Cabbie asks Jeremy Vine to condemn 'speeding cyclists'... doesn't get the response he wanted; Daftest idea of the year awards, featuring proposed Cambridge 'Tesla Lanes'; Cycle lane with built-in kitchen; National Pothole Day + more on the live blog

Well you've got there the figures up to 2010 (125 pedestrian deaths), the government's own publications contradict this (see top of page 3, 2010 405 pedestrian deaths): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

Rendel Harris wrote:

Well you've got there the figures up to 2010 (125 pedestrian deaths), the government's own publications contradict this (see top of page 3, 2010 405 pedestrian deaths): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

Well If we are only debating the data sources, I'm happy to rest with the ONS. The substantive point remains that rates, not absolute numbers, are what matter, and they paint a very different picture to that suggested by Vine (for whom I have a lot of respect - I just don't think he helped himself here).

This appears to be the Regents Park circuit, on of the few places in central London it is possible to go remotely fast on a bike, yet the cabbie complains about being overtaken by a cyclist speeding at a whopping 5mph faster. Somehow I think might be you who is being disingenous [purple cars are you effing kidding, strawman what a prick.] ahum.

Organon wrote:

 [purple cars are you effing kidding, strawman what a prick.] ahum.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that your rudeness is due to your misunderstanding of the point being made about needing to compare rates and not totals.

Sriracha wrote:

Organon wrote:

 [purple cars are you effing kidding, strawman what a prick.] ahum.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that your rudeness is due to your misunderstanding of the point being made about needing to compare rates and not totals.

Not that that's really any excuse.

It isn't disingenuous, it is simply making the point that there are far more important issues in road safety than slowing down "speeding" bicycles, and perhaps we should attempt to address the more important issues as a higher priority. 

And that is without getting into the debate about how you enforce anything against a "speeding" cyclist since there is no legal obligation for a bicycle to have a speedometer of any description, and speed given through a GPS device is not as reliable as that given through a properly calibrated speedometer, such as you find on a motor vehicle. 

Riding at a speed appropriate to the conditions is always the watchword ... especially where the video used as an appeal against said "speeding" cyclists shows them riding perfectly safely and threatening/inconveincing no one. 

Well it was Vine who introduced the pedestrian death figures as the defence. Supposing it was shown that proportionately more pedestrians were killed by cyclists than by cars. Do you think that would be relevant?

Judging by the replies you're recieving it appears the hard of thinking are out in force today.

As you've said the rate of injury is crucial when comparing risk.

IF the rate of pedestrian injury were the same for bicycles and cars then there would be no reduction in pedestrian injuries if all car drivers switched to cycling.

There would also be no validity in criticising car drivers for the number of pedestrian injuries as that would simply be a product of the number of cars rather than their inherent dangerousness.

When comparing the two though it is important to exclude motorway miles as there is almost no mixing with vulnerable road users on the motorway so motorway miles will skew the results and make cars seem less dangerous to pedestrians than they really are.

Judging by the replies you're recieving it appears the hard of thinking are out in force today.

<sarcasm>Thank god you turned up to inject some class into the debate. </sarcasm>

Sriracha wrote:

Well it was Vine who introduced the pedestrian death figures as the defence. Supposing it was shown that proportionately more pedestrians were killed by cyclists than by cars. Do you think that would be relevant?

Well it would be, wouldn't it? But that is clearly not the case. In any case, one does have to look at absolute numbers as well as proportionate ones.Pedestrian deaths as a result of cycle involvement (not necessarily cyclist at fault) are almost exactly equivalent to deaths by lightning strike per annum (58 in last thirty years UK) so it's a vanishingly small number, whereas yearly pedestrian deaths from motor vehicle involvement (again, admittedly, not always motor driver at fault) are approaching 500, overall deaths from motor vehicles are 1700+, and premature deaths from air pollution are 40,000+, equivalent to a pandemic every two years. That's before we even begin to think about the deaths related to obesity and other diseases caused by our car-dependent culture. So someone asking Vine to turn his attention away from car damage towards the supposed terrible danger to children playing of cyclists riding at 22 mph on the road that runs around the perimeter of a park is about the biggest pile of steaming red herrings imaginable.

If 40,000+ people a year died directly or indirectly as a result of people playing soccer, and two as a result of people playing lacrosse, would we spend all our time trying to figure out the relative numbers of lacrosse players comparative to soccer players to try to establish some form of equivalence, or would we say 40,000 against 2, we'd better try and do something about the soccer deaths? It wouldn't matter if, proportionately, lacrosse caused more deaths than soccer, it would still be the soccer figures that would require attention.

