Cycling UK Forum

Posted: **11 Sep 2007, 8:10pm**

I can sympathyse with your view Aurthur. I know what useful transport m.c's can be but still:

mile for mile, powered two wheelers (PTWs) are about 1.5 times as likely as cars to be involved in collisions which cause injury to cyclists, twice as likely to be involved in causing them serious injuries and about three times as likely to be involved in killing them.

If that is true then I think CTC have to take it up as part of
'Our mission is ‘to make cycling enjoyable, safe and welcoming for all.’. Considering thats what it says at the top of the website I would expect them to

If bicycles were 1½times more dangerous to motorbikes than cars I bet MC news would be on to it straight away. I know that they have similar campaigns about the dangers to m.c.'s from other vehicles

Posted: **11 Sep 2007, 10:52pm**

Great to have produced the letter.

If it really is the case that motorcycles "are about 1.5 times as likely as cars to be involved in collisions which cause injury to cyclists, twice as likely to be involved in causing them serious injuries and about three times as likely to be involved in killing them", could it actually be that cyclists not motorcyclists are equally/more to blame?

Cyclist activists have this nearer to God feeling that someone else is always to blame. Watch cyclists in London, and see how some jump lights, ride across pavements, etc. Also, motorcyclists, unlike cars, share the same part of the road as cyclists, so accidents between them are more likely.

Whatever our views on this, I hope we can agree that the CTC should be communicating with its members, and posting proposed and actual campaign letters on the CTC web site. so the membership can express their views.

Is anyone from the CTC council/staff going to comment? Silence so far.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 8:43am**

The reason that the CTC has whatever 'power' and / or influence it does is because of the size of its membership, and the quality of its representation and persuasion - which is drawn from dedicated and knowledgeable cyclists amongst that membership.

I am entirely in agreement with you James Wyburd. Any policy-based actions, any alterations/changes/additions to the goals of lobbying or applying pressure MUST be disseminated to, and debated with, that membership.

I don't think it's practicable for the CTC to always tell all of us everything they do. Much of what is done on our behalf falls into line with already established policies, etc. The CTC website is large and many-paged, so I don't know whether there is a section where all the policies and goals of CTC are set out in a searchable way? If not, maybe there should be.

The question as I see it is - which category does the letter of support re reducing the size of motorcycles come under? Is it a new direction? Is it a changed/added policy? If so, where was the debate amongst the membership? Is it an existing agreed policy? If so, where is this on the website?

Like you, I'd be interested to hear.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 10:20am**

James Wyburd wrote:Is anyone from the CTC council/staff going to comment? Silence so far.

These boards are seen by the CTC hierarchy as a necessary evil and for the great unwashed. Apart from CJ's useful technical advice, management participation on these boards is as rare as dropping horse doo-dahs.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 1:21pm**

What ThomasDylan actually meant :wink:

to say was....the boards are here for the membership to communicate with each other. They are not an official line of communication to those at HO. If you wish to recieve comments from the CTC staff then you should either contact them directly or go via your councilor.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 1:43pm**

James Wyburd wrote:Great to have produced the letter.

Cyclist activists have this nearer to God feeling that someone else is always to blame. Watch cyclists in London, and see how some jump lights, ride across pavements, etc. Also, motorcyclists, unlike cars, share the same part of the road as cyclists, so accidents between them are more likely.

thats an interesting viewpoint James. I'm trying to imagine how it would work: are you really saying that cyclists jumping red lights and riding on the footpath in London is the cause of the additional risk that MCs present to cyclists and therefore the cyclists fault? Surely you would have to cycle into the path of a motorcycle without right of way to be at fault. Do people do that?

Incidentally if you ride motorcycles you will know that they take the center of the carriageway and often to the right to pass slower traffic. Cycles stay over to the left so their road position wouldn't normally clash.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 2:09pm**

As a CTC member, CTC Right to Ride Rep, keen cyclist and somebody who happens to own and ride a motorcycle, I'm disappointed to first read of this letter in this forum; as well as to see the direction the campaign is heading.

I won't dispute the stats, motorcycling can be dangerous. It seems more dangerous amongst the those who have a different riding style though, whether through lack of training, inexperience or overconfidence.

I'd much rather that the CTC encouraged motorcycles as a congestion and pollution reducing measure, and also persued a rider training and improvement campaign. Including allowing motorcycles into bus lanes, where they can pass cyclists with plenty of room - unlike buses!

