The ‘primary position’ – putting UK cyclists between a rock and a hard place

Don’t worry if a driver is beeping at you. In fact, it’s good. It means the driver is aware of your presence, and has seen you.

I may not have the wording exactly right, but the above is the essence of what my Bikeability instructor told my group about the importance of riding in the ‘primary position’ – that is, in the path of cars behind you – during our first lesson last week.

A bit of history. The original RoSPA ‘Cycle Proficiency Test’ used to teach that you should cycle at the edge of the road, ensuring the maximum amount of distance between you and a passing car. (I think it is this advice that has led countless drivers to believe that there is a rule that cyclists should be ‘over to the left’ at all times, despite there being no such instruction in the Highway Code.) The ‘Bikeability’ course, which has superseded this ‘Proficiency’ test, has radically changed this advice, largely because, I suspect, motorists were increasingly choosing to pass closer and closer to cyclists. Cycling ‘over to the left’ was fine when the roads were less busy, when there was less street furniture, and when drivers were generally far better behaved towards cyclists (perhaps because roads were less busy, and it was easier to behave better). But unfortunately, that kind of positioning meant that there would always be a nice car-sized gap for a driver to squeeze through, regardless of the situation. And as drivers became more impatient and less aware of how dangerous it is to pass close to cyclists, and as traffic became heavier and street furniture increased, so that ‘keep to the left’ advice came to be seen as something of a liability.

And so arrived ‘assertive cycling’, which grew out of John Forrester’s book Effective Cycling, published perhaps not coincidentally in 1976, a time when traffic volumes were rapidly increasing, along with motorists’ impatience. John Franklin’s Cyclecraft is pretty much a direct adaptation of this advice for the U.K., and has become canonized, official government advice for how children and adults should cycle on the roads.

The argument for more assertive ‘primary’ positioning that lies at the heart of much Cyclecraft advice is that it removes the temptation to overtake a cyclist in places where it would be unsafe – in the face of oncoming traffic, for instance, or at pinch points, or junctions.  The cyclist simply prevents the overtake by putting themselves in a position where they would have to be driven over for the motorist to get past.

Now, I think this approach generally works. Most drivers are not going to drive over me. Some of them may beep at me, or get impatient, but they are not homicidal. As my Bikeability instructor so cogently put it, they are now aware of me, and by the act of beeping, have made it clear that they are not going to pass me – they are simply taking out their frustration at being ‘held up.’ But possibly one of the most serious faults with the primary position is that a minority of motorists will still be willing to squeeze past, at all costs. To this hardcore of lunatics, a cyclist’s positioning is no deterrence at all, and taking an assertive road position with these drivers actually ends up increases the cyclist’s vulnerability. Take a look at these two videos –

In the first, a strong position approaching a pinch point does nothing to stop the overtake, and actually results in the car nearly striking the cyclist. In the second, a strong position simply has to be abandoned as it becomes clear that an approaching vehicle is simply not going to slow down, and would have passed with inches to spare, at speed, if the cyclist had remained assertive.

To repeat, I think that as things currently stand, taking the ‘primary position’ will probably decrease the overall risk a cyclist faces, because it encourages more consideration from the majority of drivers. But in a minority of instances, it actively increases the danger. Obviously it is hard to weigh up the relative advantages and disadvantages of the primary position, vis-à-vis the old ‘keep to the left’ advice – but if the number of impatient and outright dangerous motorists increases, I think it is almost certain that the primary position becomes less and less safe. This becomes clear if you look at a country like New Zealand, where driving standards are very much lower than in the UK. As an expat UK cyclist observes, in reply to a question about why his positioning on New Zealand’s roads is not the more assertive ‘primary’ positioning,

You have to understand New Zealanders’ hate of cyclists and experience their attitude to really understand my road position. I am from the UK so totally understand where you are coming from, I have read Cyclecraft and think it is great for a Country with reasonable driving standards and tests and where you need a full licence to drive a car, not so good for New Zealand. I have even been told by the Police that I should be “in the gutter, because that’s where you belong.” There are so many cyclist haters and drunks on the road that you really must be carefully about riding further right.

In other words, you are likely to simply be run over if you position yourself in the path of passing cars. ‘Cyclecraft’ becomes increasingly redundant with decreasing driving standards. And this hints at a deeper truth about assertive cycling – it is a form of gambling that relies on an assessment of the proportion of safe and patient drivers that you will encounter on a day-to-day basis. If the odds change, like they do in New Zealand, then perhaps it’s not a wise bet. I am not the only cyclist who has noticed this.

Vehicular cycling and taking the primary. Great for cycling on hypothetical roads with drivers who aren’t idiots. Not so great in the real world. And as for the elderly, very young, or those less willing to be assertive and fight for space on the roads whilst taking abuse? Well they simply have to succumb to the law of the jungle and accept that cycling just isn’t for them.

And this brings me to the other problem I have with the ‘primary position’. No-one seems to have told U.K. drivers about it. Putting yourself out in the middle of the road can, in my experience, appear to some drivers as an act of deliberate provocation. They don’t have a clue what you are doing.

