Bath-Bristol path "not the place for reckless speed cycling" says Sustrans after 9-year-old breaks collar bone in collision

arfa wrote:

There's a lot of circularity here but if you use a route subject to certain publicly available guidelines (sound familiar?) and you ignore them and are involved in an accident, don't think that your opinions are going to count for squat diddly in a court of law. The judge will look at the publicly available guidelines (on the internet) and decide if you are outside of them. If you have ignored the guidelines, I hope you are very well insured with a policy without caveats for your own stupidity, otherwise you will be writing a large cheque.
We can argue over who the routes are for etc but it is irrelevant in terms of this story.

And the DfT* is quite clear a utility cycle path should be safe to 20mph. So who wins DfT or Sustrans.... Hence why it has to be decided what the path is for.

*section 8.2, Cycle Infrastructure Design

End of the day the accident could have been avoided by a lot of different decisions, and on the basis that the adult cyclist appears not to have been injured i would suggest they weren't actually going that fast! Witnesses are notoriously unreliable!

Problem i have is the path is not fit for purpose if incidents like this happen. You have people complaining about the various cycle superhighways in London being substandard, sorry the issue is global.

Infrastructure for non motorised travel, be it foot or cycle, is so often badly designed and all to often results in stupid accidents. I have seen footpaths cross 70mph dual carriageways or Railway lines! Then there are the subways that flood in wet weather. How about shared use paths that cross driveways or that are covered in tree roots?

To say that conflict will always happen is a very defeatist approach, shall we just say that cars kill people and not try and do something about it?

I see a lot of shared paths and all too often they simply don't work as cycle paths yet this is what is provided, this is what drivers demand we use. How often do you hear the comment, why aren't you using the cycle path? Yet when you look at it the path doesn't work. Humans are vey predictable, the way they behave is predictable and it is down to designers to minimise the results of human stupidity.

People do what is easy, why don't people stop driving and cycle more? Because it is easy to drive!

arfa wrote:

As I have said elsewhere, the battle for cycling is nothing to do with those of us who already do, it is the 60% who want to, but are too afraid to do so. That is what sustrans are doing and that is where the battle will be won

It won't be won by failing to keep up with the capacity needed and then reacting to the obvious consequences by flaming the users instead of the councils who are failing to provide enough capacity to keep up with traffic growth.

Contrast the failure to expand the Bristol to Bath cycle routes with the dualling of the A4 and the expansions of parallel A roads.

arfa wrote:

"We have no evidence that the adult cyclist was belting along knocking out a strava segment, nor that the parents were not trying to control their child."

Go back to the code of conduct. There is nothing in there about "control" of a child. As an adult, a greater burden of responsibility is (rightly) on your shoulders around children.

This made up code of conduct by Sustrans, what is it? I mean its not legally binding, it can never be enforced and wouldnt stand up in court, so what is the point of it?

I appreciate some of the work Sustrans have done but their targets are 1) weekend leisure cyclists 2) children 3) students. They are not speaking for me as a weekend club rider and week commuter, they seem to go quite on issues relating to myself and safer roads yet the Sustran cycle routes I have used in Leeds are the most anti commuter routes you can imagine, its safer and quicker on the roads.

3cylinder wrote:

So we want drivers to use caution and respect cycles on the roads shared by bikes and cars, but aren't prepared to use caution and respect pedestrians on paths shared by cycles and walkers? That's what it sounds like reading some of these comments.

Well, we're prepared to do so, but can't we also expect other cycles and walkers to use caution and respect too? This coverage seems like a one-sided pile-in except for these comments.

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Speed up if it's clear, slow down if it isn't - is that so terribly difficult? If that doesn't fit what you want to do, don't use the path.

It probably looked clear enough to the other rider until the child swerved out.

Don't use the path? OK, so if we don't like the cycle-hostile A roads (which the Councils that Used to Be Avon occasionally refuse to make cycle-friendlier because most cyclists use the BBRP), shall we all just give up this cycling for transport lark and drive instead?

