How dangerous is cycling in London? Well Tuesday is new stat day...

I am not going out on my bike until later, on account of surprising my friend for his birthday intending to have one pint. In reality we stayed up most of the night watching Greta Gerwig movies, drinking Cava ("it's Spanish for Champagne"), and being generally quite silly. 

Now I feel horrible.

In the absence of a head that feels normal, I've spent the afternoon chilling out on the sofa with Radio 4 and the latest LCC magazine. Sure, I've had to re-read the same bit about 6 times because I keep forgetting how the sentence started but still, yay me for being wholesome.

There are a few stats that stick out in the magazine, and I thought it would be a good idea to share them with those who don't sign up to the London Cycle Campaign. Although I'm sure the press release will be floating around, ready for the Daily Mail will be arseholes about it before the day is out.

Firstly only 4% of cycling collisions are caused by illegal behaviour from cyclists. Did you get that? 4%. That's your dickheads who run reds, and your knoblets who cycle up one way streets, and generally give us all a bad name. 

That creates the fact that 96% of cycle collisions are not caused by illegal behaviour from the cyclist. Which, in itself, is a worrying stat. That means that almost all collisions are caused by cyclists going about their day, doing normal, legal road things, being nice law abiding people. 

Does this statistic mean that if you ride, observing the rules of the road, you are more likely to get hit? Does this mean that it's actually safer, in some cases to be a little bit illegal? Are people who run reds and other such naughties being involved in less collisions because they are bending the rules, evolving a set of laws that are designed for cars and lorries and buses into something that is practical for them? 

Answer is, I don't know. We need more investigation, from someone who is less hungover and more knowledgable. But if you like the sentiment you should check out Mikael Colville-Andersen's TEDx talk on Bicycle Culture by Design. You can read and watch it here, and marvel when he says smart things like this -

Good design also improves human behaviour. I hear the same thing all over the world. Those damn cyclists. Breaking the law, running red lights, riding on sidewalks. Shaking the very foundations of our society with their behaviour. Well, I have one, simple response to that. Those cyclists haven't been given adequate infrastructure – or worse... none at all. Not to mention the fact that they are forced to abide by car-centric laws. 

Gotta love the Danes.

Anyway, back to the stats.

In collisions between cyclists and motorists, fault lies with motorist 68% of time. And how often with the cyclist? Only 20%. 

Interesting stuff eh?! So we can extrapolate that out to mean that cyclists are safer road users? Well possibly, but we could also agree that it might be because we are fewer in number. I think this should be irrelevant anyway, and we a should more towards laws similar to the Dutch where the car is always at fault unless unequivocally proven otherwise. Often in court. It makes the Dutch cars a lot more observant because they have a lot more at stake. Here there weren't ever any repercussions for the two car drivers and one bus driver that hit me. One of them was this dude.

Moving on. Each cycling fatality in London, as well as having the obvious effects, costs £1.7m. That's a whole lot of cash, but I am sure that friends and families of those who are killed on the roads don't give a shit about the money. They want their son, daughter, mum, dad, sister, brother, friend back. But still, if we stopped killing cyclists we could save money. We are in recession. Every little helps, I suppose.

And finally, we are a lot more likely to die cycling in London. Fact. 3.5 times more likely to be killed whilst cycling in the Capital, than in the Netherlands. Why do we cyclist always bang on about the Dutch? Because they are are freaking awesome. They care about their road users, and they give them infrastructure. 

To quote Mikael again -

Let's make our cities and hearts shine. Let's take this paradigm and shift it. 

Every city could be wonderful for cycling, but at the moment London kinda isn't. But there is safety in numbers, and their are streets to be taken, and bikes to ridden. 

Just not yet. 

Because I think I am dying...

Homemade Alka-Seltzer