Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

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Pete Owens
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Pete Owens »

mjr wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 12:13am
Pete Owens wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 10:38am All that happened last year during lockdown was a large decrease in commuting (thus a decrease in safer urban cycling) and a large increase in recreational cycling (thus a corresponding increase in cyclists on less safe rural roads - resulting in an increase in deaths of cyclists on rural roads).
Only a 20% decrease in utility cycling (which includes commuting), but a 75% increase in leisure cycling, according to the Active Lives Survey for 2020. Where are you getting the large decrease in commuting from?

I suspect there may be urban/rural numbers somewhere in the Road Traffic Estimates but I did not find them yet.
20% is a large change. It is only if you compare it with the 75% that it appears relatively small. And since you are comparing percentages the decrease in commuting could well be higher than the increase in leisure riding.

The point remains that the
'Cycle deaths soar on rural roads'
headline is simply a consequence of
'Cyclist numbers soar on rural roads'.

Since both trends (the decrease in commuting and increase in rural cycling) were driven by lockdown regulations, I would expect to see a reversal in the figures for 2021. In a years time the insurance company will then dredge through the collision stats to find the largest percentage change and will produce a press release which will then dutifully appear as a BBC headline:
'Cycle deaths soar on urban roads'
thirdcrank
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by thirdcrank »

I've posted before that on roads without enforcement cameras, the sheer weight of traffic is a significant factor in controlling its speed. In lockdown, traffic levels fell while the levels of vulnerable users out for their permitted exercise or just getting out of the house when furloughed.
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Legal enforcement leading to social attitudes which are the real determiners of behaviour, as mentioned by Pete Owens, is correct IMO. I'm not sure how relevant it is to minor rural roads as there is no enforcement on these roads, and one reason for that is because there is no speeding – which is not the same thing, of course, as excessive speed. But even on the increasing number of minor rural roads limited to 30 or 40mph, you rarely see police.
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mjr
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by mjr »

Bmblbzzz wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 11:43am I'm not sure how relevant it is to minor rural roads as there is no enforcement on these roads, and one reason for that is because there is no speeding – which is not the same thing, of course, as excessive speed.
Pull the other one. No speeding? We've motorists being clocked at 80+mph on C-class unlined-but-wide rural roads by village speedwatch volunteers. One of the near-blind brows on a tarmacked straight part of Peddars Way is so iffy that a footpath was created behind the hedge instead.

You're probably right about no enforcement at the moment, sadly, but it's more due to lack of resources than lack of offenders.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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mjr
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by mjr »

Pete Owens wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 11:22am 20% is a large change. It is only if you compare it with the 75% that it appears relatively small. And since you are comparing percentages the decrease in commuting could well be higher than the increase in leisure riding.
Both were starting from similar levels. Using the same comparative for both suggests a similar size, which they were not. If the 20% fall is a large change, the 75% increase is a massive one.
The point remains that the
'Cycle deaths soar on rural roads'
headline is simply a consequence of
'Cyclist numbers soar on rural roads'.
This seems quite likely to me, but I cannot actually confirm it.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Bmblbzzz »

mjr wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 11:59am
Bmblbzzz wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 11:43am I'm not sure how relevant it is to minor rural roads as there is no enforcement on these roads, and one reason for that is because there is no speeding – which is not the same thing, of course, as excessive speed.
Pull the other one. No speeding? We've motorists being clocked at 80+mph on C-class unlined-but-wide rural roads by village speedwatch volunteers. One of the near-blind brows on a tarmacked straight part of Peddars Way is so iffy that a footpath was created behind the hedge instead.

You're probably right about no enforcement at the moment, sadly, but it's more due to lack of resources than lack of offenders.
Sure, especially at night, just as you get people driving at 120 on motorways. But they're rare and tend to favour certain roads and times; illegal road racing is very much a thing. The main danger though is from people driving at legal but unsafe speeds.
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SupermanVsSnowman
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by SupermanVsSnowman »

mjr wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 5:47pm
Pete Owens wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 5:06pm
mjr wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 1:26pm

Sorry but that's not so. Half of car drivers currently break the speed limits on motorways and 30mph roads:
"In July to September 2021, 48% of cars in free-flowing conditions exceeded the speed limit on motorways. On National Speed Limit (NSL) single carriageways with a car speed limit of 60 mph, 9% of cars exceeded the speed limit, while on 30 mph roads, 52% of cars exceeded the speed limit."
Yes, but not by huge margins - as used to be the case.

