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Big Ben © Simon MacMichaelChris Boardman urges government to protect all road users as deaths hit five-year high
British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman says that a 5 per cent annual rise in the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads is “concerning” and has urged the government to do more to improve the safety of all road users.
His comments come as the Conservative Party stands accused of having failed to continue the momentum in reducing casualties among all road users since targets were abolished in 2010, with AA president Edmund King describing five fatalities a day as “totally unacceptable.”
The targets, introduced nearly three decades earlier, were scrapped by former secretary of state for transport Philip Hammond after the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties formed their coalition government.
Charts accompanying the publication today of the Department for Transport’s Reported road casualties in Great Britain – Annual report 2016 show that across all road user groups, there were sharp declines in the number of people killed between 2006 and 2010.
But in the years since, again across all road users – car occupants, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and children – the number of fatalities each year has fluctuated around the 2010 level.
Factors other than the abolition of the targets in play, such as cuts to roads policing and funding for speed cameras as well as the rise in ownership of smartphones and consequent use at the wheel despite tougher penalties.
But the fact remains that 1,792 people in Great Britain lost their lives in road traffic collisions in 2016, and while the DfT highlights that the number is 4 per cent down on the previous year, it is the highest death toll since 2011.
Boardman, quoted on Britishcycling.org.uk, said that the data “shows that more needs to be done to make Britain’s roads safe, not just for cyclists, but for drivers and pedestrians.
“The number of people being killed and seriously injured is increasing, showing a lack of resources focusing on the real cause of dangers on the road,” he added.
Meanwhile, King urged the government to bring back targets and aim for a “vision zero” for road deaths and serious injuries.
“It is of great concern that road deaths in Great Britain seem to have plateaued out over the last five years. Five deaths per day is totally unacceptable.”
He continued: “There is definitely more we can do to educate via speed awareness and other corrective courses.
“Re-introducing targets and aiming for towards vision zero would be a step in the right direction,” King added.
“Changes can be made,”insisted Boardman, who is now combing his new role of Greater Manchester Cycling & Walking Commissioner with his existing one at British Cycling.
“Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark faced the same issues 40 years ago and decided to make a commitment to cycling as a proper, viable, form of transport.
"The evidence for this working is clear. The changes made in the Netherlands saw the number of child deaths from either walking, cycling or car accidents, drop from 400 in the 1970s to just 10 by 2010," he pointed out.
“We now need our government to do the same.”
Last year, 102 cyclists, two more than in 2015, lost their lives in Great Britain – among them, Boardman’s mother, Carol.
Meanwhile, 3,397 cyclists were killed or seriously injured in 2016, up 5 per cent on the previous year and 9 per cent on the 2010-14 average.
The increases are roughly in line, according to the DfT, with growth in the total distance cycled in Britain in each year, and it warns that the figures should be treated with caution due to changes in the way some police forces collect casualty data.
What the numbers don’t suggest though, is that Britain’s roads are getting any safer for people on bikes, although there are hopes that may finally be changing.
Last week, it was revealed that West Midland’s Operation Close Pass, introduced in September 2016, has led to a 20 per cent reduction in the number of cycling KSIs there in the past 12 months.
However, it will be at least a year until we see how it impacts on the national figures as other forces have adopted it, and longer still to be able to judge whether any downward trend is maintained.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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52 comments
.....just saying... but aviation transport deaths for the PLANET in 2016 were 325..... NOBODY in the uk has died as a passenger in a train crash for 9 years. Amazing what u can do when u put your mind to it.
Cycling is prohibited on railways and on runways, is that what you're getting at...?
Bez is not some random bloke, give him a bit of a read, you might be impressed.
My apologies to Bez, I have not come across his website before but I shall try and give it a read.
@behindthebikesheds I had slightly misquoted the deaths ratio figure, it's actually deaths as ratio of population. UK is lower and safer by implication than Denmark or Netherlands by this measure. It's on page 18 or thereabouts of the full DfT paper.
