Safety!!

When I started my last post I said that I had not been up to much and writing about my ride to work wasn't very exciting.

I have felt the need to follow my last post up quickly by writing this one. Most of my posts have been about my fitness exploits from running marathons to riding long distance events to competing in triathlons. All of this fades into insignificance when matched against my ride to work when I really think about it.

My ride to work takes me across London along roads that have seen a number of my fellow cyclists not make it to their destination, there has been a large amount written about London's roads and safety of cyclists recently.  Unfortunately this is due to the number of cyclists who have lost their lives on the roads.

Boris Johnson has been criticised for making comments that have been portrayed as blaming the victims for how they have been riding, other writers have seemed to suggest that it is ok for cyclists to jump red lights. It seems to have descended into a lets blame the other party for the problem.

My views are that it is ok to suggest that cyclists should obey the rules of the road and ride responsibly, this is not any affront of any of the cyclists that have lost their lives.  I do not have any knowledge of the exact circumstances of their accidents to be able to make any comment either way on how they or the drivers were  acting.  I also think that it should be noted that there are motorists that should have their attitudes and behaviours questioned, advance stop lines are there to protect cyclists but many motorists believe that they should be allowed to stop within that box too. Indeed I have sat at one such line and had a metropolitan police van casually come to a halt at the advanced line, so there are a lot of people who need their attitude to our roads adjusting.

Until everyone accepts that there is no such thing as a perfectly behaved Cyclist, Driver or Pedestrian nothing is going to change. Some are obviously better than others and whilst I like to think that I am fairly well behaved when riding my bike I am sure that there are people who would point to some of my actions as not meeting their expectations. I know that I sometimes see some cyclists and drivers and think that they are not very considerate of the laws or each other, but only by working together, rather than blaming each other are things going to get better.

I have seen it written that cyclists jump red lights because they think it is safer, well in my experience there are plenty of cyclists who jump red lights through impatience and a thought that they will get to their destination that much quicker by not having the inconvenience of waiting at a red light. There are of course far more who do stop and wait for the lights as the law requires. To balance this out there are also plenty of drivers who also jump red lights for the same reason as the cyclists but again plenty who wait for the light to turn green.

I have also seen it written that cyclists who jump red lights are only putting themselves in danger, well no actually they are putting themselves in harms way but they are not the only people who they are endangering by their actions. Pedestrians who quite reasonably could expect the road to be clear for them to cross may find themselves being run into by the cyclist who has jumped the red light. I have also sat at a red light to see another cyclist ride straight through. Other cyclists, who like me were sat patiently, commented that they felt sorry for any driver that may hit them.

I have always found it quite strange when arguments occur between cyclists and drivers and the driver comes out with that immortal line "I pay my car tax unlike you" or words to that effect. Leaving aside the discussion about what constitutes car tax, it assumes that no cyclist drives a car. My trip to work consists of 2 sections, first I drive my car for about 45 mins then park up take my bike out of the back and cycle for about an hour, so actually I do pay my "car tax" like any other motorist. Of course I know that there are cyclists who don't drive just as there are drivers who don't cycle and I am not suggesting either has more or less rights to use the roads.

I read in the paper and on twitter this week that Police were stopping cyclists who were not wearing helmets or high vis gear to give them advice and also stopping drivers of HGV's to check on their situation.

Now until recently I could have been one of the cyclists stopped for not wearing a helmet and given advice, I say until recently as I now wear a helmet on my ride to work as I feel that my reasoning for not wearing one was flawed, I always used to say a helmet is not going to help much if I get crushed by a lorry, although this is still true obviously there are other kinds of accidents that can occur where a helmet is going to help save me from injury.

Despite having given a couple of paragraphs to the subject of helmets I do disagree with them being discussed as part of cycle safety, this may be controversial and an idea that people do not agree with but let me explain. I never used to wear a helmet when riding a bike other than when I had to because of rules of racing stating that I had to, this was despite the amount of advertising / education around the subject. I always felt uncomfortable wearing one, I really dislike wearing head gear of any sort. My point is that wearing a helmet is a personal choice and one that has been discussed and promoted widely, if people choose not to wear one that is up to them.