That is what I meant by "by and large". They know that their speedo is probably overeading by a few percent. They know that the police apply a margin so they may exceed limits by a little bit.
Crikey, that's a meaning I don't remember seeing before. I am pretty sure that most people would understand "by and large" to mean "mostly" or "generally" rather than "almost" or "nearly".
Twenty years ago, if you drove along a motorway at 70mph you would regularly be overtaken by drivers flying past at 100.
I think that's more due to fuel prices and a greater awareness of how fuel economy drops off rapidly above 70mph than anything else, though.
And the important thing in complying with speed limits is social acceptability rather than enforcement - though the latter is key to achieving the former. [...] You don't get that any more; people feel embarassed if they caught rather than aggrieved.
I'm not convinced. We still have posters even on here who proudly admit exceeding the speed limit when motoring and the frothing petrolheads are in the comments on every newspaper article about a new speed camera, which get vandalised with depressing frequency.
People are regularly fined for not moving at all. This is fair enough if they are parked causing an obstruction, but I myself got fined once for parking in an actual parking bay. It was a motorcycle too! I didn't know parking restrictions applied to motorcycles at the time as I have often parked on pavements (leaving sufficient room for wheelchairs, prams etc) without problem. Guess you could say lesson learnt but what really gets me is those private car park things I hear so much about. I wanna go to one of them and smash the &^*n meters in with a hammer.
Parking bays are for parking in, I'd prefer it if the wardens would go and eat the glass out of my mirrors and choke. I don't use a motor vehicle anymore for many reasons. All of them stressful.
Last edited by SupermanVsSnowman on 9 Dec 2021, 8:09am, edited 1 time in total.
OH CACK! I just dropped my d-lock, shattering the JWST primary mirrors! I'll just say I was on the toilet when I heard something smash.
pwa
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by pwa »

peetee wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 9:52am Speed, or rather excessive speed is not always the danger with rural roads. It’s what I would call lazy chancers. Those that drive assuming that there won’t be anything that gets in their way or just not making the best of a potentially difficult situation. For example; the cyclist is struggling up a winding hill at 10mph, the driver is approaching from behind at 30mph, sees the cyclist then, trying to minimise their inconvenience and with the overriding voice of experience convincing them that it’s a quiet lane with not much traffic they overtake with precious little time for observation and without changing down gear. There is questionable amount of clear road visible ahead and they are taking forever to get past in a labouring car.
More often than not the scenario locally is a narrow lane with short sight lines and a vehicle behind whose driver just gets fed up of being stuck behind you. When they do overtake and meet that car coming the other way both vehicles might only be doing 30mph but it’s a potentially fatal collision that’s due to impatience not outright speed.
Sure, but I do know some lanes local to me where that does not happen. They are lanes where motor traffic is very low, partly because traffic prefers faster roads not far away. The lanes I consider to be safe are genuinely safe. I know other lanes where drivers are more likely to be in too much of a hurry, lanes that form short cuts, and those lanes are not safe.

This lane is dodgy because some drivers will be going too fast, and some will be impatient to get past. This lane is a short cut between two A roads.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5472479 ... 6?hl=en-GB

But this lane is one I have been using regularly for a couple of decades and I have never had an unsatisfactory interaction with another road user.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4614324 ... 6?hl=en-GB
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Traction_man
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Traction_man »

