, you are completely right. Instead of blaming drivers, we have to understand that rules are for both

Dear Ms Drivealot, it is worth bearing in mind that cyclists are roughly 100 times more likely to die, per mile. And that there are various reasons why you might want to promote cycling over driving in cities. Such as congestion, lung damage and climate change. Just little things.

So the "let's all just get along" message is profoundly simplistic and does not take into account the likelihood or proportionality of harms.

The rules are fine - it is just that there is almost no consequence to drivers ignoring them and killing and maiming someone and there is far too much emphasis on treating cyclists the same as other road users. Why? Cyclists weight 1/20th of a car, go half the speed and kill about 1/2000th as many people.