Finally, I don't know whether any of the signaturees of the letter have ridden motorbikes, but if they have they'll know that 125cc and below bikes have brakes and suspension to match; they are very unpleasant to ride, lose traction on any bumpy bend, and don't stop. Once you get a bigger engined bike the brakes and suspension are better, ensuring a safer ride! I've got a 600cc bike that is easy to ride, stable and maneuverable. I'd never want to downgrade that to anything smaller, I'd feel very unsafe.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 2:09pm**

One observation:

I think the higher probability of motorcyclists been involved in collisions with cyclists and pedestrians could be attributed in part to the fact they take up less roadspace and are therefore less visible to other road users.

It's a bit like SafeSpeed making out cyclists were more of a danger to pedestrians than white man van - the statistics don't account for the number of times pedestrians step out in front of cyclists because they haven't seen them.

I would imagine motorbikes carry this risk too.

One opinion:

I think the motorcycle fraternity suffers from the same afflictions as the cycling fraternity. Silly cyclists spoil it for the rest of us, red light jumping, riding on pavements etc. whilst silly motorcyclists ride powerful machines to quickly on the queens highway with tiny/obscured number plates also pulling stoppies and wheelies and peforming daft overtaking manouvres.

I don't disagree with what is written in the letter on the most part. (I can't see the assertion that anything over 125 cc should have it's power restricted and I don't agree with that).

And I do wonder if manufacturers should be made to take the lead. I was reading recently about Suzuki's latest GSX-R1000 having a switch to reduce power - 180 bhp on such a machine for road use is just a bit silly but having the switchable power means that motorcyclists can enjoy a sensible number of horses on the road and still get full enjoyment out of their machines on the track.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 3:35pm**

Cycling and motorcycling seem to me to have a lot in common - and there are a lot of people (including me) who do both, possibly as a consequence. I'm genuinely surprised that MCs present such a high risk to cyclists but think that the CT are right to take it up if its true.

I agree that banning big MC's would be too simplistic. 'Ride' magazine polled their readers a few years back and identified some common factors in MC crashes. They couldnt find a big BMW rider who had done any more than let it fall over as I remember. On the other hand they couldn't find many GSXR riders who hadn't crashed recently. Interestingly they found that riders who commute in all weathers had much fewer collisions than riders who only went out on sunny sundays. That, perhaps, is the key point of conflict with cyclists.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 4:27pm**

Si wrote:What ThomasDylan actually meant to say was....

Did I?

Wouldn't have been the first thing on my mind after a fruitless round of emails with senior management!

I moderate a forum myself and I make sure that the company has an active role on the boards. I personally think it's wrong to ignore such a valuable resource.

The standard cop-out will be that the CTC has to address all its members, bla, bla, bla, exclusion of non-it-savvy members, bla, bla, bla... Forums can attract very dedicated people (cyclists in this case) and I find them to be a good barometer of what's happening outside the ivory towers.

However, I'm no longer in the CTC, so it's irrelevant to me and I doubt if the situation will change anyway.

Posted: **12 Sep 2007, 5:37pm**

My point being that if every mamber of staff had to trawl through every topic every day to see if there was something relivent to them, then they'd waste a good deal of their time. Some members of staff do visit the forum to see what's going on but as the forum but you can't rely on them doing so if you want a speedy reply to a post, or even a reply at all if that particular thread didn't get noticed.

Of course we could always raise the membership rates to employ someone full time to trawl the forum and pass on the relivant posts to the correct people (give me a shout if you want my CV Mr Maine) :wink:

Posted: **13 Sep 2007, 12:02am**

This is reminescent of the early 1980s when great efforts were taken to clamp down on motorcyclists because of high accident statistics. This resulted in the kids ditching the 250s they were killing themselves on, buying Ford Capris and killing other people instead.
The resulting shift of the fatalities made the statistics look better as the deaths due to cars is much larger and can easily absorb the increase.
While riding my cycle I have had negligable worries from motorbikes compared to other road users. So I assume it is a city problem. Possibly due to motorcyclists using the same routes filtering through the cars as cyclists are using.
It is a bit of an unsubstantiated leap to go to banning only larger motorcycles I have a large motorbike and a small one and the large one is much more controlable than the small. However it would hurt more if it hit you.
The statistics given are to vaguely defined and if the number of deaths from motorcycles is small then it may be that it was just one death that caused that figure of 3 times the frequency of deaths from 4 wheelers.
If the same statistics were produced for high performance cars compared to other road users what would the ratio be then?