Like the driver of the silver Volkswagen Passat, A6 FLP, that I encountered on St Leonards Road in Horsham, just after I took this picture.

The cars on the left are parked. I am stationary behind the car ahead, while we wait for oncoming traffic to clear. As we move off, and I remain in an ‘assertive’ position in the road, away from the parked cars to my left, I hear some angry revving behind me, before my Passat driver roars past with inches to spare.

As is so often the case with impatient drivers, this gentleman was merely pulling in a few yards further down the road. I stopped alongside him, informing him that his driving was needlessly hostile, only to be met with a barrage of nonsense about my ‘cycling in the middle of the road.’ All the responses I had, about staying out of the ‘door zone’, the importance of ‘primary position’, fell on deaf ears. It was like I was speaking a foreign language.

The U.K.’s official safe cycling strategy can appear perverse and unreasonable to the average motorist – because they haven’t been told about it. The only people who know about ‘Cyclecraft’ are a tiny minority of the already tiny minority of people who cycle, those cyclists who have chosen to adopt the professional advice contained within it.

In the past, we used to see excellent safety campaigns like this –

‘Steer clear of bikes.’  The emphasis is on making sure that the driver gives cyclists (who appear to be cycling over to the left) sufficient consideration.

Today the emphasis has changed. Now motorists aren’t expected to look out for cyclists, as a matter of course, or to consistently give them room. That is, apparently, too hard. So the onus has shifted to the cyclists to force motorists to steer clear of them, by putting themselves in their path. It is now up to cyclists to ‘make themselves visible’, by adopting a road position that, at first glance, appears insane. And if that wasn’t bad enough, nobody seems to have told motorists about this new official policy – a recipe for hostility.

As I cycled off from my encounter with Mr. Passat, I found myself wondering whether it is worth it, cycling in the way of motorists. Perhaps it would be better to accept the risk of a ‘dooring’ from a parked car, rather than have to put up with the honking, yelling and belligerence of ignorant drivers.

U.K. cyclists – between a rock and a hard place.

In praise of Peter Hitchens – or, reaching out across the political divide

Peter Hitchens is someone I rarely find myself agreeing with, but when it comes to an assessment of the destructive influence on the United Kingdom of the motor car and its untrammelled promotion as means of transport, the man is absolutely spot on.

In his book The Cameron Delusion (first published as The Broken Compass) there is, towards the end, an excellent chapter which describes the vandalism carried out on Britain’s railways by the Conservative governments of the early 1960s, and its lasting legacy.

A means of transport [the railway] invented and perfected in this country and ideally suited to its landscape was relegated, ever afterwards [after Beeching], to a secondary position and made to feel ashamed of not paying for itself, whereas roads and motor cars (and airlines) were powerfully and increasingly subsidised from tax revenue, or by exemption from tax, without any political pressure for them to reduce their costs. From the moment these changes took place, a private motor car rapidly became the only practical way of making most journeys across the country. And a motor lorry became the only practical way of transferring freight.

The process did not end there. The practicality of the car for longer journeys quickly meant that many more households acquired cars, which they found were also cheap and easy to use for shorter journeys. This had two further effects. The number of cars on the roads slowed down bus services and made life less pleasant for walkers and bicyclists, who faced growing danger, noise and aggressive competition for limited space. Inevitably, this increased the use of, and the demand for cars. It also stimulated democratic political pressure for the building of more roads – of two kinds. Fast dual carriageways were needed to cope with the greater number of cars. And bypass and ring roads were needed to carry those cars away from residential neighbourhoods. Both these developments once again encouraged cars and discouraged walkers and bicyclists. The faster speeds on dual carriageways, and their greater width, made them more risky and unpleasant than ordinary roads for non-car users. Anti-personnel fences were built to prevent pedestrians crossing them except at designated places.

Those designated places could no longer be simple zebra crossings, where drivers were obliged to stop if a human being placed her foot upon the road. Instead, pedestrians had to wait, sometimes for as long as a minute, for allegedly ‘pedestrian controlled’ lights to change and allow them to cross, in a few brief seconds, hurried along by urgent beepings. Alternatively, they were expected to use dank, ill-lit and inconvenient tunnels, apparently designed for the convenience of robbers and aggressive beggars and approached by long and exasperating ramps or steps. These new fast highways, and bypass roads, tended to be arranged wholly for the convenience of drivers. Complex one-way systems became necessary to join them to existing roads. They swung from place to place using extravagant, land-hungry curves. Non-motorists who dared use them found themselves compelled to take long ways round – which did not seem long to a motorist in control of a large and powerful engine, but which were wearing and dispiriting for a bicyclist reliant only on his calf muscles. And so every step taken to adapt the country for the driver was also a step make it more unpleasant, dangerous and inconvenient for the non-drivers – who happened to be a majority of the population.

Peter Hitchens gets it.