GoingRoundInCycles wrote:

Right so what we have is not a commuter (not that it matters in the slightest) but a leisure cyclist cycling on a crowded shared path on a Sunday afternoon, travelling so fast that he was unable to stop in time to prevent a collision with a child.

Ever heard of shift work? no thought not, you may be surprised to learn that LOTS of people work on every day of the week

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Not only that but he was travelling so fast that the poor child and this adult halfwit were 'thrown from their bikes onto the ground'.

If you come to an abrupt halt you tend to some off, proves nothing in itself. If the adult was cut up bruised etc you might be on to something.
Right.

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You know what, Sorry Kid I Didn't See You isn't good enough. If that was my child I am telling you that he would have needed to have that racing bike surgically removed after I'd parked it securely in his arse crack. The parents are saints.

maybe the parents should have told there 9 year old how to ride in a shared environment. That pulling out without looking is probably a bad idea!

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At the very least, there were two pedestrians and four cyclists coming slowly the other way and this unobservant, inconsiderate or just plain moronic cyclist continued to cycle at a speed sufficient to throw him to the ground in a collision with a child and break the young lad's collar bone i.e. massively faster than walking pace. Totally inappropriate. Totally indefensible.

speed and breaks are unrelated, it is how you land that causes the problem. a crash at 5 mph might break a bone, it might not.

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Reading some of these comments, I don't know whether to laugh or shake my head with pity at the immaturity. The primary purpose of a cycling path (shared or otherwise) is to provide a safer option for those who would prefer not to cycle on the roads. They are not built to save you time on your commute or allow you to average 20mph or whatever. That isn't the criteria for measuring their success.

If you feel the only point of cycle paths is to get cycles off the road, then IMO they have failed. Or you have incredibly low expectations. IF you want people to stop driving you have to make it attractive not to drive, making journeys longer, more convoluted, mixing dogs, runners, etc. using indirect routes to add even more distance, all of this makes cycling less attractive. It also gives a substantial number of drivers a stick to beat cyclists with, you have your "cyclepath" use it!!!!

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A shared cycle path that gets you to work 20 mins later than you would have got there on busy roads because you are not a moron and proceed with extreme caution around pedestrians is not a failure and hasn't been badly designed. Using it massively reduced your chances of avoiding a collision, which is its purpose. If you got to work in one piece with massively reduced stress levels, the path did its job.

and a path that takes 20mins longer than the alternative routes won't be used because it takes 20mins longer. If the path is occupied by pedestrians, dogs on extended leads, running loose, it very soon becomes safer to play with the cars because they are predictable in their stupid movements.

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So if speed and efficiency is your ultimate priority on a bike .... you know where the road is. Good luck.

No I want to get to work in a reasonable time, If I am in a park I expect to see people playing if I am on the road I don't expect people to be playing. Is that hard?

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For the rest of us who would just rather get to our destinations in one piece, shared paths are great at best and better than nothing at worst ... just don't be a muppet around pedestrians, joggers, dog walkers, skateboarders, rollerskaters or anyone else exercising their equal right to share the path with you .... that shouldn't be too onerous a burden, no?

If the purpose of a shared path is a park, yes, if the purpose of a shared path is transport then it has failed and should never be refered to as a shared path/cycle path or anything else. It is not, is does the chances of getting decent infrastructure in the UK a disservice. So to sum up a bad cycle path is worse than useless.

If you want to create parks and green spaces where people cycle then fine, but you have to design it to accept some will go to fast and stop it happening, people will be people. But DO NOT CALL IT A CYCLE PATH!!!!!!!!

pastaman wrote:

Bravo Goingroundincycles - agree with every word you have written here. I normally keep out these threads, but this one has gone to far. The selfishness and intolerance of some posters on here is simply breath taking - no wonder cycling has such an image problem. Also i love the hypocrisy of the 'victim blaming' going on here - yet in other stories where someone makes the mildest suggestion that a cyclist might want to take a tiny bit of responsibility for their own safety etc. there are howls of indignation / outrage. Its clear that many people posting this crap are not parents and have no idea what they are talking about.

