🚀 go-pugleaf

Garry Lee (glee@iol.ie) wrote:
>: If cycle helmets are so useful, why is it so hard to distinguish their
>: effect in accident statistics?

: Not is some studies it isn't. Everybody quote the New Zealand and 
: Queensland statistics but none other.



>: Why is the cycle death rate in the UK seven times that of the
>: Netherlands, a country where cycle helmets are virtually unknown?

: Holland has (I'm told) a vast number of cycling roads. It also has 
: no hills so speeds are less. Dutch bikes are mostly clunkers so less
: speed still.

I have to take issue with this remark. I am Dutch, have cycled 15 miles 
every day to school, and cycled through Amsterdam when I was a student. 
Yes, we have a lot of cycle-paths, and yes, speeds are generally not 
high, but there is a lot of interaction with other traffic, i.e. cars, 
especially in Amsterdam. 

I am living now in Cambridge, which is supposed to have some of the
best(!) cycle facilities in England/UK, and in my honest opinion it is
cr*p. Cycle paths, if they are there at all, are *badly* maintained, 
disappear at the places one really needs them, etc., forcing you to cycle on
the road. The sides of the road are full of potholes and badly fixed 
repair-work, forcing me to cycle halfway on the lane. This causes cars to 
overtake me with inches to spair, honk, or otherwise do stupid things. 
Car drivers behave often like maniacs, and after reading some of the 
highway code here, I am starting to realize that it is more geared to get 
cars faster along than to help cyclists or other road users (the rules on 
turning left still boggle me..)

All this has nothing to do with hills or speed, only by designing roads 
etc. without taking bikes or other road users in account (lots of roads 
are virtually uncrossable on foot, you have to walk half a mile to the 
nearest ped. crossing).

So I get really angry when I see a huge billboard, erected I assume by the
Council or something, telling me to wear a helmet, leaving the distinct
impression that if I have an accident, it is my own bloody fault for not
wearing a helmet. Let them first provide adequate & safe cycling
facilities, and then they can come talk to me about wearing helmets. 

I am not wearing helmets, because I *never* needed them in 20 years
cycling in the Netherlands, and am not going to be forced into having one,
because the English are to cheap to get some good cycle facilities. 

How to reduce cycling accidents in England fast:

1: An accident between a car and a cyclist is *always* the fault of a car,
no matter what the cyclist was doing. In a recent court-case in the
Netherlands, a car hit a cyclist (or moped), who was drunk, cycling on the
wrong side of the road without lights in the dark, and the car-driver's
insurance still had to pay. Yes, it is unfair for car-drivers, I know, but
at least they know that any accident will cost them a lot of money, so
they will be very careful

2: well maintained roads. Swerving out of the way for potholes etc. is 
the most dangerous thing I have to do often.

3: consistent cycle paths: If you are going to have a cycle path, make it 
*only* for cyclist, or otherwise wide enough to have room for 
pedestrains; make them continous, don't make them disapear in front of 
traffic lights, roundabouts etc.

However the best way is to have a lot of cyclists, so that cars always 
take them in account, but sadly, there is not much that a governemnt can 
do about that.

Frank 'Ranting? me, of course not' Visser
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