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news
Greater Manchester Police Operation Dice Sharing The Road (source GMP)Minor injuries and cyclist deaths are down in Greater Manchester - but there's a significant rise in serious injuries to riders
Minor injuries and deaths among greater Manchester’s cyclists are down on ten years ago - but serious injuries have increased by a quarter, according to Greater Manchester Police.
Although the number of collisions involving bikes are down 30 per cent since 20004, serious injuries - anything more than a sprain or a graze - have risen by 23 per cent.
There were 90 serious injuries in 2013, compared with 74 in 2004, while the number of collisions involving bikes fell from 804 in 2004 to 562 in 2013.
In the same period, cyclist deaths in Manchester have fallen from five in 2004 to 1 in 2013.
Pete Abel, a volunteer with Manchester’s Love Your Bike campaign, told the Manchester Evening News: “The reduction in the smaller injuries is obviously welcome.
“But any increase in serious injuries is a worry.
“We still have serious concerns about the state of the roads and traffic enforcement in Greater Manchester.
I was nearly taken out by someone using a mobile phone on the Mancunian Way.”
Eleanor Roaf, North West Regional Director for Sustrans said: “Any increase in cycling accidents is a huge cause for concern. Manchester has ambitions to be a cycling city, and there are certainly more people cycling, but road culture and safety levels need to improve before we can become another Copenhagen or Amsterdam.”
Dave Newton, Transport for Greater Manchester’s Transport Strategy Director, said “Any injury is one too many and we are currently doing a lot of work to make cycling as safe as possible. This is a key priority for us as we work to encourage even more people to travel by bike.”
Earlier this year we reported how The Times had claimed that cyclists were just as dangerous to pedestrians as drivers.
According to transport correspondent Phillip Pank, analysis of the 2012 road accident figures published by the Department for Transport reveals: “When serious injuries are measured as a proportion of distance travelled, cyclists injured 21 pedestrians per billion km travelled in 2012 compared with 24 pedestrians injured by drivers.”
We drilled down into the numbers a little to bring you this analysis:
The national travel survey says the average person travelled 6,691 miles in 2012. There are 60 million people in the UK, so that's just over 400 billion miles.
Of that distance, 3 percent is walked so that's 12 billion miles of walking. For the sake of argument, let’s say that half of that is in the kind of urban environments The Times is talking about.
There were 79 pedestrians killed or seriously injured (KSI) by bikes in urban areas in 2012, so that’s one KSI per 75 million miles walked.
By contrast, there were 4,679 pedestrian KSIs involving motor vehicles - one KSI per 1.25 million miles walked.
That means for every mile you walk, you are 60 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by a driver than a cyclist.
Another criticism of The Times’ analysis, and one that the paper touches on, is that the injuries sustained by pedestrians who are hit by cyclists are likely to be less severe than injuries to those who are hit by drivers.
The DfT’s classification of serious injury is:
Serious injury: An injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an “in-patient”, or any of the following injuries whether or not they are detained in hospital: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock requiring medical treatment and injuries causing death 30 or more days after the accident.
An injured casualty is recorded as seriously or slightly injured by the police on the basis of information available within a short time of the accident. This generally will not reflect the results of a medical examination, but may be influenced according to whether the casualty is hospitalised or not. Hospitalisation procedures will vary regionally.
So a broken collarbone or mild concussion comes under the same heading as multiple broken bones and severe brain damage.
On the basis of its pedestrian-injuries-per-billion-vehicle-miles analysis, The Times concedes that “drivers are five times more likely than cyclists to kill a pedestrian.” It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect that they are also far more likely to inflict the most severe injuries.
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32 comments
The site of the tragic incident concerning Jaye Bloomfield can be seen here in streetview. As far as I'm aware the "new 30mph speed limit" sign only went up after the incident.
