Cyclist Safety

Hi I have not posted anything recently mainly as my training has been a bit boring, I did fit in a swim last night to test out my new goggls for Challenge Henley at the weekend, hence my trip to work this morning was by train!

Travelling in by train gave me time to read an open letter to Laura Trott by Justin Shevlin.

Now I didn't see the article that he refers to so am not really qualified to comment on most of it. I do however have some issues with his response.

Laura is quoted as saying

“Cyclists wonder why they get a bad name. I see cyclists jumping in and out of the buses and people wonder why they get hit…..Cyclists need to help themselves and should not jump red lights. I would ride in London but I certainly wouldn’t ride like that, you just have to be careful. I can understand going down the outside of traffic but you should obey the rules of the road because we’re all road users”

Justin has an issue with this, thinking that it gives car drivers an excuse to think badly of all cyclists. Personally I agree with Laura on this quote, cyclists should obey the rules of the road and not jump red lights etc. Justin goes on to explain that he rode many miles around London including going through red lights. At this point he lost some credibility in my eyes. He goes on to ask is it just weaving if you are on a bike but overtaking if you are in a car, well no, you can overtake busses on a bike but I would suggest it becomes weaving when you go from overtaking one side to undertaking the other and back again without due care for other road users around you.

A quote from Justin is

"I know this wasn’t your intention, but today, as a direct result of what you said, cyclists on their morning commute would have felt more vulnerable and more at risk than they did on Friday morning."

We'll actually no I will not feel any more vulnerable on my cycle home tonight as a result of knowing of Laura's comments but I will as a result of Justin's and I will explain why.

Reading Laura's comments I find myself agreeing with the comments she makes, cyclists do need to help themselves, be aware of other road users around them and obey the rules of the road especially red lights.

Yes I agree with Justin that there is a minority of cyclists that do behave badly on the road but they will affect a drivers perception of all cyclists.  I like to think that I am not one of them, I obey red lights and am careful about how my riding affects other road users.

Justin's comments on the other hand seem to be aimed at excusing cyclists bad behaviour and suggest that as a cyclist there is no need for him to obey the rules. This attitude I feel will play into the hands of the frustrated drivers that he mentions. Now this may be me taking his comments the wrong way and not what he intended.

One comment of Justin's that I do agree with is with regards to the lack of comments about irresponsible drivers. In order to make London's roads safer ALL road users need to play nicely together and take some responsibility for each others safety.

This I believe can only happen if we all obey the rules of the road and don't have certain factions trying to make excuses or reasons for their own side to break the rules. I have heard comments along the lines of

"It is safer for me as a cyclist to jump a red light than wait with all the other traffic"

Now while they may believe this to be true the fact remains that cyclists jumping red lights is illegal, puts the cyclist in a position on the road that other road users don't expect them to be and gives drivers a reason to moan about all cyclists. 

However if, for example, there are junctions where it would be safer for cyclists to turn left on a red light, and I'm sure there probably are, then this needs proper planning including education of all road users to avoid the problems I mention above.

I read an article on the way home last night about lorries being fitted with safety equipment. Whilst I applaud any improvement to cyclist safety I did worry about the stats quoted. They suggested that the devices they were talking about would have saved 5 of 14 cyclist lives lost on the streets. Now I fully agree that these safety improvements are a great idea and if they even save 1 live they will be worth it but I feel it shows that there is still a lot more that needs doing to improve safety on our roads.

There will always be people of all modes of transport that complain about each other but I believe that the irresponsible road users of all manner are in a minority, I have met many polite car drivers on my rides.

I'm sure that just as Justin disagrees with Laura and I disagree with some of Justin's comments people will disagree with my point of view but hey wouldn't life be boring if we all had the same view!  One point of view that I hope we can all agree on though is that there is plenty that can and should be done to improve cyclist safety on our roads.

Throughout Laura's, Justin's and my own comments we have all views on what can be done to aid safety. There are many people and agencies who can assist with improving the saftey of cyclists on our roads and as I highlight above with regards to the lorries there is much to be done. There are also others who can throw obsticles in our way but ultimately there is only 1 person responsible for my saftey, given the current rules and limitations, as I ride to and from my London office!