Like I said before, the cycling infrastructure may also cause cyclists to get complacent and take more risks. Just the other day there was an article on Dutch police warning older people on increased deaths from people not being able to handle electric bikes safely:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/22/older-dutch-cyclists-warne...
Using deaths by population is meaningless nonsense, you should know why particularly with respect to cycling.
+1.
One could put it more strongly. The 'safer by implication than Denmark or the Netherlands' is just beyond idiotic. It's the same logic that says we are far safer skiers than the Swiss and far better at handling shark attacks than the Australians.
rliu isn't the only one to have made that mistake... http://radwagon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/road-safety-failure-by-minister.html
And that misuse of stats is used by both the WHO and the EU commission for Road Safety to push for cycle helmets stating that Denmark and Netherlands are unsafe due to low cycle helmet wearing rates. It's disgusting.
That the Netherlands has shown significant reduction in cycle deaths in the last 10 years despite their huge cycling numbers/miles travelled is a trye reflection of safety improvement, unlike the pony being spouted here.
A blanket reduction in speed limits across the country would likely go some way to reducing a lot of this, and to cutting emissions as well. if everyone is travelling at more similar speeds, there's a little more time to react, if there are collisions the energy involved will be reduced and the likelyhood of people trying to drive as fast as they can on national speed limit roads despite whether or not it's suitable for the conditions would also be less.
Chris Boardman seems to talk a lot of sense, he's not spouting anything radical or controversial, it's just a shame more people with the power to effect change don't actually listen to some of his advice.
Wouldn't.
I live in a 20mph zone and people drive through it at 30mph. Why? Because they think they won't get caught. Plus the road is wide so there is enough space to go at 30mph. (I've been swore at on foot, driving and cycling due to moving slower or at the speed limit.)
An adjoining road is 30mph and most vehicles are driven through at around 20mph. Why? Due to parked cars on alternate sides and the fact that the road is narrower people are forced to drive through at slower speeds.
A DfT paper earlier this year showed 81% of traffic in 20mph zones were exceeding it.
I fear the problem won't be resolved til everyone is in a self driving car that automatically limits its speed based on GPS data on speed limits.
I'd recommend everyone to read the full report before getting too alarmed. It says cyclist deaths have risen 2% against a backdrop of 6% increase in cycle traffic. It also shows that the UK has lower ratio of deaths to distance travelled than the vast majority of developed countries, half the rate of 'cycle friendly' countries like France or Italy and lower than even the Netherlands.
I think that as intimidating as British roads can be, their layout force drivers to be a lot more alert and attentive than a wide open boulevard you see in North America for example. Drink driving attitudes are also a lot better than what I perceive in other countries.
Of course it's very sad to talk about genuine tragedies as mere statistics but just wanted to offer some perspective.
You fail to grasp the actual stats in totality, 2016 showed us that we were back to 2014 levels of cycling, thus the increase in 'traffic' is only compared to 2015. The number of seriously Injured cyclists are a grand total of FOUR less than than in 2014, so there is ZERO reduction of seriously injured cyclists. As for the 102 reported deaths for 2016, this is bogus as Bez even has the stats on reported cyclists deaths in 2016 which show us 130 cycling fatatlities! https://beyondthekerb.org.uk/incident/
Also, shouldn't the increased cycle infra in the biggest city in Western Europe have an influence on those stats in a positive manner thus negating your point?
Shouldn't the oft spouted 'safety in numbers' have a positive effect thus negating your point with regards to 2015-2016 increases in cycling?
So, actually, yes we should be alarmed, cycling IS more dangerous statisically speaking, in real terms there is a huge increase in cycling deaths (many seemingly ignored going by the big 102 - 130 differential) and serious injuries have not dropped at all since 2014 despite more infra, despite campaigns by the police with regards to safe passing, despite more infrastructure in the biggest city in Western Europe where hundreds of thousands cycle daily.
