Close Pass Initiative - follow up?

[The utility cyclist]

Shall we put this to bed straight away!
The Irish government did a study this year of all countries and found no evidence that a distance passing law has increased safety of people on bikes.

Citation requested, please.

Not one single countries close pass initiative with a minimum passing rule/law has worked, without continual policing and a significant change in culture including carrot and stick it simply will not work.

I'm pretty sure most of us are in favour of "continual policing and a significant change in culture"!

Spain, nope, since the passing law Spain has increased injuries and deaths,

Plenty of confounding factors in Spain, including hateful H&H laws and promotion. Australia's anti-cycling measures have been discussed at length in the special forum.

You could simply stop up thrpugh roads in towns and cities so that motorists cannot go through so have to go around and/or have strict speed enforcement via electronic devices fitted and with much lower speed limits, that would solve a lot of problems in built up areas but no politician is going to do that ever.

...that was a partly political broadcast by the defeatist party... Never say never!

Here you go.

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Consultatio ... clists.pdf

The US investigation clearly shows distance passing laws have not helped one iota, in fact could have had a detrimental effect. You can deny the facts all you like but distance passing laws have not helped a single country improve the safety of cyclists, these are facts not personal opinion.

[PH]

The Irish government did a study this year of all countries and found no evidence that a distance passing law has increased safety of people on bikes.
Not one single countries close pass initiative with a minimum passing rule/law has worked, without continual policing and a significant change in culture including carrot and stick it simply will not work.

Once they'd had the study, they still tried to introduce a close pass law against the advice. It was only some technical issue which stopped it, indeed it was reported in several places that it had been introduced.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/08 ... roads-law/

[PH]

And I'm simply saying that a distance passing rule makes no difference to the safety of people on bikes nor change the environment perceived or otherwise so that those that might want to cycle won't because as I said, a distance passing rule has done the square root of zilch to increase safety.

I'm of the opinion that most close passes come from ignorance rather than malice. I hope I didn't terrify too many cyclists in the many years I drove before I cycled, I'm pretty sure the distance I considered appropriate while driving is less than it is while cycling. That being the case awareness is a good thing and the recent campaigns have raised that. Cycling UK have been campaigning since before 2009 for cyclist consideration to be a more prominent part of driver tuition and testing, IMO another good thing.

After their stance in 2009 CUK have changed their stance

I was at the AGM where the close pass motion was rejected, I don't think they have changed their stance. They were clearly not in favour of legislation and as far as I'm aware still aren't.

[Psamathe]

I was at the AGM where the close pass motion was rejected, I don't think they have changed their stance. They were clearly not in favour of legislation and as far as I'm aware still aren't.

What are they in favour of? Because their mats are reaching a tiny minority, their campaigning seems to be having little impact. It’s all very well rejecting ideas put forward but they need to come up with something new that will have some effect. Buying a few mats for a Police force that can easily afford them themselves is only trivial PR (tagging on the coat tails of others who are trying to do something).

Ian

[PH]

I was at the AGM where the close pass motion was rejected, I don't think they have changed their stance. They were clearly not in favour of legislation and as far as I'm aware still aren't.

What are they in favour of?

Here's a tiny part of it
https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/how-d ... p-cyclists

[jonc.uk]

Arg I had woman in a Mercedes ML brushed my arm with her wing mirror today. Irked my chain just a bit. But the bit that boiled my blood was 30 feet passed me she indicated to turn right into the garden market. and due to the oncoming traffic she had to come to a complete stop.

I was so tempted to stop myself and say something as I came gliding back passed her. It was this temptation that compelled me to carry on passed and not even look at her, for I know she would have just shrugged her shoulders and mouthed sorry. at which point I may not have stopped my self from smashing her wing mirror off. and then myself shrugged, said sorry and continued to suggest I was just finishing the job she didn’t quite manage to complete.

Sadly, I think it's optimistic to assume that there would be an apology.