As pointed out elsewhere this is on the entry towards the motorway, not the exit. So drivers don't have the excuse that they have just left a motorway, but it is a fast road and at the top of the rise you only have a short distance to merge across onto the A57 which is still a motorway at that point, so you feel you need to be travelling a motorway speeds by then.
There is a matching crossing on the exit ramp on the other side, but there that's on the approach to a roundabout so drivers should be going a lot slower.
I'm not trying to make any excuses for drivers, but this is a horrible mess of infrastructure, with conflicting signage (a pedestrian warning sign after the crossing?), all due to the fact there is a motorway ploughing through the city centre and alongside densely populated residential areas. As pointed out by some-fella and GREGJONES it's hard to navigate this area in some fairly obvious directions (eg into town) without having to cross fast busy roads, or use a rather grim underpass in this case.
We have a long way to go to make our cities civilised and liveable, and a few more signs here and there won't cut it.
If you're walking with both feet on the ground and pushing a bike, then you are without a doubt a pedestrian ("foot passenger") - this was established in Crank v Brooks. If you are on the bike, and paddling with one foot on a pedal, then the same ruling suggests you would not be a foot passenger. The case of straddling a bike but scooting with both feet on the ground isn't explicitly addressed in it, but it seems likely that'd be classed as "not a foot passenger".
Still, that doesn't mean a motorist is blameless if they knock down a cyclist using a pedestrian crossing. What's amazing in the Jaye case is the motorist says they didn't even see anyone at all.
Mr Walker - your bias, ignorance and the attitude you are displaying here are utterly shameful and disgusting.
The likes of you are the reason why people are losing confidence in the police forces' ability to protect them and uphold the law.
I think you're in the wrong job.
So, that someone was straddling a bike as they crossed at a pedestrian crossing, in no way should excuse motorists who barrel through traffic lights and kill that person.
The presence of traffic lights and a pedestrian crossing is a really big fucking clue that that section of road is not suited for high speeds! Just because there's a 50 mph limit (or the motorist might have had reason to think that) does NOT MEAN you should be doing 50!
A speed limit IS AN UPPER LIMIT. It is NOT A GOAL! Yet, somehow it has become the norm amongst much of the population to treat it as a goal.
The motorists first job is *always* to ensure the safety of others in and around the road, especially when those others are vulnerable road users! That this notion has been steadily eroded over the years, to the extent that - apparently - even police officers and PCSOs seem to think it appropriate to blame vulnerable victims over blaming the one person - the motorist - who could (in that specifric instance) have avoided the killing is just mind-bending to me.
'OZcycler wrote:
Fact 3
Witnesses say they saw Jaye using the crossing by straddling her bike and pushing with her feet in the moments leading up to the crash.
Independent witnesses saw this and confirm that she was straddling her bike and pushing with her feet. This is a pedestrian crossing and she was straddled her bike.
Se above, completely and utterly irrelevant tosh.'
Not completely irrelevant. Just the sort of thing which can help sneaky fecker lawyerss get away with it.
Pedestrian crossing being used by someone on a bike = wrong, therefore will be made the most of by a brief. Obey the rules of the road and you stand a better chance...in theory
Surely, if you are walking you are a pedestrian, regardless of the presence of a bike that you aren't actually pedaling? What _is_ the law on this?
I cross there almost every day with my kids to their nursery.
How can I ever trust a crossing again if drivers can simply claim it wasn't their responsibility to look.
Not to mention leaving Hulme towards town in every direction (Chorlton road and Cambridge streets) don't even have lights for pedestrians currently.
So my options are, run in between green lights for cars or run across a legitimate crossing whilst hoping that drivers are actually looking.
Thanks Manchester Council
Not sure that the law says you have to drive at the speed limit and not take into account the possibility that other, more vulnerable, road users may be present
That categorisation of seriously or not seriously injured is hilarious to me. When I was knocked off I was conscious, a bit shocked, scuffed and bruised... so when the ambo carted me off I'm sure Plod thought 'minor'. But at the hospital it was discovered I'd broken a couple of little bones, my wrist still doesn't work properly a year later... they should follow up really. But then of course - I'm only a cyclist.