As for you saying that we have a lower death per miles travelled than the Dutch, total BS, that's patently untrue, the Dutch cycle a hell of a lot more miles than we do in the UK, so their death rates are decidely lower.
The actual statistics are:
2014:
35 cycling deaths per billion miles travelled.
2015:
30.9 cycling deaths per billion miles travelled.
2016:
29.5 cycling deaths per billion miles travelled.
Cycling is getting safer. The absolute number of deaths might be increasing but that is a product of more people cycling.
The risk per mile is dropping significantly. It is 15% lower now than in 2014.
All stats here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/road-accidents-and-safety-stat...
Fair play to your stat's it's great to know less lives are being lost...
However, out on the roads it feels like I'm riding in a tide of NASCAR race ass wipes with an agenda to intimidate.
They might be killing less but the attitudes are getting worse, I think this may be a case of more riders being forced onto cycle paths (hence your stat's) but on the roads in real life the conditions are getting worse.
Education, Prosecution, Education, Prosecution, Education, Prosecution.
Every day, every fucking day I want my road ride in the UK to be like the ride I had riding up a mountain road near Girona when a car was beeping it's horn at me, I was out of the saddle giving it the beans big ring and everything...couldn't work out what I was doing wrong.
Turns out it was a driver...arms stretched out offering me a bottle of volvic
If you scroll down that page, you'll find the data tables which suggest (as CUK have reported) that a slight decline in deaths has been paralleled by an increase in serious injuries.
Those trends may be due to better emergency treatment (I don't know that anyone has really explained them). What seems more certain is that progress on road safety overall since 2010 has been poor, and that government decisions have been a major factor in that.
There's also the fact that a K may be recorded as an SI if you don't die soon enough after the accident. There's at least one of those in that stats I'd imagine - A338 near Fordingbridge, hit and run, left in coma, died after the 30 day cutoff.
The report specifically cautions that the Serious Injury data collection method has changed and therefore comparisons may not be reliable.
You're right - I see that's for 2016 data. It still leaves five earlier years in the table I consulted, and a little more digging finds CUK's report saying "by and large the number of seriously injured cyclists has been going up since 2004" (http://bit.ly/2eAxr84) and some older DfT data which supports this (e.g. KSIs back to 1979).
And I think the overall point about post-2010 still stands though.
I well remember a meeting with the cheif traffic cop, who said that the falling death rate on the roads had nothing to do with safer driving, but was a result of better emergency services and car "safety" features like seat belts and air bags. There were relatively just as many collisions, but people were more likely to survive.
Of course, those safety features mean that drivers take less care, see risk compensation, and more pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists die, which is exactly what happened after the introduction of the seat belt law. Fewer drivers died, but more vulnerable road users, which was exactly what the Isles Report showed, which was an investigation into the effects of a seat belt law in other countries. This report was finished before the parliamentary vote on seat belt laws but was never published.
The complete disregard of cyclists' and pedestrians' safety from our elected representatives isn't a new phenomenon.
Again, ignoring actual cycling deaths slants the facts.
130 cyclist deaths in 2016, or are you suggesting the reports are fictitious? the 102 deaths is massively wrong.
FACT: 130 deaths in 3.5 billion miles in 2016 is worse than 113 deaths in 3.5billion miles in 2014
FACT: 3394 SI in 2016 is only FOUR fewer than 2014
FACT: one of the biggest areas for cycling in the country has more infra in 2016 than in 2014
FACT: police rolled out safe pass initiatives in 2016
FACT: more people riding bikes died in 2016 than 2014
FACT: cycling is more deadly in 2016 than 2014 130 > 113
The government's own stats are massively incorrect when it comes to cycling deaths despite their own statemment saying that it's extremely uncommon for road deaths not to be reported. why are there 28 fewer cyclist deaths in the 2016 report that actually occured on our roads?
Why are you ignoring these 25 human beings that have being killed on UK roads when making comparisons, or don't they matter to you, just as they seemingly don't matter to the government as well!