This letter is probably barking up the wrong tree as the statistics dont feel right to me, even if they are correct then not banning all motorcycles may not be adequate. If the motorcycles are banned the real problem of the people who were riding them dangerously will be displaced to other more polluting and dangerous vehicles in the majority of cases.

A much better solution would be what the letter did in fact ask for, ie a review of the problem. This has happened in the past and the motorcyclists have the MAG (Motorcycle Action Group) who have been very effective at defending motorcycling.
I suppose the majority of the British public would be happy to see all motorcyclists and CYCLISTS banned from the road and everyone in cars,where they should be.

Posted: **13 Sep 2007, 6:32am**

meic wrote:This is reminescent of the early 1980s when great efforts were taken to clamp down on motorcyclists because of high accident statistics. This resulted in the kids ditching the 250s they were killing themselves on, buying Ford Capris and killing other people instead.
The resulting shift of the fatalities made the statistics look better as the deaths due to cars is much larger and can easily absorb the increase.

Very interesting info Meic, thanks. I recall those Ford Capri boy-racers. My partner and I still refer to that car as a Ford Crapi, because the driving of them conformed to stereotype almost every time.

I don't think that any size of motobike should be banned. IMO all road users other than 4-wheel (or more wheels) should make common cause against the total dominance of the car/van/lorry/juggernaut.

Roads were once for everyone to use. We need to reclaim our urban space and rural lanes - get speeds right down low - 20 mph and 10 mph depending on local circumstance.

Let the 4-or-more-wheelers (and that includes me when I'm driving) have A-roads and B-roads and motorways to whizz round on - masses of 'average-speed' cameras on the urban roads and rural lanes roads to ensure the 10 mph and 20 mph are respected, but none on motorways - where there should be No Speed Limit At All.

And yes, this is my political view and my Political view, since this thread is about politics.

Posted: **13 Sep 2007, 4:52pm**

Here is a detailed response to this issue from Roger Geffen (I asked him in my capacity as a CTC Right-to-Ride Representative, he's agreed to publish it here):

Roger Geffen wrote:The letter from RoadPeace to the Commons Transport Select Committee did not call for limits on the power and speed of motorcycles. It simply urged the Committee to press the Government to reconsider these options.

CTC policy does not have a specific stance on the power and speed of motorcycles, but does call for measures to reduce motor vehicle speeds more generally.

The Government's rejection (see para 5 of http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... /69804.htm) of the speed-related recommendations in the Transport Select Committee's motorcycling report (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... /26402.htm) is disingenuous in two respects. The Government rejects the fitting speed limiters on motorbikes, arguing that this would only address a proportion of the 4% of motor cycle accidents where "exceeding the speed limit" was identified (by the police officer attending the scene, incidentally) as a "contributory factor". This ignores two points:
Firstly, this contributory factor is higher for motorbikes (4%) than for cars (3%). The same is true for the contributory factor of "going too fast for the conditions (9% for motorbikes, 6% for cars). See table 3 of the Government's report "Contributory factors to road accidents 2005":
http://www.dft.gov.uk/162259/162469/221 ... oadacc1802.
Secondly, both these contributory factors become much more significant in more serious collisions. Going too fast for the conditions were factors in 15% of all collisions, but 26% of all fatal collisions, accounting for 28% of all people killed on Britain's roads (see the executive summary of the above report). However, for motorcycle crashes involving no other vehicle, the difference is far more stark. "Exceeding the speed limit" was a factor in 23% of the 120 single-vehicle fatalities in 2005 (with driving too fast for the conditions being a factor in another 12% - see Table 8). So fitting speed limiters could have saved the lives of at least 28 speeding motorcyclists in that one year alone.

Taking these two points together: if the Government's enthusiasm for developing speed limiter technology (see Road Safety Strategy 2nd review - http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/st ... 2ndreview/) is justified for cars, it is if anything even more strongly justified for motorcycles. Hence their rejection of the Committee's recomendation is simply dishonest and disingenuous, and RoadPeace is right to urge the Select Committee to challenge this, and I stand by my decision to support them in doing so.