Its as simple as this: if you ride at 20 miles per hour and hit a small child, you could kill them. Think about that. That will live with you for the rest of your life. And no amount of selfrighteous ranting will ever change that. My son nearly got run down in similar circumstances few years ago - I wouldn't have been nearly so restrained as the parents above.

I really dislike the kinds of posts that just make blanket straw-man accusations against unspecified other posters but don't actually engage with anything anyone has actually said.

levermonkey wrote:

A footpath is a footpath , is a footpath, is a footpath! Whether a footpath is shared or not is irrelevant; it is still a footpath.

However, the BBRP was constructed as a shared cycling and walking path by "cycling charity sustrans" then called "cyclebag" (source). As a shared path, it should be shared, and that means everyone sharing responsibility.

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Just remember a car doing 30mph is travelling slowly but a cyclist doing 25mph will be described as 'speeding'.

And there's the nub of the problem. Is cycling only for people who don't need to get anywhere at any particular time, or have time to pootle along at little more than walking speed?

Here we've got a cyclist probably doing less than 20mph (the BBRP predates current design standards and there are few sections where you can go that fast without risking damage to yourself or the bike) and is still criticised for their speed - while as others opine in earlier comments, the crash may well have happened to some degree at a lower speed anyway because the basic problem was visibility/not looking before you move.

mrmo wrote:

GoingRoundInCycles wrote:

Right so what we have is not a commuter (not that it matters in the slightest) but a leisure cyclist cycling on a crowded shared path on a Sunday afternoon, travelling so fast that he was unable to stop in time to prevent a collision with a child.

Ever heard of shift work? no thought not, you may be surprised to learn that LOTS of people work on every day of the week

What difference does it make? If this 'shift worker' chooses a shared path to commute to work on a Sunday afternoon then he should leave extra time for his journey knowing that in all probability the path will be busy and therefore a fair proportion of his journey will be achieved at slightly faster than walking pace. If that isn't good enough, use the road.

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Not only that but he was travelling so fast that the poor child and this adult halfwit were 'thrown from their bikes onto the ground'.

If you come to an abrupt halt you tend to some off, proves nothing in itself. If the adult was cut up bruised etc you might be on to something.

The adult cyclist seriously needs to work on his bike skills if he cannot emergency stop from < 8 mph without being thrown to the ground .... he should have scrubbed off a ton of speed and been coasting, covering the brakes long before he approached the group coming towards him. If he had any manners, that is.

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You know what, Sorry Kid I Didn't See You isn't good enough. If that was my child I am telling you that he would have needed to have that racing bike surgically removed after I'd parked it securely in his arse crack. The parents are saints.

maybe the parents should have told there 9 year old how to ride in a shared environment. That pulling out without looking is probably a bad idea!

How do you know that they didn't? Do you know anything at all about children? They take time to learn things and then they forget, lose concentration, get over excited ... etc and then they have to be reminded repeatedly until the lesson sticks. They are not stupid, they are inexperienced and immature. It isn't their fault, it is biology.

Children can be expected to make mistakes. It is their privilege, that is how they learn, as we all learned. You would expect a supposedly mature individual to recognise that and cut them a little slack wouldn't you?

Unfortunately, the little kid got run over by an overgrown deluded kid who seems to think he is the next Chris Froome.

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At the very least, there were two pedestrians and four cyclists coming slowly the other way and this unobservant, inconsiderate or just plain moronic cyclist continued to cycle at a speed sufficient to throw him to the ground in a collision with a child and break the young lad's collar bone i.e. massively faster than walking pace. Totally inappropriate. Totally indefensible.

speed and breaks are unrelated, it is how you land that causes the problem. a crash at 5 mph might break a bone, it might not.