The actual statistics are: 2014: 35 cycling deaths per billion miles travelled. 2015: 30.9 cycling deaths per billion miles travelled. 2016: 29.5 cycling deaths per billion miles travelled. Cycling is getting safer. The absolute number of deaths might be increasing but that is a product of more people cycling. The risk per mile is dropping significantly. It is 15% lower now than in 2014. All stats here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/road-accidents-and-safety-statistics#publications-2017[/quote]
Again, ignoring actual cycling deaths slants the facts.
130 cyclist deaths in 2016, or are you suggesting the reports are fictitious? the 102 deaths is massively wrong.
FACT: 130 deaths in 3.5 billion miles in 2016 is worse than 113 deaths in 3.5billion miles in 2014
FACT: 3394 SI in 2016 is only FOUR fewer than 2014
FACT: one of the biggest areas for cycling in the country has more infra in 2016 than in 2014
FACT: police rolled out safe pass initiatives in 2016
FACT: more people riding bikes died in 2016 than 2014
FACT: cycling is more deadly in 2016 than 2014 130 > 113
The government's own stats are massively incorrect when it comes to cycling deaths despite their own statemment saying that it's extremely uncommon for road deaths not to be reported. why are there 28 fewer cyclist deaths in the 2016 report that actually occured on our roads?
Why are you ignoring these 25 human beings that have being killed on UK roads when making comparisons, or don't they matter to you, just as they seemingly don't matter to the government as well!
FACT - You are sounding like Rafa Benitez.
.
Are you companring figures from one year (130 in 2016 (Bez)) from one source with figures from another year from a different source (113 in 2014 (DfT)) when those sources use different definitions? The differences are explained on the beyondthekerb website.
Beyondthekerb includes things like people having heart attacks while cycling or being attacked by random pedestrians. It explains that the DfT data doesn't.
You can use which ever source you like - but you need to be consistent when comparing over time.
FACT: Typing the word fact and using CAPS does not make you right.
I'm using official government statistics, you're using some random bloke's website which appears to have only have thorough data for 2 years at best.
As a result you can't possibly speculate as to trends in road safety as you simply don't have enough data.
Once your chosen website gets accredited national statistics status I'll pay it some attention, until then I'll stick with what I've got.
The trend is clear, deaths per km cycled are decreasing significantly.
The KSI data is currently not reliable due to a change in the classification of Serious Injuries which has been rolled out across the country since 2012 with the vast majority of forces switching in 2015 or 2016.
Excerpt from latest government report included below.
Screenshot_20170929-171623.png
Bez, forgive him, for he know not what he do
In my experience it almost always means you are not quoting facts, or are quoting the Daily Mail - things that are not very dissimilar.
FACT 130 deaths is more than 116, you were the one talking about deaths, I haven't mentioned the Serious injury RATE. You keep denying that deaths have gone up as a rate per billion miles and keep using inaccurate stats from the gov but the FACTS are that UK roads are more deadly per Bn miles in 2016 than 2014 despite intiatives by police and greater infra.
You've posted misleading data so many times that I think you must be doing it deliberately.
That figure you keep quoting includes deaths from natural causes!
Here's the caveat from the website you linked to:
"Please note that these lists include more fatalities than are expected in the official STATS19 data. These lists include medical deaths, Northern Ireland deaths, and deaths occurring 30 or more days later than the collision, none of which contribute to official DfT figures"
So your figures are completely incomparable with the official data.
As everyone else is having a shot, I might as well throw in my take. Which is that 2 years is far too short a period and a change from 35 to 29.5 far too small a number to conclude anything (other than it isn't getting dramatically worse)
I mean, when one sees small numbers like that, changing a bit over a couple of years, my first thought is that maybe it goes up and down by that sort of amount randomly every year? Maybe next year it will go back up by 6?
Is there a graph showing the variation in the deaths per billion miles, over a period of, say, the last 20 years?
It would only take one horrible incident of a drunk driver ploughing into a group of 3 or 4 cyclists one year and the figure could shoot up again.
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