Beyond drawing this excellent chapter to your attention (and I heartily recommend reading it in full – go to your library and do so, if you cannot bring yourself to buy a Peter Hitchens book), I suppose my wider point is that recognition of the blight that the motor car has brought to Britain’s urban areas is not restricted to the political left. I think there is an appetite for change amongst many conservatives, as well as amongst the more ‘progressive’ people who seem to make up the membership of cycle campaigning organizations both in the UK and abroad.

This is a plea for inclusiveness – let’s shape our pro-cycling, and pro-walking, arguments so that they reach out across the political divide. There’s a receptive audience out there – the message just needs to be phrased the right way.

John Franklin in action

I mentioned in a recent post that John Franklin – the author of Cyclecraft, and prominent U.K. advisor on cycling policy and design – appears to have one governing principle, which is that cyclists should be on the roads, and cycling with traffic. What seems to lie behind this principle is his belief that designing off-road facilities for cyclists, of whatever standard, would erode cyclists’ right to use the vehicular road network. This ‘right’ is Franklin’s shibboleth. In his words 

Maintaining our right to cycle on any road (other than motorways) must always be a top priority, for if we lose that right we can have no expectation of being treated any better elsewhere.

I’m not sure the conclusion necessarily follows – but the message is clear, and the outcome obvious. Franklin is more concerned with keeping cyclists’ right to use the road network, than with constructing good off-road facilities that might encourage novice cyclists, or those who do not like mixing it with traffic. It means telling these novices, or nervous cyclists, to ‘train themselves’ to use the more hostile parts of the road network, rather than advocating the adaptation of that road network to allow them to get from A to B without negotiating with fast, heavy traffic.

There are a great many roads that are not suitable for Level I [nervous] cyclists but it would be impractical to correct this in most instances and some of the changes could be detrimental to Level II and Level III riders. The most practical way forward to improve conditions for Level I cyclists is through cycle training, to give these people the skills to cycle more confidently and thus more widely.

Franklin is arguing that adapting the road network to make it more friendly for nervous cyclists will quite often be to the detriment of Level II and III cyclists (this need not be the case, of course – but Franklin has a track record of ignoring how the Dutch consistently build high-quality infrastructure that is fast and convenient for all cyclists). So his somewhat selfish solution is to tell the grannies and the kids to ‘man up’ and cycle like him, presumably by increasing their ‘sprint speed’ to 20 mph.

Here’s an example of how Franklin’s principles translate into the real world. Last year, Stroud District Council commissioned him to produce a report, assessing the options for encouraging cycling in the District. The above quote from Franklin is from p.16 of the report, and it gives a rather obvious clue as to the type of solutions that will be proposed within it.

Pages 99-100 deal with a short stretch of the A38 road, between Eastington and Whitminster. The section of this road, just south of Whitminster, looks like this –

A cycling campaigner’s wet dream. It’s perfect –  an existing dual carriageway, that has been restricted to one lane in both directions. The road space is already there. All we need to do is shuffle it around slightly. Move the traffic lane across to the right lane, and paint in a good dollop of separation. Easy. If we were feeling more ambitious, we could provide some physical separation, some kerbing, along the length of this road. The motorists wouldn’t even be affected.

This is an open goal, in other words. We just need to stub the ball across the line.

What does Franklin think?

A bit unambitious, to put it mildly.

Of the two options he suggests, the first simply involves increasing the width of the motor vehicle lane by 1.5m, which is frankly a little pointless. The second, presented in brackets, is slightly better, removing more of the hatching, to give a 2.0m cycle lane, with a 0.5m divider.

Curiously, the option of removing the hatching entirely and allocating the whole of the left-hand lane to a cycle lane, and a divider, is not even presented. Given that this would be just as easy to implement as the two options in Franklin’s report, its absence is odd, to say the least.

Just as interesting is that of the two options Franklin does give, the latter – superior, to my mind, given that it moves the vehicle lane further over to the right, and provides a wide-ish cycle lane with some separation – is included almost as an afterthought (in brackets!) behind his apparently chosen option of no cycle lane at all.

I find it almost perverse that Franklin presents, preferentially, the option that barely amelioriates a deeply hostile environment for cycling, while simultaneously ignoring an obvious option that would give, at no extra cost or difficulty, the greatest possible space, and separation, for a cycle lane.

Franklin thinks ‘training’ is the best way of getting nervous cyclists to use roads like this. I don’t know whether that belief  lies behind his choice of ‘improvement’ to this stretch of the A38, but I think he’s wrong. No amount of training is ever going to make cycling here, with or without slightly less hatching, feel safe or pleasant.

Where does this end? The increasingly weird logic of road safety

Road.cc are reporting the arrival of a new bicycle helmet, the ‘Angel’ (so named, presumably, because it makes a cyclist more virtuous?) Here it is, in all its glory.

Below the story is a comment, which I can only assume was posted in all seriousness, from ‘MichaelS’ –

Great idea. As an assertive rider myself – with over 30 years commuting experience – I say you still need to be as visible as possible. Not that it will guarantee the idiots will see you – most of em too busy reading/composing text messages, chatting on mobile phones or simply not looking for a cyclist.