I like your soccer/lacrosse analogy. Let's run with that - obviously the numbers here are made up, but it's the logic that matters.

So consider deaths amongst the spectators (spectators are analogous to the pedestrians, with me so far?) at these sporting events.

Precious few lacrosse spectator deaths, but then next to no lacrosse matches either (lacrosse is cycling, do keep up) compared to soccer. Rather more deaths amongst soccer spectators, but not pro rata the overwhelmingly greater number of soccer matches (you guessed it, soccer is motoring). Perhaps you can see where this is going now, no?

The regulators need to maintain the total number of sports matches played (that's analogous to passenger journeys, stay with me). So how do they bear down on deaths among spectators? Encourage more lacrosse matches, reasoning there have been fewer spectator deaths amongst them?

But why are you focussing only on moving people from one sport/mode of transport to the other?

The original tweet was about addressing the supposed danger from 'speeding cyclists'. So for the analogy to work you would have to look at the relative merits of regulating lacrosse players' vs soccer players' dangerous behaviour, to stop them hitting the ball into the crowd or whatever it is they're doing that's killing spectators.

In that case, whatever the relative rates, any reduction you make in the rate at soccer matches, even if it's a smaller reduction than you might make in the rate at lacrosse matches, is almost certainly going to have a greater gross benefit.

The point of the analogy is that you can't use an absolute number of harmful events in isolation to establish whether any activity is safe.

You also need to know how frequently an activity occurs.

If activity A occurs twice a year and kills one person a year it is clearly dangerous despite the low absolute number of fatalities.

If activity B occurs a million times per year and kills 2 people it's obviously far safer than activity A in relative terms (deaths per activity) but twice as dangerous in absolute terms (actual number of deaths).

Would it be a sensible policy to encourage people to abandon activity B and take up activity A based solely on the absolute number of deaths?

For that reason comparing the absolute number of deaths from cars and bicycles is disingenuous because it isn't an accurate comparison.

If all car journeys under 3km were replaced with cycling the number of deaths caused by cyclists would increase massively whilst the number of deaths caused by cars would fall.

This wouldn't change the relative safety of either form of transport.

Rich_cb wrote:

The point of the analogy is that you can't use an absolute number of harmful events in isolation to establish whether any activity is safe.

[...]

Would it be a sensible policy to encourage people to abandon activity B and take up activity A based solely on the absolute number of deaths?

But that's the flaw. We're not talking about whether an activity is safe per se, or whether people should switch from one activity to another. We're talking about whether it's worth putting effort into tackling those people who are performing each activity dangerously.

mdavidford wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

The point of the analogy is that you can't use an absolute number of harmful events in isolation to establish whether any activity is safe.

[...]

Would it be a sensible policy to encourage people to abandon activity B and take up activity A based solely on the absolute number of deaths?

But that's the flaw. We're not talking about whether an activity is safe per se, or whether people should switch from one activity to another. We're talking about whether it's worth putting effort into tackling those people who are performing each activity dangerously.

It goes to the heart of the argument that the government should discourage car use whilst encouraging cycle use in its place, for example by transferring road space from one to the other. It also challenges the cyclists' favourite argument - 'start with the most dangerous vehicle' - if figures show that for every car that is replaced by a bicycle the pedestrian death rate remains comparable. So I think it's important to be aware of the numbers, and their proportion.

If cyclists continue to take refuge in arguments whose validity rests on there be so few bicycles relative to cars, don't be surprised when others say, "then let's keep it that way".

Sriracha wrote:

It goes to the heart of the argument that the government should discourage car use whilst encouraging cycle use in its place, for example by transferring road space from one to the other.

Maybe so, but that's besides the point of the current discussion. That started with an assertion that we needed to raise awareness of the dangers posed by speeding cyclists and a response that we should first tackle those posed by dangerous drivers. Modal shift was never mentioned.

FWIW, more generally, I'm with SimonE. I think both you/rich_cb and Vine/his defenders here are right and wrong and the same time - relative rates do matter, but absolute rates matter as well. If you only look at one or the other you're missing half the story. Which matters more all depends what question you're trying to ask, or what response you're considering.

The rate of harm is absolutely fundamental to the decision about tackling the people performing the activity.