pwa wrote: 9 Dec 2021, 5:19am
peetee wrote: 8 Dec 2021, 9:52am Speed, or rather excessive speed is not always the danger with rural roads. It’s what I would call lazy chancers. Those that drive assuming that there won’t be anything that gets in their way or just not making the best of a potentially difficult situation. For example; the cyclist is struggling up a winding hill at 10mph, the driver is approaching from behind at 30mph, sees the cyclist then, trying to minimise their inconvenience and with the overriding voice of experience convincing them that it’s a quiet lane with not much traffic they overtake with precious little time for observation and without changing down gear. There is questionable amount of clear road visible ahead and they are taking forever to get past in a labouring car.
More often than not the scenario locally is a narrow lane with short sight lines and a vehicle behind whose driver just gets fed up of being stuck behind you. When they do overtake and meet that car coming the other way both vehicles might only be doing 30mph but it’s a potentially fatal collision that’s due to impatience not outright speed.
Sure, but I do know some lanes local to me where that does not happen. They are lanes where motor traffic is very low, partly because traffic prefers faster roads not far away. The lanes I consider to be safe are genuinely safe. I know other lanes where drivers are more likely to be in too much of a hurry, lanes that form short cuts, and those lanes are not safe.

This lane is dodgy because some drivers will be going too fast, and some will be impatient to get past. This lane is a short cut between two A roads.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5472479 ... 6?hl=en-GB

But this lane is one I have been using regularly for a couple of decades and I have never had an unsatisfactory interaction with another road user.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4614324 ... 6?hl=en-GB
Good contrasting examples from Google Streetview there, I use this approach a lot for route planning, as I would always prefer the type of lane in your second link--checking Google Streeview for the route, coupled with a close look at the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale maps, and seeking out those 'yellow roads' on the map shown as "Road generally less than 4m wide".

all the best,

Keith
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Yep, once the road is wide enough for one car each way it's probably wide enough to attract excessive speed, and certainly when it's wide enough to have a centre line. The cut-through situation that pwa highlights is a big problem; a lot of minor roads would benefit from strategic point closures, but so far that seems to be only an urban thing.
Tiggertoo
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Tiggertoo »

Bmblbzzz wrote: 9 Dec 2021, 9:39am Yep, once the road is wide enough for one car each way it's probably wide enough to attract excessive speed, and certainly when it's wide enough to have a centre line. The cut-through situation that pwa highlights is a big problem; a lot of minor roads would benefit from strategic point closures, but so far that seems to be only an urban thing.
Riding on Sunday (71 miles out and back) on what used to be a quiet country lane has become a major throughway with traffic skirting the main roads and using the one I was on as an alternative. Lots of very fast traffic many hauling trailers and what used to be a fairly nice shoulder now reduced to a rough gravel pot-holed mess.

These roads are 16 feet wide and clearly never intended for this level of usage, but it seems this is what is happening everywhere with greater frequency. Cycling nowadays on public roads requires a very high level of caution.

I don't usually have my rear lights on during the day, and I'm not sure of the efficacy of doing so. Some say it irritates drivers - it doesn't do much to do that anyway - and others say it gives warning that you are there in case they missed you as they approached at 80 MPH.

Either way, riding on rural roads is a scary business these days and needs greater caution from us pedal pushers.
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Mick F
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Mick F »

Yes, things have changed.

I ride over the bridge into "England" on many many of my rides. Done it over the decades.
Also, come back to Cornwall over it. Ditto for decades.

The last twice - only in the last week or so - coming back into Cornwall, the following car was trying to overtake me.
The bridge gets narrower and narrower on the way across, and is gently uphill turning to quite steep as you turn left up the hill.
The parapet is low, and as I'm on a bike, it's about hip height.
If a car was to give me a glancing blow, I'd be off over the parapet into the river.

Consequently, when I see this starting to happen, I move out wide - very wide.

Wide at the Devon end.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.52878 ... 384!8i8192

Narrow at the Cornwall end.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.52853 ... 384!8i8192

Satellite view.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.52868 ... a=!3m1!1e3
Mick F. Cornwall
Tiggertoo
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Tiggertoo »

In those circumstances I would turn my head, wave at the driver, and stand on the pedals as if I am going to get over the bridge in a hurry so as not to delay them. At the other end I would move over and wave them through. I try to engage with drivers as much as possible, they are much bigger than I am. We really do have to baby drivers these days and give them as many 'goodies' and reasons to tolerate us as we can.
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Tolls collected by the English, I note!
mattheus
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Re: Cyclist deaths soar on rural roads in England

Post by mattheus »

Tiggertoo wrote: 9 Dec 2021, 5:09pm We really do have to baby drivers these days and give them as many 'goodies' and reasons to tolerate us as we can.
By whose authority?
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