You’ll never know whether it will save your life or not because nobody will ever stop and say ‘do you know, if you hadn’t had that helmet with flashing lights I wouldn’t have seen you….’

There is a superficially attractive logic in operation here, but it hides a deeper problem – if you are intent on ‘making yourself as visible as possible’ to motorists, why simply stop at a helmet with a halo of flashing lights on it? Why not strap an enormous pylon with neon tubes to your back – that will really get a driver’s attention. Or a giant strobing sign saying ‘please don’t drive into me’?

Or – what happens when a great number cyclists are wearing ‘Angel’ helmets, or when the majority of pedestrians feel compelled to wear high-visibility vests? Woe betide the poor individual who ventures out of his front door in ordinary clothing – he or she is consequently at a much greater risk of being mown down (and quite probably being blamed for their lack of ‘safety equipment’).

The logic of this approach to ‘road safety’ – that the most vulnerable road users should continually escalate their visibility in the face of the increasing inattentiveness of drivers (the most protected road users, and the most potentially dangerous) – quite obviously chooses not to address the root problem, and at the same time selectively imposes a ‘solution’ on a particular subset of road users, the cyclists.

For instance, how often do you see adverts exhorting motorists to make their cars more visible by the application of day-glo strips? Or – how plausible would it be for a motorist to excuse himself after a collision with another vehicle, by claiming that the vehicle was covered in a dark shade of paint? People are simply expected to see cars, of whatever colour, with or without any neon strips attached to them.

Yet a cyclist, while smaller, is no harder to spot. Why should cycling be made more difficult and onerous, to compensate for the poor habits of people who should simply be paying more attention when operating a potentially lethal mode of transport?

Blue badge abuse in West Sussex

If you wish to apply for a disabled blue badge in West Sussex, you can fill out this form. Until recently, the first page of this form carried the statement

 Please note – in order to meet our criteria, your doctor must confirm you can not walk more than 45 metres (50 yards) without an aid. 

This has now been removed from the form – I am not quite sure why – but the criteria for receiving a blue badge are still, on paper at least, quite exacting. You must either

• be in receipt of the Disability Living Allowance (in which case you must be “unable to walk, or find walking very hard, or you need help to get around”)
• use a motor vehicle supplied by either the Department for Work and Pensions, the Scottish Home and Health Department, or the Welsh Office
• be registered blind
• get a War Pensioners Mobility Supplement
• have a severe disability in both arms and be am unable to turn, by hand, the steering wheel, even if it is fitted with a steering knob
• have a permanent and substantial physical impairment which means you are unable to walk or have extreme discomfort in walking. Your inability to walk or extreme discomfort in walking must be permanent and not just spasmodic or temporary

So by my reckoning, the only people who should have blue badges are those who are blind, those who are war pensioners, those who cannot use their arms, or those who cannot walk without the assistance of a wheelchair, stick, or another human being. (I am assuming that the Department for Work and Pensions does not just give out vehicles to those who do not genuinely deserve them.)

How does this translate to reality?

West Sussex town centres are becoming congested because of abuse of the blue badge system which gives parking concessions to the severely disabled. Also, the county has a disproportionately high number of blue badge holders compared to similar authorities.

How high is this number?

West Sussex currently [has] more than 54,000 blue badge holders. The national average is 45 per 1,000 in the population, compared with 67 per 1,000 in West Sussex. There are currently 11,678 badges in Arun district, 8,164 in Chichester district, 6,335 in Crawley, 7,011 in Mid Sussex, 7,572 in Horsham, 5,046 in Adur and 8,218 in Worthing.

There are 781,000 people in West Sussex, and (more than) 54,000 blue badges. By my maths that is actually 69 blue badges per 1,000 – but either way, that is an extraordinarily high number. If we take these numbers at face value, seven out of every one hundred people in West Sussex are unable to walk, or have extreme difficulty in walking, or are blind, or cannot use their arms.

Obviously I cannot say whether this is the case or not, but I think it is safe to assume it is pretty unlikely. Anecdotally, at least, there does not seem to be much evidence of such a high proportion of people who cannot propel themselves about unaided. And West Sussex County Council seem to agree, given that this is now an issue that is appearing on their radar – albeit, it seems, mainly because of the congestion it is causing to motor traffic. The two issues that the council are looking at are the apparent ease with which badges can be obtained, and also the farcical effortlessness with which badges can be retained, and used, by unscrupulous relatives after the death of a genuinely disabled person (to say nothing of the casual use of badges by friends and relatives of the still alive).

There are concerns that blue badges are continuing to be used by relatives after the badge holder has died. Councillors are now calling for information on deaths, currently held by the council registration service, to be released to prevent this fraud.

Concerns were also expressed at the meeting at the large number of the badges [that] are issued following assessments by GPs. There were calls from some members for the work to be done by the county’s occupational therapy service instead, and this idea will be looked at.