Even on ludicrously short rides, I'm frequently passed by cars far too closely; if you catch them at the lights and try to explain, hostility is the common response.

Maybe that's just where I live though...

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my ONEPLUS A6003 using hovercraft full of eels.

[Xilter]

Arg I had woman in a Mercedes ML brushed my arm with her wing mirror today. Irked my chain just a bit. But the bit that boiled my blood was 30 feet passed me she indicated to turn right into the garden market. and due to the oncoming traffic she had to come to a complete stop.

I was so tempted to stop myself and say something as I came gliding back passed her. It was this temptation that compelled me to carry on passed and not even look at her, for I know she would have just shrugged her shoulders and mouthed sorry. at which point I may not have stopped my self from smashing her wing mirror off. and then myself shrugged, said sorry and continued to suggest I was just finishing the job she didn’t quite manage to complete.

Sadly, I think it's optimistic to assume that there would be an apology.

Even on ludicrously short rides, I'm frequently passed by cars far too closely; if you catch them at the lights and try to explain, hostility is the common response.

Maybe that's just where I live though...

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my ONEPLUS A6003 using hovercraft full of eels.

The internet can make it so hard to portray tone of voice.
I didn’t mean to suggest that she would have sincerely apologised. Far from it. Just the casual phrase that is the automatic and hollow response society has drilled into us to issue. Hence why I thought it best to continue on my way. For such an Meaningless reply might just have been my undoing.

[jonc.uk]

Arg I had woman in a Mercedes ML brushed my arm with her wing mirror today. Irked my chain just a bit. But the bit that boiled my blood was 30 feet passed me she indicated to turn right into the garden market. and due to the oncoming traffic she had to come to a complete stop.

I was so tempted to stop myself and say something as I came gliding back passed her. It was this temptation that compelled me to carry on passed and not even look at her, for I know she would have just shrugged her shoulders and mouthed sorry. at which point I may not have stopped my self from smashing her wing mirror off. and then myself shrugged, said sorry and continued to suggest I was just finishing the job she didn’t quite manage to complete.

Sadly, I think it's optimistic to assume that there would be an apology.

Even on ludicrously short rides, I'm frequently passed by cars far too closely; if you catch them at the lights and try to explain, hostility is the common response.

Maybe that's just where I live though...

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my ONEPLUS A6003 using hovercraft full of eels.

The internet can make it so hard to portray tone of voice.
I didn’t mean to suggest that she would have sincerely apologised. Far from it. Just the casual phrase that is the automatic and hollow response society has drilled into us to issue. Hence why I thought it best to continue on my way. For such an Meaningless reply might just have been my undoing.

I think you demonstrate much more maturity and composure than I could muster!

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my ONEPLUS A6003 using hovercraft full of eels.

[thirdcrank]

My reading of the Irish report is that it's not saying that close passing (MPD) laws don't work, simply that there's inadequate research to say what effect they have.

5. Key Considerations and Conclusions (p 23)

... Unfortunately, little empirical evidence is available to date to support the claim that a MPD law is an appropriate response to this issue, or that it can produce the desired effects. It should be noted however, that this body of research is in its relative infancy, and additional, better quality studies in this area may be needed to establish the objective safety impact of MPD legislation. ...

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Consultatio ... clists.pdf
And FWIW, the American legislation quoted in the report seems to specify three feet as the minimum distance
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PS I think there are too aspects to this:

It's seems obvious that in an ideal world, drivers would give cyclists big overtaking margins. It seems likely that that would encourage more cycling which might result in more casualties. ie Measuring success is not clear cut.

Then, as this isn't going to happen by magic, how else might it be achieved? Legislation implies enforcement and proving passing distances to the criminal standard in the UK is likely to be very different and I think that's why a minimum passing distance law would not be the way forward in this country.

[NUKe]

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/mo ... ocid=ientp

just turned up on MSN