"Witnesses say they saw Jaye using the crossing by straddling her bike and pushing with her feet in the moments leading up to the crash.
PC Ian Beaumont said: “The pedestrian crossing is placed essentially in the middle of the motorway. It’s not meant for cyclists, but for the movement of pedestrians.”
PC Ian Beaumont, take a bow. And from my perspective as a cyclist in MCR, he is supposed to be protecting vulnerable road users like me?
Bring on the Google cars asap; as Damon Hill commented, “What happens when people drive on the roads is that they don’t concentrate, they just think about something else. So they’re relying on their unconscious to respond to things. That’s why it’s better to drive at a sensible pace.”.
Automatons can do this job much better.
Traffic lights are pretty big clue you're no longer driving on a motorway, especially when it has a pedestrian crossing.
Do you know the area he was approaching the 50mph Mancunian way it's just changed speed limits from 50 to 30 look on google maps there is a sign saying 30mph new speed limit and then at the pedestrian crossing telling you A57M blue motorway sign so you can understand confusion
Jesus wept!
The MEN article covers the inquest which finds that a speeding driver who killed a women gets let off without punishment and that the woeful and potentially illegal infrastructure could have contributed and yet the police seem to blame the victim for using the crossing?
And then OZcycler tips up and saying you cant just blame the motorist? I think we can clearly blame the motorist in this particular case!
Its bad enough the authorities and police treating cyclists with contempt but to have a cyclist also lose sight of what the actual problem is is even worse.
And i put it to you GazWalker that many people use the pavement and jump red lights because they would rather take that risk than negotiate potentially dangerous infrastructure and yet you only seek to punish them and not tackle the cause of the problem. Forcing cyclists into breaking the law is more a sign that the current infrastructure has failed and less about the individuals involved.
But then again its easier to fine cyclists than build infrastructure so lets just carry on with that eh?
Knew it wouldn't take long and I was right lets break it down shall we and look at the facts and please some fella how do you blame the motorist entirely.
Fact 1
Giving evidence, senior investigating officer PC Ian Beaumont said: “The Mancunian Way is classed as a motorway, and when a motorway ends there should be appropriate signage of the speed limit.
“There should be a sign indicating the speed limit but this was incorrectly placed by the contractors.
SO PLEASE HOW IS THIS THE DRIVERS FAULT AS ITS A 50MPH WITH A NEW 30MPH AND THE SIGNS WERE INCORRECTLY PLACED THAT IS NOT THE DRIVERS FAULT IS IT ?
Fact 2
PC Beaumont added: “The pedestrian crossing is placed essentially in the middle of the motorway. It’s not meant for cyclists, but for the movement of pedestrians. can't you argue with that a senior police investigator.
Fact 3
Witnesses say they saw Jaye using the crossing by straddling her bike and pushing with her feet in the moments leading up to the crash.
Independent witnesses saw this and confirm that she was straddling her bike and pushing with her feet. This is a pedestrian crossing and she was straddled her bike.
Fact 4.
Mr Campbell said: “The traffic lights were green so I accelerated towards the Mancunian Way. I heard something hit the car and thought it had come from above.
So does this mean the cyclists was crossing on a red man phase and the driver failed to stop at a green light as if this was the case the witness that saw the cyclists straddled her bike would have seen the driver hit her on a red light would you agree. (I doubt it)
Narrative verdict and this is what I've found.
Narrative verdicts. The Coroner is not required to return a verdict in one of the set formats set out above. It is sufficient to produce a short, factual statement setting out the circumstances of the death if this more fairly and accurately reflects how the deceased came to his or her death.