IF cycling were as dangerous to pedestrians per urban mile travelled as driving a car then dangerous urban cyclists should be pursued with equal vigour to dangerous urban drivers.

IF unicyclists killed pedestrians at 10 times the rate of any other vehicle would it not be worth tackling the danger even if the absolute numbers of unicyclists was low?

Within the cycling/driving debate the idea of modal shift is central to many policies, the rate of harm caused by each modality is therefore crucial to an informed debate.

For clarity: a capitalised IF indicates that this is a hypothetical proposition.

Rich_cb wrote:

IF unicyclists killed pedestrians at 10 times the rate of any other vehicle would it not be worth tackling the danger even if the absolute numbers of unicyclists was low?

Maybe. It depends.

If your method of tackling them is a public awareness campaign, the return of impact to effort is likely to be so low as to make it pointless.

Let's say you run a campaign that influences 1% of dangerous drivers to modify their behaviour to drive more appropriately. Then you run a campaign targeting cyclists that is much more successful - if influences 10% of dangerous cyclists to modify their behaviour. Even though the first campaign was prima facie much less effective, it would probably have a lower impact in terms of reducing deaths and injuries, simply because there's a bigger target population.

Public information campaigns will obviously be more effective with a larger target population (although targeted advertising may change that) but they are by no means the only form of intervention.

I think the crux of the matter is that when selecting evidence to use in promoting cycling we should do so carefully.

Choose evidence that is easily dismissed, as Vine has done, and your promotion is far less likely to be effective.

Far more effective to say that if car drivers switched to bicycles for X percentage of their journeys we would save Y children's lives per year.

That is the sort of argument that resonates as we saw in the 'Kindermoord' campaign.

Rich_cb wrote:

Public information campaigns will obviously be more effective with a larger target population (although targeted advertising may change that) but they are by no means the only form of intervention.

Agreed. But they are the form of intervention that was in debate here.

Sriracha wrote:

I like your soccer/lacrosse analogy. Let's run with that - obviously the numbers here are made up, but it's the logic that matters. So consider deaths amongst the spectators (spectators are analogous to the pedestrians, with me so far?) at these sporting events. Precious few lacrosse spectator deaths, but then next to no lacrosse matches either (lacrosse is cycling, do keep up) compared to soccer. Rather more deaths amongst soccer spectators, but not pro rata the overwhelmingly greater number of soccer matches (you guessed it, soccer is motoring). Perhaps you can see where this is going now, no? The regulators need to maintain the total number of sports matches played (that's analogous to passenger journeys, stay with me). So how do they bear down on deaths among spectators? Encourage more lacrosse matches, reasoning there have been fewer spectator deaths amongst them?

But again, old chap (or madam), you're ignoring the point that motor vehicles drive 99 times the miles (even if we include motorway miles, which as you yourself have sensibly said skew the figure in favour of the motorist) but kill 200 times the pedestrians, or 800+ times the total deaths. If you simply scaled up so nobody drove and everyone cycled, cycling would kill 200 people a year compared to 1700 and that's before we even begin to think about deaths from pollution, obesity etc. However we're clearly not going to agree on this and you have thought reasonably about your arguments (that's not meant to be patronising, just saying you're not a Socrati hates cyclist merchant), I just don't agree with them, so all the best and have a good safe weekend. 

Rendel Harris wrote:

we're clearly not going to agree on this and you have thought reasonably about your arguments (that's not meant to be patronising, just saying your not a Socrati hates cyclist merchant), I just don't agree with them, so all the best and have a good safe weekend. 

This is a worthwhile discussion. Both Rendel and Sriracha have important perspectives on interpreting the statistics. It is still important to have open discussion but knee-jerk reactions and accusations of trolling are not helpful.

For me one of the issues is the obvious discrepancy in lethality of the vehicle, a combination of velocity and mass. If I'm crossing a road I would be far more concerned with the cars, vans and lorries than cyclists, even if their numbers were equal.

And all the motorised vehicles will be travelling faster than the vast majority of cyclists. We also know that speed limit compliance among drivers is terrible so some will be travelling a good deal faster. Let's be honest, we cyclists only go faster than cars when the latter are physically forced to slow down e.g. traffic lights, junctions, queues. I've ridden in traffic since I was 12 and despite trying hard enough on occasions I cannot keep up with a car unless they've been obliged to slow or stop by something in their path.

Well thank you for your kind words - I don't see myself as a socrati replacement either! And I agree with what you say, except one number. You wrote:

Quote:

but [cars/vans/pickups, compared to bicycles] kill 200 times the pedestrians

The actual figure I took, from the ONS data, was 72 times. That's the problem! That turns it on its head.