Clearly it is both far too easy to obtain a blue badge (I am not sure how rigorously GPs are assessing applicants – it may be easier for them to just simply sign the form rather than deal with a moaning patient), and also far too easy to use one that is not yours. On top of that, we have A) a perverse incentive to use a blue badge – it allows you to park for free, pretty much anywhere you like, and is thus perfect for lazy and/or cheap people who want to park right outside their shop of choice without having to bother with paying for parking – and B) also a complete lack of disincentive. Penalty charges for fraudulent use of a blue badge are derisive – see this article about a ‘clampdown’ last year in Leeds, for example.

A pilot enforcement scheme which began in January has so far checked 134 badges and found that 78 (58%) were being wrongfully used. Penalty charges of £25 to £35 have been introduced but nobody has yet been prosecuted or had a badge withdrawn.

£25 to £35? Ouch! Of course, a regular fraudulent blue badge user could easily save that amount of money in just a few avoided car parking charges. A fine that small is practically an encouragement to keep on using the blue badge after you’ve been caught, let alone any kind of disincentive (notice also that the blue badges were not even withdrawn from those people who were caught using them fraudulently – a genuine ‘clampdown’ if ever I have seen one.)

Put these four factors together, and you have a recipe for West Sussex town centres blocked up with cars parked on double yellow lines (I am not speaking figuratively – it is quite common for buses passing through the one-way Horsham Carfax to be halted for half an hour or more because a negligent ‘blue badge user’ has parked on a double yellow line in such a position that large vehicles simply cannot pass), and disabled parking bays increasingly occupied by people who walk off at full speed, having contemptuously tossed their blue badge onto their dashboard. Like the lady I saw parking in the disabled bay outside Orchard surgery last week, who proceed to walk quickly, in high heels, to Wilkinsons, to do her shopping. Or the BMW driver who parked in the Causeway, and marched off to Lloyds bank in West Street at a pace I could barely keep up with. Or the man who regularly parks in the Causeway, using a disabled blue badge, who appears to be employed by the council (he wears a council hi-viz jacket), and walks around the town picking up litter.

People like this are obviously not disabled, and yet they are getting away with it, making genuinely disabled people’s lives more difficult, and clogging up our town centres with their cars – all because they want to get a little closer to their shop of choice, and avoid paying for the privilege.

(Or because they are working for the council, and fancy some free parking right next to their place of work. That’s just too weird.)

(The quotes in the latter part of this post are from a West Sussex Gazette article, dated April 28th 2010 – again, sadly not available online).

How a driver destroyed the closing barriers at a Horsham level crossing

On January 8th this year, a driver smashed into the level crossing barriers at Littlehaven station in Horsham. The story was covered by the BBC here.

Drivers have been urged not to jump red lights at level crossings after a vehicle crashed into a gate near a railway station in Horsham. The road was closed for 10 hours and trains were disrupted after the crash near Littlehaven station on Saturday. Network Rail said a vehicle passed through level crossing red lights and hit a gate while it was closing. British Transport Police said a 50-year-old man from Horsham was arrested and bailed until March.

That same driver has now appeared before Crawley magistrates court. The West Sussex County Times has a report (not available online), which appeared in the 21st April edition.

A father of four at the wheel of a Kia people carrier smashed through the level crossing gates as they were closing in Rusper Road near Horsham’s Littlehaven station, a court heard. Debris from one of the shattered gates littered the railway track and services had to be halted after the incident on January 8th. Garry Bates, aged 49, of Ropeland Way, Horsham, pleaded guilty at Crawley magistrates court to dangerous driving, failing to stop after an accident in which damage was done to property, and failing to comply with a stop sign at the crossing. Prosecutor Kelly Murror said: “The gates were in process of closing when the black people carrier went across. It avoided the leading gate, but hit the rear trailing gate.” The barrier was wrecked by the impact and pieces of it were lying across the railway track. The crossing keeper immediately contacted control to stop all services.

Further on in the article, we have the offending driver’s explanation, attempted mitigation, and special pleading.

Robin Loof, defending, said the people carrier had been specially modified to accommodate a disabled child. “My client was not speeding as he approached the crossing and he slowed down as he reached it. He recalls the lights were at amber and he continued forward. It was not a prolonged period of dangerous driving. Mr Bates will no doubt pay a very high price for it. If he loses his licence it will have catastrophic consequences for the whole family.”

Here is a video of the crossing in question, as a train approaches. As you watch it, bear in mind the sentence in bold above.

There are eight seconds between the amber light switching to red, and the gates closing. If it is indeed true that ‘the lights were at amber’ as Mr Bates ‘continued forward’ then it will obviously have taken him at least eight seconds to travel from the stop line before striking the gate. So, if this implausible account is to be believed, he certainly wasn’t speeding – in fact, he would have been travelling at less than walking speed.

