What if I said no?
I don’t know why you get so defensive. I merely posted an article that quoted the BFU. I thought they were a fairly unsuspicious bunch.
Speaking about data, what data do you base this on?
I base it on the laws here compared with other European countries.
They protect car drivers more than cyclists. I’ve written about it before.
The BFU article is fine. It is the anti-cyclist slant I have a problem with in the 20min article.
The bit in 20 minutes with the headline Most accidents are self-fault has got nothing to do with Switzerland - it’s based on German statistics.
In 20 mins:
- Every year, more than 800 people are seriously injured in bicycle accidents in Switzerland.
- More than half of these accidents are self-accidents, without involvement of other vehicles.
In the BFU article:
43% of serious cycling accidents are collisions. Over half of the collisions occur at intersections and roundabouts.
In only about a third of cases, the main cause of a bicycle accident in a collision is the cyclist themselves. In most cases, the other party involved in the collision is responsible – usually car drivers.
Reading the BFU article one would come to a different conclusion than that in the 20 minute article.
You bang on about biased reporting the whole time in the middle east thread. Here’s an example of it not connected with Israel.
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And the driver has today been re-arrested - on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
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Europeans know how to drive safely — and they expect their fellow motorists to be model road users. However, many drivers choose to not follow the rules themselves, the study’s findings show. This is concerning given that road fatalities are ticking back up after plummeting in 2020 due to pandemic lockdowns.
To find out how hypocritical drivers really are, the research team compared the average European’s tolerance for bad behaviour with their propensity to do it. The results, illustrated in the following chart, show this “hypocrisy gap” across seven dangerous driving habits. For instance, the gap for driving after taking drugs is small: about 3% find it acceptable, while around 7% admitted to doing it in the last 30 days. A wider gap exists for phone use, with 3% finding it acceptable to read a phone while driving, but 23% admitting to doing so recently. Drivers show the most hypocrisy when it comes to speeding; it is the most accepted behaviour (13%), yet also the most common, with half of all drivers admitting to it.
That’s a bit like the often quoted survey result where 80% of drivers believe they are above average drivers.
Having said that, most people, when asked, believe they are above average in most things.
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It’s a bit different. It’s an attempt to measure the difference between people thinking a behavior is “right/acceptable” and self-assessment of doing that precise behavior.
Take speeding in motorways in Switzerland. 20% of people think it’s acceptable, which implies 80% of people believe speeding is wrong. Anyway, 60% admits to speeding in the last month before the survey.
The drinking/drugs + driving is the interesting one. I believe it’s wrong, but…
There is one dimension not being commented on. Right or wrong is binary. People’s perception of doing right/wrong things is more on a gradient.
Most people will definitely agree that speeding is wrong, but when you ask them “what do you consider wrong speeding”, they will give varying answers. So if I’m doing 125 or 130 on the autobahn every day commuting I’m speeding but I don’t really consider it unacceptable speeding, or else I wouldn’t do it. Same would go for other offences. Talking on the phone because bluetooth is not working for a call properly, or briefly looking at it because Android Auto can’t do something as efficiently, is wrong, but somehow “acceptably wrong” if such a term exists.
So this seems like a provocative question, and it seems very natural that there would be a lot of “hipocrisy”, if it that’s you’re measuring it.
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I’m not so sure about that… looking at the map I am about to share, it’s clear there’s still a lot of work to be done. Interestingly, the four countries with the lowest road fatalities aren’t even EU members.
In the past, Iran had one of the highest road fatality rates in the world, if not the highest. I remember the then Swedish ambassador (a really nice guy) used to tour around Tehran while his driver navigated the city. He would take pictures of reckless drivers and post them online with captions like “Sweden has some of the safest roads in the world, while this country is the complete opposite. Why?”
Compared to 15 years ago, things have improved, thanks to stricter regulations, harsher fines, and more enforcement. But there’s still a long way to go. A reckless driver in places like Iran or Russia is on a completely different level than anything you’d see anywhere in EU, and what’s considered a ‘good’ driver over there would probably be seen as a ‘bad’ one by European standards.
These stats are a bit more reliable and show a decline in the number of road fatalities, even in the more problematic countries. Many countries don’t meet the target, but a small progress is still a progress.
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Acceptably wrong for some people. Unacceptably wrong for others.
Not everyone thinks or acts in the same way as you which you may find surprising.
In Western Europe, everyone knows the rules and the majority of people follow them
In Eastern Europe, most people know the rules but only a minority follow them
In Iran nobody knows the rules and respectively nobody follows any.
Although not for cyclists - the only group not to show a decline in fatalities.
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Things might be bad for cyclists in Switzerland but at least they’ve not reached being-smashed-off-your-bike-with-a-moped levels as in London. Holy crap!
No need to read if the topic doesn’t interest you.
The wonderful Labour government in the UK are raising the fine for cycling on the pavement from £100 to £500 if the bill goes through.
This is in endeavour to remove the feral gangs of teenagers from the streets who have been stealing peoples’ phones, bags, bikes, mopeds and basically anything that is, or isn’t bolted down.
They come equipped with hammers and are in groups.
The problem so far is that private contractors are employed for Policing this and not the actual Police and it’s bonus-related.
Rather than deal with the gangs, they’ve instead been fining old people sometimes without cause - such as a lady who was fined for cycling along the road - as she didn’t pay road tax, or a man who was locking his bicycle to a bike stand.
This £500 fine for cycling along the pavement can be compared to the recent case where a man was prosecuted for dangerous driving pulling out at a roundabout when he didn’t have the right of way, and without slowing down, running over a lady cyclist and then reversing back over her.
She suffered a heads wound which required stapling, a fractured pelvis, a fractured sternum and a punctured lung.
The driver got fined £600 and didn’t even lose his licence.
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Controversy served.
Original video: TikTok - Make Your Day
Auto parked in bus stop. Cyclist just hits the car from the back without braking. The car should not be parked in a bus stop. Car may be broken, or driver being an idiot. It may be a bus or farm machinery which is wider than road lanes. Also, trees also fall on the roads and we don’t call them idiots.
While riding the bike, I know that situation of when vision and control of the bike decay, probably blood sugar going down. This feeling is normal after a long climb and just when the downhill part starts. The first warning is missing a rock or a root and getting pushed hard, but no crash yet. If I don’t stop, it will end in a crash. So, better to stop, drink water, eat something, or if very tired…switch to the gravel road and make an easy ride back home.
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Did anyone check if there were burning tyre marks behind the DeLorean, in which case it would have literally just appeared out of nowhere (or maybe 1985).
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Irrespective of his state of mind:
His hands were on top of the handlebars.
People normally only do this when going slowly up hill to get a break from the usual hand position. Braking isn’t a problem then.
Normally, you should be on the lever grips or drops so the brakes can be applied quickly.
He would have needed to take his hands off the bars to reach the brake levers.
There’s no way he should have been doing that on such a busy road.
All the gear and no idea perhaps.
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Right! Brakes are on the lower part of the handlebars on road bikes. For braking, there’s not much difference between “look ma, no hands” and grabbing the top part of the handlebars.
Anyway, I understand. I tried road bikes a few times and the lower back pain was too much after some time. I missed the more upright position of a MTB all the time. So, maybe just a moment of relief for that pain, sadly not the right moment to take a break.
I don’t think his hand position was the main problem though - he didn’t appear to react at all, and even if the car hadn’t been there he’d have hit the kerb in another few metres. Who knows what he was looking at, but it clearly wasn’t the road ahead.
Impressive amount of damage to the bike though.
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