Anyway I did find another discussion, which seems to be connected to Vine's comment:
https://fullfact.org/health/cyclist-deaths/
In particular they say:

Quote:

From 2012 to 2016, 2,120 pedestrians were killed by a vehicle in Britain—0.8% of these involved a bicycle, and 66% involved a car.

So again they are comparing pedestrian deaths involving bicycles as against cars. This gives a factor of 83 (66/0.8). Similar to the factor of 72 I found previously.

I can think of a valid argument against this number, but so far no one has raised it. Why not include cyclist (and even motorcyclist) fatalities involving a car, together with the pedestrian fatalities? In other words, compare fatalities of all vulnerable road users (not just pedestrians) by car and by bicycle. Within the sort of journeys that can be substituted by bicycles that would make sense. I'll leave that to others.

Another factor that seems to have been missed is the "blame" factor. I recall from somewhere that the pedestrian/cyclist fatalities were approximately 60% blamed on the pedestrian (e.g. pedestrian suddenly steps in front of a cyclist). I don't know how the blame sits with pedestrian/driver fatalities but I suspect that the figures will be far more towards the driver being at fault.

Sriracha wrote:

Vine's defence of cyclists (only causing 2 deaths per year) is disingenuous. I don't suppose purple cars are very high on the numbers either - should we give them a pass? https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/uk_accident_statistics_for_pedes Looking at Table 1: Number of deaths where a pedestrian was injured in collision with (a) a pedal cycle, or (b) a car, pick-up truck or van, England and Wales, 2006-2010 it shows that over those years 14 pedestrians were killed in collision with a bicycle, compared to 1011 with a car etc. So a factor of 72. Pick your reference base; number of vehicles, miles travelled, urban trips, whatever, I'm not sure the factor of 72 shows cyclists in a very good light.

I'm sure those 997 pedestrians were glad they were killed by a driver not a cyclist.  Is that a forest I see in your eye, while you complain about the speck in mine?

On the 'rate' point - the victim does not care one jot how far someone has travelled to hit them or whether it's their third journey of the day.

Travelling by rail or air is much safer than travelling by motor vehicle - but, unsurprisingly, few travel by air to the supermarket, similarly, there's no point in using a bicycle to transport cars.  The point I'm trying to make is that some divisors (like distance travelled) are spurious - most sensible people don't think all motor vehicle miles can be replaced by bicycle miles so the divisior is meaningless, in effect what the calculation suggests is that "If bicycles travelled as many miles as motor traffic then...."  but that isn't going to happen if, for no other reason than if there were no motor vehicles our lives would be organised very differently.

If you seek to reduce the total number of pedestrians killed by vehicles per annum by 10%, you cannot achieve that by concentrating on cyclists - the "rate per" really is irrelevant. 

There is plenty of research that shows darker coloured cars have more accidents - yellow or white cars have the least accidents.  It's a petty point I raise whenever car drivers complain of cyclists not wearing lurid yellow - I suggest it would be great if the concerned motorist would first set a safety example and have their car painted dayglo pink. Gets me nowehere.

Doctor Darabuka wrote:

There is plenty of research that shows darker coloured cars have more accidents - yellow or white cars have the least accidents.  It's a petty point I raise whenever car drivers complain of cyclists not wearing lurid yellow - I suggest it would be great if the concerned motorist would first set a safety example and have their car painted dayglo pink. Gets me nowehere.

All good points, but sense and logic rarely get you anywhere when people have fixed views; but keep trying.

I do somewhat enjoy replying to the patronising "at least we can see you", by pointing out that they as sometimes pedestrians have as much responsibility as cyclists to be visable and that the Highway Code has very similar wording reguarding to cyclist and pedestrain advice to wear bright and visable clothing.  Between front door and car or car and place of work and "essential" shopping.

I have noticed that when riding off road at night, most of my commute is on the rough stuff, that my relatively powerful lights pick out the reflective patches on the back of their dogs eyes long before the walkers are visable in their dark walking clothing.  Not that they are in any way required to be very noticable in the woods and on the heath, but they might be walking near and across roads at some point...

As well as peds/cyclists bearing some responsibility to make themselves easy to spot, the bulk of the responsibility should be with the faster moving (e.g. cyclists/motorists) to ensure that they can see far enough ahead for the speed that they're doing.