This is again awful and someone lost there life and was loved by many but please hurling mud at motorists when there are factors on both sides doesn't help . And reading your posts blaming the Police for victim blaming surely the police are there to enforce the law regardless of the offence comitted isn't it Manchester City Council responsibility to provide infrastructure and highways.
And I forgot this gem from OZcycler.
"This is again awful and someone lost there life and was loved by many but please hurling mud at motorists when there are factors on both sides doesn't help .
And reading your posts blaming the Police for victim blaming surely the police are there to enforce the law regardless of the offence comitted isn't it Manchester City Council responsibility to provide infrastructure and highways.[/quote]
You've won the prize for being the biggest BSer on here by a mile.
Ian Beaumont has played a blinder there, because how a motorway ends is irrelevant, it's a dead cat. He wasn't coming off the motorway.
You damn well can argue it, regardless of his rank, it was not "in the middle of a motorway", and what difference does it make even if she was cycling across the crossing? They are designed for people to cross roads. But again, a blinder by PC Beaumont by bullshitting and confusing the issue to make it appear that Jaye brought this on herself.
Se above, completely and utterly irrelevant tosh.
See:
http://t.co/rFG3RnLc0m
If he thought something had fallen from above then the driver did not look where he was going. He's decided to screw it round a corner and he has killed someone. This is entirely his fault, yet GMP have conspired to to give yet another motorist an easy ride and a get out of jail free card.
Interesting comments above. I've just noticed that the cop in the photo holding the "sharing the road? Dicing with death." thing would seem to be PCSO Gareth "why are you cycling" Walker.
I do cycle who says I dont, I ask why are you cycling through red lights, why are you cycling on the footpath, and also why are you cycling with no lights . And I sometimes say to drivers why are you driving to close to cyclists. And why are you in an ASL as this is for cyclists
Nobody has suggested that. You've gone off on a unrelated tangent, I assume deliberately, in order to shoe horn in the usual bigoted "I ride a bike but..." nonsense.
Says everything that your comments related to cyclists are the most negative possible. Why would you ask of cyclists you've never met why they jump reds, ride on footpaths or have no lights? You've laid bare what you really think of cyclists there haven't you?
And then when you talk about motorists you phrase it as "sometimes I say", why only 'sometimes' when it's motorists but much more definite language when referring to cyclists? One can only put it down to your ingrained intolerance and bias.
No motorist has ever been charged with breaking the law with regards to ASLs in Manchester, so if indeed this story is true and you have spoken to a motorist in an ASL why did you feel it better to turn a blind eye to someone breaking the law?
Tell me, are there any other laws you and your colleagues have decided to ignore and decide not to bother charging people for? That would be really handy to know.
My personal serious injury rate last year was 1 in every 6,269 miles. This is infinitely higher than every previous year other than 2011, does this mean that cycling is getting more dangerous for me?
Jaye Bloomfield tragically died on the slip road of the Mancunian Way (at a point where, albeit being extremely hazardous, it is not only possible to cycle but perfectly legal) last year so Gaz Walker should perhaps think before signing up to troll Peter Abel, get his facts straight and perhaps focus more on protecting cyclists and not victimising them.
On a related side issue - except for Oxford Road it is impossible to enter the city from the south of the city without interacting in some way with the Mancunian Way, with none of the options being particularly favourable or designed to keep cyclist safe. That is the true crime in this city.
I don't usually comment on web forums as I see how blinkered people can be when it comes to passion about things and there is a saying
"It's that one thing that you're passionate about, that you end up developing tunnel vision for and everything else tends to fall by the wayside"
I am a regular activity cycler. I am fed up of cyclists slagging off other peoples viewpoints when it comes to space and driver awareness. Watching the Complainers last week seeing that imbecile called DROID he was very lucky not to be hurt himself by antagonising drivers
I understand how hard it is cycling up Upper Brook Street at 1700 as i do it regularly and have had near misses and been the victim of a injury accident.