I hope the magistrates have seen the timings for this crossing before they consider lending any credence to Mr Bates’ ludicrous claim that he advanced onto the crossing while the lights were at amber – the obvious reality is that he drove onto the crossing when the lights were red, and when they had been red for some considerable time. That is the only way he could have ended up destroying the gates as they were closing.

The case is going to be considered at Lewes Crown Court at a later date. I am interested to see whether any leniency will be applied to Mr Bates in the light of his special pleading regarding his disabled child, and also whether his gigantic fib is accepted.

I also note, in passing, that dangerous driving of this kind is probably a consequence of the way that obedience to traffic signals at ‘ordinary’ junctions is almost totally unenforced. On my regular journeys across Horsham, I find that at nearly every junction, a driver will be chancing it through a red light, largely because they can get away with it. Mr Bates clearly extended this logic to a railway – he felt that he could chance it through a red light at a level crossing in just the same way that countless other drivers chance their way through red traffic signals. He was caught out.

Royal transport modes

In a tenuous connection with the Royal wedding weekend, here is a picture of the Dutch royal family, recklessly endangering their offspring by not cladding them in high-visibility vests and helmets.

By contrast, here is a picture of Prince Charles being just as ‘green’, but surrounding himself with a protective Saab. A much better example.

Thanks to Amsterdamize for drawing my attention to the first picture.

Elderly driver causes crash, wishes to stop driving – magistrates allow her to continue

From the local paper, the West Sussex County Times, 14th April 2011 (this story is not available online) –

An 85-year-old driver has admitted she was to blame for a crash which left three people injured near Cowfold.

Margaret Sharpus, of Third Avenue, Bexhill, had denied dangerous driving, but changed her plea to guilty on Tuesday.

Crawley magistrates court heard that the crash involved Sharpus’ Renault Clio and a Volkswagen Gold on July 20 last year.

Prosecutor David Holman said she strayed onto the wrong side of the road while rounding a bend, leaving the driver of the oncoming Volkswagen with no time to take evasive action.

A Ford Fiesta, which had been behind the Volkswagen, ended up on the grass verge.

Mr. Holman said Sharpus and two women who were in the Volkswagen were all taken to hospital.

Sharpus, who had been driving since she was 20 and never had an accident before, could not explain why she had strayed onto the wrong side of the road.

She said she did not remember what happened, but photos of the crash scene had convinced her that she must have been responsible, and she did not plan to drive again.

Magistrates banned her from driving for one year and ordered her to pay a £150 fine, £250 costs, and a £15 victim surcharge.

Despite Mrs. Sharpus’ admission of guilt, and admirable desire never to drive again in the light of this incident, magistrates evidently feel she will be fit to resume her place behind the wheel of a motor vehicle in one year’s time, when she will be aged 86, imposing only the minimum one year ban for a dangerous driving conviction.

Is that really sensible?

A more responsible strategy after cases like this would be to impose a compulsory re-sitting of the driving test, in the event that the driver does not wish to surrender their driving licence. In the meantime, however, we have a system in which dangerous elderly drivers who have come close to killing people, including themselves, are free to return to the road, with no assessment of their ability before they do so.

It seems that the right to drive trumps the right to safety.

Anatomy of the death of a cyclist – William Honour

I mentioned in yesterday’s post on Cyclecraft that I generally avoid dual carriageways (along with single-carriageway trunk A-roads) as much as I possibly can. I don’t think this is irrational. The relative approach speeds of vehicles behind me, and the general attentiveness of drivers operating them, are not a recipe for my safety.

And today there comes a report of the inquest into the death of a cyclist killed on just one of these types of roads – the A322 Bagshot road, in Surrey.

The speed limit here is, unsurprisingly, 70 mph. The 79-year old William Honour would have been travelling at a fraction of that speed when he was clipped by a vehicle, obviously passing him far too close, at 9:45 am on Saturday 23rd October 2010. Presumably sent into a wobble by this initial impact, Honour was then struck again by a following vehicle. At this point he started to fall from his bike, whereupon he was run over by the third vehicle, and died a short while later in hospital.

The sole press report to have emerged so far is instructive. The first driver, the one who initially clipped Mr. Honour, had this to say –

Giving evidence Michael Bull, the driver of the Ford Focus said: “I looked in my mirror after I heard a bang on the nearside door. Someone appeared to be falling over. I didn’t see a bike, I thought he was a pedestrian. I did feel I was driving as carefully as I could.”

Mr. Bull felt he was ‘driving as carefully as he could’, yet curiously did not even see a human being in the road in front of him, on what the inquest reports was a ‘bright and sunny day’. He was only alerted to the fact he had struck Mr. Honour by the noise of the impact.

The second driver, Rachel Marriott, who again struck Mr. Honour, was, apparently, driving just as carefully as Mr. Bull.

When I saw him he was upright cycling and there was no cause for concern. I noticed mist on my window and I went to put my right hand up and as my hand made contact with the windscreen my bonnet was level with the cyclist and I saw the cyclist wobble which made me react. I swerved right and didn’t even check my blind spot so I’m glad there was nothing on my right side. I knew he was falling so I had to get out of the way.