The motorcycling lobby is now claiming that there is no evidence that heavier / more powerful motorbikes have a higher crash involvement rate than lighter ones. I have not seen their figures. All I know is that a pedestrian hit by a large car is more likely to be killed than a pedestrian hit by a small or medium sized car. The Government’s leading academic road safety advisor Prof Richard Allsop told the Government’s Road Safety Advisory Panel last December that the proportion of killed or seriously injured (KSI) collisions which were fatal was c7-8% for small or medium-sized cars, but it was c9-10% for large cars. In his verbal presentation to the Advisory Panel, Prof Allsop confirmed that this difference of 2 percentage points was a statistically significant difference (a point not noted in the written record). However added that he could not say what the explanation might be for this difference (e.g. was it due to the greater weight of the vehicles themselves, or differences in the way people drive when in a large vehicle!)

Source: Prof R Allsop: Statistics Sub-group presentation to UK Government’s Road Safety Advisory Group, December 2006 (see http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/st ... grouprep06).

We remain concerned that motorcycles are disproportionately dangerous not only to their riders but also to pedestrians and cyclists. As the RoadPeace letter stated:

“Mile for mile, powered two wheelers (PTWs) are about 1.5 times as likely as cars to be involved in collisions which cause injury to cyclists, twice as likely to be involved in causing them serious injuries and about three times as likely to be involved in killing them. For pedestrian injuries, PTWs compare even more unfavourably; per mile travelled they are about 3.8 times as likely as cars to be involved in slightly or serious injuring pedestrians, and over 4 times as likely to be involved in killing them. Motorcyclists also present significant risks to themselves. Despite considerable reductions for other road users, the number of motorcyclist riders and passengers killed rose from 467 in 1994-98 to 599 in 2006. None of these facts are mentioned either in the Government's Motorcycling Strategy or in the response to the Transport Committee.”

We also continue to contest the claims of the motorcycling lobby that motorcycles are a “green” transport mode. The original report on motorcycling from the Select Committee contains figures showing that, whatever the basis of comparison used (per vehicle-mile or per trip), the emissions of most pollutants was far higher for motorcycles than for cars and taxis. We also continue to oppose the opening-up of bus lanes to motorcycles. There is no evidence that this would benefit motorcylists’ safety – if anything, the trials conducted so far suggest the opposite may be true, presumably due to motorcyclists taking the opportunity to ride faster. If so, the widespread implementation of this measure would certainly increase the risks to pedestirians and cyclists, thereby undermining efforts to promote these two much greener and healthier alternatives.

Nonetheless we are always careful to avoid any suggestion of “stereotyping” of motorcyclists – as cyclists, we hear enough of politicians / journalists etc castigating all cyclists as ‘miscreants’ and this kind of stereotyping as unjust to responsible motorcyclists as it is to responsible cyclists. We will continue to work with the British Motorcyclists’ Federation (BMF) on issues where our interests coincide, e.g. on the issues of drivers’ “failure to see” cyclists and motorcyclists, the issue of Daytime Running Lights (DRL) and, most recently, on road maintenance. BMF will this weekend launch a booklet, produced with CTC support, urging local authorities to sweep roads properly. Whatever our concerns about the pollution and dangers created by motorcycling, we also recognise that motorcyclists are vulnerable road users whose safety interests often coincide with our own.

Roger Geffen
Campaigns & Policy Manager

The CTC's policy document on Powered Two-Wheelers can be found at http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4790

I hope this is of interest!

Posted: **13 Sep 2007, 5:36pm**

Am glad to see Roger Geffen's response, which lays it bare. He is a political campaigner and there is nothing wrong with this - but why is the CTC giving him a voice, and is this what our subscriptions are for?

The material is too long to go through item by item. Nevertheless, and although we are keener cyclists than motorcyclists, we can see/sense where the errors are. For example, new emissions requirements came in during 2007, and most motorcycles [eg all Triumphs] now use fuel injection. The notion that current motorcycles pollute more per mile than cars is absurd.

Also, the CTC policy on motorcycles per Roger GIffen's web link says that "Encouraging more motorcycle use will undermine efforts to promote cycling, not only because those switching to motorcycling might otherwise have switched to a healthier, safer and cleaner alternative (e.g. cycling) but also by adding to the risk faced by those who do cycle or who might be thinking about doing so".

Since when, realistically, is cycling a subsitute for motorcycling? It might well/should be for short journeys in a town where there is no need to carry bags etc., but on the open road it's either car, public transport [when you can find it in on a reliable basis and do not need a car to get to it in the first place] or a motorcycle.

It's all sad to my mind. I didn't joined the CTC to support a campaigning bureaucracy.

Cycling UK Forum

The CTC is for cycling - not politics