People slag off the Police and other agencies but sometimes the enemy is within our own ranks thats causes the most issues if people have a different opinions then they are classed as a troll, trolls to me live under bridges.
Ive just read the Manchester Evening News and googled Jaye Bloomfield as above the original reply was in relation to a lady who lost there life last year. Please read this as this was in todays.
A cyclist who was fatally injured on a Mancunian Way slip road may not have died if speed limit signs had not been ‘incorrectly placed’, an inquest heard.
Jaye Bloomfield, 44, of Whalley Range, was using a pedestrian crossing to cross the busy road on August 3 last year when she was struck by a black Seat Leon.
Cyclist Jaye died from severe head and chest injuries shortly after the collision.
Manchester coroner’s court heard the vehicle was travelling over the 30mp speed limit when the collision happened.
Giving evidence, senior investigating officer PC Ian Beaumont said: “The Mancunian Way is classed as a motorway, and when a motorway ends there should be appropriate signage of the speed limit.
“There should be a sign indicating the speed limit but this was incorrectly placed by the contractors.
“Improvements are being made to the signage so it is at the start of the slip road. A 30mph sign will be brought in next to the end of the motorway.”
Witnesses say they saw Jaye using the crossing by straddling her bike and pushing with her feet in the moments leading up to the crash.
PC Beaumont added: “The pedestrian crossing is placed essentially in the middle of the motorway. It’s not meant for cyclists, but for the movement of pedestrians.”
Michael Campbell, who the police say was driving the Seat anywhere between 41 and 49mph in the 30mph zone, was arrested but released without charge following the incident.
Mr Campbell said: “The traffic lights were green so I accelerated towards the Mancunian Way. I heard something hit the car and thought it had come from above.
“I stopped immediately in the middle of the road and looked to the left and saw someone in the road.
“I ran to the person. I was so confused. Two cars stopped and they called the police and ambulance.”
Coroner Fiona Borrill returned a narrative verdict, saying: “I shall be writing a letter to Manchester City Council to find out when the signs will be in place.”
In a statement, Jaye’s civil partner Gemma Godden, a teacher, appealed for drivers to respect the speed limit.
She urged: “If the driver who hit Jaye had been driving at 30mph or below as he should have been, he would almost certainly have seen her and been able to stop.”
Its tragic what happened but you can't blame just the motorist you need to read fully . I also think the OP says that some of the Mancunion way you can cycle ill go and have a look this week but looking at google maps the A57 has a M prefix which means no cycling if I'm wrong I will bow to peoples better knowledge.
Quote Pete Abel, a volunteer with Manchester’s Love Your Bike campaign, told the Manchester Evening News: “The reduction in the smaller injuries is obviously welcome.
“But any increase in serious injuries is a worry.
“We still have serious concerns about the state of the roads and traffic enforcement in Greater Manchester.
I was nearly taken out by someone using a mobile phone on the Mancunian Way.”
My concern Peter is that the Mancunian Way is classed as a Motorway A57m so why are you cycling along it
Part of it is the A57
My concern is you signing up just to make that one snide comment to try and undermine Peter Abel.
Given that you, PCSO Walker became the figurehead for the shameful victim blaming travesty that was Operation Grimaldi I would imagine that you should have come in to contact with him on a regular basis.
This sort of behaviour just highlights the utter contempt Greater Manchester Police have for genuine road safety campaigns.
Well that's the best internet putdown I'll see today.
He didn't say he was cycling along it - he was making a point about Law enforcement on the roads.
the twitter feed looks a bit dated - this campaign seems a bit more focussed on driver behaviour and focussed on speed and mobile use
in the lead video the final words are about being aware of cyclists and bikers
http://www.gmp.police.uk/content/section.html?readform&s=E4F1D190B4AB67C...
Didn't they recently have a safety campaign targetting cyclists? Operation Grimaldi?
Didn't they recently have a safety campaign targetting cyclists? Operation Grimaldi?
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