Government announces £50 million for Bikeability

well others mileage may have varied, but when I did the "old" Cycling Proficiency we certainly rode bikes on the roads and we definitely werent restricted to playgrounds only, and yet on bikeability its only levels 2 and 3 that are allowed to go onto the roads, and yet level 1 might be the only experience of the scheme alot of kids who get to do this training, get to experience and is "traffic free environments" only. theres a big disconnect I think from the concept that the government provides funding so that we are teaching all these schoolchildren how to ride a bike safely on the roads, and the actual reality with how this ends up being implemented.

as for 20mph only zones in urban areas, again its like bikeability a good concept we all sign up to, but without proper enforcement and implementation utterly meaningless.

I am an active instructor of bikeability and I am very glad of course that this money is continuing.

 A few points about some issues mentioned.

@the little onion

Does it work? Like all teaching it has some effect but of course people do forget stuff. The study showing some extra hazard perception is useful but 2 months isn't long. Anecdotal evidence from Level 3 instructors (a year or two after level 2 usually) suggests quite a lot is forgotten but I have no idea how much, but that is true of all teaching of anything. I did one school where all the students we had had done it before and they were on average much better than a 'normal' group that hadn't done it before. One student was pretty much perfect and I've never had that on a normal course.

As for increased cycling quite a few parents wait for their children to do bikeability before letting them cycle to school, on the roads at least, and it is designed to help children cycling to secondary school, amongst other things, as it's normally done at the end of primary in any case. It's impossible to do a double blind study so we'll never know scientifically but £12.5 million won't buy you much infrastructure. Recent improvements to Huntingdon Road, Cambridge near my house cost about a million I believe and have made things worse in some ways imo. 

@ironmancole

All bikeability instructors have to wear a helmet and nearly all children do as well, (they need parental permission not to). Quite a few take them off afterwards though. High-vis jackets are compulsory for everyone.

Primary, or 'control' position as it is usually referred to, is the fundamental part of the course. Teaching about communication, eye contact, seeing drivers slowing down is essential to getting the point of the course. We don't want children going out in front of someone who is too close or is showing no signs of letting you in. I usually find getting into primary isn't a problem for me but I can accelerate and go quite fast when needed which makes that easier; the usual problem is when cars turn right across you because they haven't seen you and that's something that no method of cycling can prevent.

I agree with @wycombewheeler that it would be good idea to have bikeability as part of the driving test and a minimum safe passing distance. No idea if anyone is campaigning for either of those though. I might check later and see. However, I had plenty of discussions about cycling with my driving instructor about 10 years ago (I learnt late) and I assume driving instructors do so with anyone but I have no idea what really happens. 

20mph limit in all urban areas would be very useful as well. I defintiely notice a difference in driver behaviour when there is a 20 limit and children find it much easier to get into primary.

@Bikebikebike

We get regular emails saying there is more funding coming through and therefore more schools will be added to the rota so the money is being spent.

If anyone wants any adult training and are in the Cambridge area, Outspoken is the company I work for, but there are providers all around the country. From my observations of other cyclists I'd say about 95% would benefit from this. Very few cyclists even pass parked cars at a safe distance. let alone use primary appropriately.

I trained as an instructor maybe four years ago in the Walworth area of London, so I could train other instructors. I've never actually used the certification but the course I undertook was excellent and vastly better than the trafitional cycling proficiency test I took as a kid on my red Raleigh Striker on tennis courts at school!

My view is the funding is good, it cant not be as all road users should know how the roads 'work'.

The problem I see is roads work differently for different groups so regardless of training there will always be an overwhelming 'might is right' attitude as we all recognise.

Taking the lane as appropriate etc is all well and good in a perfect world but if Mr motorist behind decides youre 'in his way' we quickly understand what is likely to happen, we see it everyday.

I'd say cycle training is excellent but only within the wider context of a bigger picture, with the principle motorised killing mechanisms suitably restrained instead of running amok as is currently the case with little in the way of authorative intervention for the worst of them.

I mean, who cares how well a new cyclist rides when the motorists around them are drunk, drugged, distracted, uninsured and speeding about taking lives on a whim?!

Finally, atitudes must change. Motorists get so angry because they genuinely believe they own the riads and they have killed in episodes of rage to claim this space. On day three of the course we had a small lorry parked half on the pavement near us, the driver watching for some time.

After ten minutes or so he got out and came over, asking where helmets were and why we werent using them if we ourselves were instructors. He quickly got agitated when he was told it was personal choice, we are on quiet leafy residential streets and there is no law dictating we had to have them etc.

He quickly went down the 'its your own fault if you get killed' crap that motorists often spurt when an individual doesnt choose to wrap themselves in padded kevlar to enable an attacker to get away with causing injury.

Until motorists are forced to recognise who is actually doing the killing out there and are forcefully controlled with legislation training cyclists is a pretty small part of the puzzle.

Thanks PeteB for the ICE study, which was new to me (I stand by my original point that the data generally suggests that training makes no significant statistical difference to cycling rates) - however, before anyone thinks that it is an endorsement of Bikeability, I recommend reading the study in detail, particularly page 5. There are a few issues with sampling (nothing that would fatally undermine the study) but the results show that pupils who have done bikeability training are slightly less likely to not cycle, and slightly more likely to cycle frequently. However, it isn't clear (due to the methodology chosen) what the directionality is. It could be:

a) Bikeability works and turns a smallish number of children from being disinclined to cylce into regular cyclists

b) The children who are more inclined to be cyclists are more inclined to sign up to Bikeability, so the training is irrelevant in making them cycle regularly

c) other factors at play

In other words, it isn't able to say whether the children would have been less inclined to cycle had they not taken the training.

The paper on safety is better. It does show convincingly that training increases hazard perception ability, at least in the short term. So I take your point.

Both studies associate Bikeability trainign with increased confidence

One good thing about bikeability versus the old cycling proficiency is that it takes place on real roads rather than in school playgrounds etc. This has been shown to provide better training.

On evidence, I reserve the right to be cynical about Bikeability, though I note that there is good evidence it increases short-term ability to spot hazards.

Can we have stories when the government actually spends some money rather than just announcing it? I guess that would require doing some work rather than just copying and pasting press releases, but it would actually do some good. There are loads of announcements about increases to spending, and a lot of it just gets quietly dropped. 

Has anyone seen any proper evaluations of whether Bikeability actually increases cycling uptake, or reduce the likelihood of accidents? From proper studies, not anecdotes? The evidence I have seen suggest that it doesn't increase uptake (I haven't seen any proper studies of whether it makes cycling safer). I think everyone in DfT knows this, they just throw money at it because that way they can be said to be doing something, without actually creating proper infrastructure that might be seen as a "war" on the motorist

Quote:

...it will consult on making sure lorry operators do not remove sideguards fitted to them.

Erm - wouldn't that be against the law? Or were sideguards only fitted as a voluntary within-the-industry type thing?