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Category Archives: Safety

Govt stats over-state the risks of cycling says new research (it’s pedestrians & young male drivers who have to worry)

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012 | warai03p | No Comments

Original article by Tony Farrelly at road.cc

Cycling is not as risky as official statistics suggest says new research – in fact, for young  men it is safer than driving. In an odd coincidence, the research was published at the exact moment a controversial BBC documentary portraying cycling as a high risk mode of transport finished airing last night.

According to the research by a team from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London (UCL), official statistics consistently overstate the risks involved with cycling and underestimate those associated with walking and driving –  their most eye-catching findings is that cycling is a safer than driving for young men between 17-20 years old.

Continued at original site

One Reason Why I Hate Cars

Thursday, January 26th, 2012 | Editor | No Comments

From Peter Hitchens’s blog, Daily Mail

“I think our roads are statistically safer largely because soft targets, particularly child cyclists, have almost entirely retreated from them. But the roads are not really safer. It’s just that people have learned to avoid them unless they themselves go out in armour, and have narrowed their lives as a result.” – Peter Hitchens

On Sunday morning a woman rushed out of a side road in a quiet Oxford suburb, violently knocked me off my bicycle and mangled the machine I was riding.

Quite understandable, some of you may think. It’s the only sort of treatment I would understand. But in fact the person involved had nothing against me, didn’t know me, and was quick to apologise for the hurt (even quicker and more comprehensive,  once she had been given quite a large piece of my mind). She also paid for the damage to be repaired.

But, as some of you will have guessed,  there was another element in all this – an element which makes an apparently shocking and inexplicable event make perfect sense.

My assailant was driving a car.

Continued at original site