Discussing helmets can be seen as a distraction from the wider debate about cycle safety, if someone says the number 1 aspect of cycle safety is getting all cyclists to wear helmets this can detract from discussions around segregating cycle ways and making improvements to road junctions. If helmets is the number 1 aspect then everything else by default is a lower priority?

Recently I saw a video on youtube promoting cycle safety, the video showed the view from the drivers seat of a lorry looking in the mirror showing nothing beside it. The camera was then taken out of the cab and around the front to show a queue of cyclists between the lorry and the pavement.  The idea behind the video I'm sure is to show cyclists that they should not ride up the inside of a lorry but my initial thought on seeing the video is why do we allow such vehicles on the road if they have such a massive blind spot. On many occasions I have found myself between a lorry and kerb due to the lorry pulling up beside me rather than me riding up alongside the lorry. I believe that the big message to take from this video is simply that cyclists and lorries with such a blind spot will always be a danger to each other when sharing the roads. Yes a danger to each other, the danger to the cyclist is obvious, flesh and bone is going to come off far worse in a coming together as has so tragically been apparent this month, but in the nature of this post I am not looking to blame one or other party.

Something needs to be done to solve this, that could be segregated cycle ways or banning lorries with such blind spots from the roads at peak times, there must be a way to make the roads safer for all.

I am sure that there will be plenty of people who ride bikes and who drive that will have an argument against some if not all of my points. I welcome the opportunity to discuss them with anyone who disagrees, I am not adverse to changing my opinion if I can be persuaded properly but please be open to listening to my view as well as criticising it. We can not change opinions if we are not able to discuss and understand all views!

Please all road users consider each other and look at ways that we can all be safe on the roads whatever our method of transport.

Duathlon

So I have not had much to post about recently, only riding to work and that has not been very exciting.

So a little while ago when I saw a tweet from @dashing_divasuk asking for a cyclist to take part in Dinton Duathlon whilst she did the running it seemed like a plan.

Dinton Pastures is not far from me and I ride a bike a bit, so I duly answered the tweet to offer my services. Then the details came through, what time did I have to get up on a Sunday morning?!!

An email arrived from Sian to check that I was ok stil for the event and a text and a tweet, she had just checked the timings too!

Anyway I duly dragged myself out of bed at 5.30 put on my kit and drove off to Dinton Pastures, a lovely site and well worth a visit even if not competing at silly o' clock in the morning.

Sian arrived and we registered, collected our numbers and timing chip, the baton for the relay. I collected my bike from the car, numbered it up and racked it in transition, we were ready to go.

There was a mandatory race briefing, including the reason behind the early start, which was short and to the point followed by a quick explanation of how the transition for teams would work, I have never done a triathlon or duathlon as part of a team so this was all a bit alien to me.

At 8.40 Sian set off on her first 5k run and I went to get myself ready in transition to await her return. Her arrival was announced by the commentator picking up her number and giving a shout out to team Dashing Diva & Dude! fairly soon we were transferring the baton  and I was off on the bike.

I had guessed that it would take me about 40 mins for the ride but I had a bit of a stormer and surprised Sian by turning up back in transition about 6 mins before she was expecting me.

When Sian returned from her 2nd 5k run we had finished as the 4th placed mixed team, both quite chuffed!

The event was great, organisation was excellent and a good course, well worth getting up early for. Big thanks and congratulations to Ellie and the team for organising and marshalling a very successful event. Maybe next year I should return to complete the whole thing as an individual!

After leaving Dinton Pastures I headed over to Mum and Dads to say hi, blag some lunch and raid Dad's garage for bike bits to complete my cross bike. With the bits I had already and some spares from the garage along with nicking some bits of my brothers old cross bike I now have a complete bike! Just need to enter a race now!