Upon seeing a cyclist, as Ms. Marriott reports she did, a safe and competent driver would already be moving, or planning to move, into the outside lane of the dual carriageway, to give the sufficient amount of clearance stipulated by rule 163 of the Highway Code. Yet despite ‘swerving right’, Ms. Marriott still managed to hit a wobbling cyclist, which quite plainly reveals that this driver was passing Mr. Honour far too closely. In her own words, she hadn’t checked her blind spot, which directly implies that she was not planning to move out of her lane while overtaking Mr. Honour. Worse than that, while attempting to pass with this totally inadequate clearance, she felt this was a good moment to reach forward and wipe mist off her window.

But it gets better. Here is the account of the final driver, the one who ran over Mr. Honour.

Catherine Nicker, the driver of the Citroen C1, told the inquest she was travelling at around 40mph and left a space of two car lengths from the Alfa Romeo in front. She said: “I first saw the cyclist coming out to the side of the car in front. He came out and already started to fall, he was astride his bike on the floor. I was in shock, it all happened so quickly. Maybe if I had left more space between me and the car in front, but I thought I had left enough room. Apart from that there’s nothing I could do.”

Yes. Maybe Ms. Nicker could have left more than ‘two car lengths’ space between her vehicle and the Alfa Romeo ahead. Maybe she might then have seen the cyclist before he had been struck by a vehicle a few feet in front of her. Maybe she might then have had time to react, and avoided killing someone.

But these are just ‘maybes’. Plainly there was nothing else Ms. Nicker could have done. Somebody died, but ‘accidents’ like this just happen. That’s what the coroner thinks. The verdict?

Accidental death.

The individual testimony of all three drivers reveals, in their own words, the nature of their substandard and unsafe driving. If just one of these drivers had been paying the due amount of attention, Mr. Honour would still be alive, yet together, they created a perfect storm which resulted in his death. However, the coroner, Peter Bedford, chose, for some reason, to completely ignore this evidence, instead glibly suggesting that

Perhaps all of us can learn something from this tragic event.

‘Perhaps’ we can all learn something? Yeah, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps we’ll go on driving a few feet from the car in front, not paying attention to the road, not planning on giving safe clearance to cyclists. Whatever. Someone died, it’s not that important.

As a final insult, despite admitting that he does not know whether it would have changed the outcome, the ‘main cause’ of death is bafflingly attributed by the coroner to Mr. Honour’s lack of cycle of helmet.

 I do feel wearing a helmet would have increased Mr Honour’s chances of survival. We are all very quick to put helmets on our children but we are all vulnerable. Whether it would have changed the outcome I cannot say.

Let me spell this out to Mr. Bedford. William Honour was run over by a car travelling at 40 mph. The thin polystyrene shell of a helmet offers no protection at all to the human skull against the massive weight of a motor vehicle. This is quite obvious, but apparently it needs restating. Cycle helmets do not stop your head being crushed. They offer some protection in low speed crashes, but they are effectively useless in collisions with motor vehicles.

Anyway.

In case it needs to be said, this case has not changed my mind about cycling along national speed limit dual carriageways or rural A-roads. I have surrendered my right to use them. I’m not as brave as William Honour.

John Franklin and Cyclecraft – Cycle safely by turning yourself into Mark Cavendish

Next month I am planning to take some Bikeability Level 2 classes. My main motivation is not really the training itself because I feel, perhaps hubristically, that I am a competent ‘vehicular’ cyclist, fully versed in the speed and positioning required to travel safely (most of the time) in motor traffic. Instead I want to get a flavour of what these classes involve, and what is being taught to relative novices.

In preparation, I’ve done some homework, and purchased a copy of John Franklin’s Cyclecraft, the Stationery Office publication that is

closely associated with Bikeability, the National Cycle Training Standard, for which it is the recommended course book and required reading for cycle training instructors.

Chapter 5 of this book is entitled Basic Cycling Skills. Within this chapter, on pages 60-61, there is this passage, which I find quite remarkable –

Cadence and sprint speed

Cadence is the number of times a cycling turns the pedals in one minute. A steady, comfortable pedalling rhythm is essential for efficient cycling, while increasing one’s cadence strengthens the leg muscles and enables more rapid acceleration. Increasing cadence also makes it easier to increase your sprint speed – the maximum speed that you can attain over a short distance, such as through a roundabout.

Racing cyclists know well the benefits of having a high cadence, but there can also be important safety advantages for everyone. Generally speaking, you are at your safest in traffic if you can move at a speed comparable to that of the other vehicles. Increasing your cadence and sprint speed will allow you to achieve this more often, particularly at those places where it matters most – junctions with complex manoeuvring. It will also be easier to restart quickly in a low gear at traffic signals and roundabouts, and to get yourself out of trouble if you are on a potential collision course.

Increasing cadence and sprint speed are two of the most positive steps a cyclist can take to enhance safety.