The crash shouldn't have happened at all if the adult cyclist was using the path responsibly.

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Reading some of these comments, I don't know whether to laugh or shake my head with pity at the immaturity. The primary purpose of a cycling path (shared or otherwise) is to provide a safer option for those who would prefer not to cycle on the roads. They are not built to save you time on your commute or allow you to average 20mph or whatever. That isn't the criteria for measuring their success.

A shared cycle path that gets you to work 20 mins later than you would have got there on busy roads because you are not a moron and proceed with extreme caution around pedestrians is not a failure and hasn't been badly designed. Using it massively reduced your chances of avoiding a collision, which is its purpose. If you got to work in one piece with massively reduced stress levels, the path did its job.

If you feel the only point of cycle paths is to get cycles off the road, then IMO they have failed. Or you have incredibly low expectations.

The point of an alternative route for cyclists is to provide a safer environment for those who would prefer to cycle separated from motorised vehicles. My expectations are realistic. I do not expect existing buildings to be demolished or pavements narrowed on Britain's already narrow streets to create extra space for segregated cycle lanes. Too expensive. Too impractical in most places.

So cycle routes will often need to be more circuitous, sometimes isolated and not necessarily the fastest method from A to B.

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IF you want people to stop driving you have to make it attractive not to drive, making journeys longer, more convoluted, mixing dogs, runners, etc. using indirect routes to add even more distance, all of this makes cycling less attractive.

If that bothers you, use the roads, quit cycling or lobby the Government to spend millions of taxpayers money on constructing a nationwide network of athlete-cyclist-only highways, no pootlers, no dawdlers, no children, no mobility scooters allowed .... just serious cyclists interested in getting from A to B as quickly as possible without encountering any inconvenience or obstruction on their time trial / commute.

Good luck with that.

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and a path that takes 20mins longer than the alternative routes won't be used because it takes 20mins longer.

Your choice. If it is the choice between getting up 20 minutes earlier for work or chancing getting squished by an HGV, I know what I would choose. Especially in poor weather for visibility. Why are you in such a hurry?

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If the path is occupied by pedestrians, dogs on extended leads, running loose, it very soon becomes safer to play with the cars because they are predictable in their stupid movements.

I haven't any stats but I think you are wrong. A collision with a car is probably going to have greater consequences than a collision with shared path users, if you are encountering them at walking pace of course, which you should be.

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So if speed and efficiency is your ultimate priority on a bike .... you know where the road is. Good luck.

No I want to get to work in a reasonable time, If I am in a park I expect to see people playing if I am on the road I don't expect people to be playing. Is that hard?

It isn't a road. It is a shared cycle path and you have no more right to be there than anyone else. So if you don't want to come into contact with people enjoying their leisure, get back on the road.

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If the purpose of a shared path is a park,

It can be both. I cycle through Greenwich Park nearly every day. I also take my dog for a walk there twice a day.

I also cycle on the Thames Path. Parts of it are wide open and invite speed but on summer weekends it can be packed with people enjoying a stroll with their kids and pets and that is fine too. The thing is, I adjust my cycling to the conditions at the time, not the conditions as I think they should be, cycling like a lunatic because the sign says 'cycle path' and therefore I should be able to do 20mph at all times if I want to. It's the infrastructure that's wrong, not me!

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yes, if the purpose of a shared path is transport then it has failed

Last word.

The purpose of a pavement is transport. However, I cannot walk down Oxford Street as fast as I can walk on the pavement on the road where I live. At times, progress can be painfully slow for me as I am a fast walker.

What would you say to a person complaining about the Oxford Street pavements, branding them as failures, because he keeps having to stop for clueless tourists, people walking four abreast, pushchairs ...etc and cannot get from A to B as quickly as he would like?

I know what I would say: "Get a life you arrogant *******! The world does not revolve around you and your needs, nor should it!".