A good cadence to aim for is about 80, while a sprint speed of 32 km/h (20 mph) will enable you to tackle most traffic situations with ease. To increase your cadence, select a gear lower than you would normally use for a given road and simply force yourself to pedal faster in order to maintain your usual speed. Gradually, your leg muscles will become accustomed to the higher rate and your cadence and strength will increase.

So there we have it. The most positive thing you can do to enhance your safety as a bicycle user, on Britain’s roads, is to turn yourself into Mark Cavendish.

To repeat, this section is included in an early chapter entitled ‘Basic cycling skills’.

Now I cannot fathom what audience John Franklin thought he was addressing when he was writing this passage. It surely cannot be ordinary people. I have cycled getting on for 30,000 miles in my life; I rarely use a car; I regularly cycle 40-50 miles at a weekend. I find that sustaining a flat speed of 20 mph is hard. And if it is hard for me, it’s ludicrous to present it as a reasonable piece of safety advice – in fact one of the most important pieces of safety advice – for the general public.

This is not good enough.

I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with this kind of ‘advice’ if Franklin was presenting it as a kind of stop-gap measure, a way of surviving on Britain’s roads until they are changed sufficiently for them to be safely and pleasantly negotiated by anyone on a bicycle (and by ‘anyone’, I mean people who don’t know what ‘cadence’ is, or who can’t accelerate to 20 mph onto a roundabout from a standing start).

But that isn’t the impression one gets at all from Cyclecraft. While Franklin is willing to admit that

There was a time when the ordinary right turn was considered to be the most complicated manoeuvre that a cyclist had to make. Since then, the preoccupation of traffic planners with accommodating growth in motor traffic has led to a host of new problems for cyclists as they strive to share roads which were never well designed for them. Add to this an increase in faster and more aggressive driving, and it is scarcely surprising that many people are deterred from cycling by today’s road conditions.

it is clear that his governing principle is that cyclists should always be on the road, mixing it with traffic. If that means telling pensioners and young children to try and cycle at 20 mph, then so be it – common sense is apparently going to be sacrificed on the altar of defending cyclists’ right to use the road network (aka Cycling’s Bogeyman). Here is this logic in action, from Franklin’s own mouth (my emphasis) –

I think we all need to recognise that cycle ‘facilities’ may sometimes be a useful way of adding to the places where you can cycle, but they must never be a substitute for cycling on the ordinary roads. Maintaining our right to cycle on any road (other than motorways) must always be a top priority, for if we lose that right we can have no expectation of being treated any better elsewhere.

I’m pleased that most of the cycling community is united on this, but there have been exceptions and I think that this has fuelled the ‘cycling is dangerous’ myth that invariably leads to calls for cycling to be restricted. I also think that in the UK there remains a general recognition by the public at large that cyclists ought to be on the roads and we need to reinforce that perception and not weaken it.

The problem is that Franklin doesn’t appear to have thought through the implications of adopting ‘the right to use the road’ as a governing principle; or, if he has, is apparently unconcerned by those implications.

One of those implications is – as I have already established – giving people entirely unrealistic advice in order for them to cycle safely.

Here’s another. I have not cycled on a dual carriageway or rural A-road for a distance of more than a mile or so for about a decade, except when it has been too onerous to find an alternative route. I just don’t fancy it any more. It’s not pleasant. Now to my mind, a reasonable campaigning strategy for cycling would be to argue for separated provision alongside these kinds roads. But Franklin – defending the right to use the road – is compelled to oppose these kinds of measures, because by his logic they weaken the perception that cyclists ought to be on the roads. Unfortunately he is so fixated here he fails to appreciate that there aren’t even going to be any cyclists on these roads that need their rights to use them defended. They will have stopped using them, like I did.

Another implication. This time from Cyclecraft, on negotiating gyratories –

There may be occasions when it would simply be too hazardous to follow the path taken by other traffic. This applies especially to slower riders, but even the fittest can be in difficulty if the gradient is against them or the road very wide. Under these circumstances, you may have little option but to follow a route nearer the outside, but to do so needs the greatest care… To cross intermediate exits, it may be best to pull in for a while to await more favourable traffic conditions, or simply to be sure what following vehicles are doing.

That is, on some gyratories, ‘even the fittest’ will sometimes have to stop and wait for traffic to quieten down (good luck with that) before proceeding. Again, a reasonable strategy here would be to put aside an attachment to the ‘right to use the road’ as an overriding principle, and accept that good quality separated provision for cyclists is the obvious solution.

But no.

Large roundabouts are one of the few places where speed and strength can be needed as well a vehicular technique. Centre islands and other pinch points on busy roads are causing real increases in risk that vehicular cycling cannot always counteract… None of these problems, however, has a segregated solution, but needs redress in the context of a genuine mixed traffic environment.

Franklin hates the idea of separated provision so much (again, because it will conflict with his priority of maintaining our right to cycle on roads) that he won’t even consider it as a solution where the lack of that separated provision means that cycling is inconvenient and dangerous, by his own admission, for even for the fittest and fastest cyclists.

I think that speaks volumes.