Comments on: Safety in Numbers: A Few More Numbers

By: John Campion

John Campion — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:41:54 +0000

I’d seen Ben’s piece (and the startlingly shoddy work used by LV to flog their insurance). It doesn’t pick apart the claims made by TfL (and repeated by the CTC et al though).

By: Mikael

Mikael — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:42:17 +0000

Ben Goldacre over at Badscience.net has a piece about cyclist accidents and how they’ve fallen by 33%, despite media noise to the contrary. As one expects from Ben, he slams the manipulation of stats and figures.
check it

By: John Campion

John Campion — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:29:22 +0000

This piece on Velorution also points out the selective reading of the figures for road casualties in Britain, following the release of the National Audit Office’s report;

“Tha National Audit Office has laid bare what we have been saying for years: British authorities are the most callous and devious in Europe: they emphasise the low overall death rate on the roads and disregard the scandalous butchery of vulnerable road users: the ratio of pedestrian deaths/total road deaths is the highest in the continent.”

http://www.velorution.biz/?p=2198

By: John Campion

John Campion — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:27:24 +0000

The blog “Crap Cycling & Walking in Waltham Forest” (which documents the indifference of the local council to non-motorised transport) questions the assertions made in the CTC study here;

http://crapwalthamforest.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-safe-is-london-for-cyclists.html

The author asserts that;

“But what was measured was not ‘cycling in London’ but cycling on ‘key routes’. And now the figure has risen to a 91% rise in cycle journeys on the city’s major roads since TfL was created in 2000.”

The Guardian also reported on findings by the National Audit Office that cyclist fatalities had increased in Britain as a whole by 11% between 2004 and 2007 (despite no increase in modal share), with London being the most dangerous place in Britain for cyclists and pedestrians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/08/cycle-accidents-road-deaths-rise

By: Tim Beadle

Tim Beadle — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:25:29 +0000

It would be good to see some raw numbers, too, not just percentage change.

If there’s 1 KSI one year and 2 the next, that’s a _Shocking 100% Increase_ (!!! zomgwtfbbq !!!), but in reality, a very low number one year went to a still low, but very slightly higher number the next…

By: HJ James

HJ James — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:03:26 +0000

I find these statistics very interesting and I’m very curious as to why we are seeing this decline (I’m happy, but interested in understanding why). Obviously the more cyclist on the road the more other drivers are aware of them, but I wonder why Portugal and Spain had the highest rate of death, and would also be interested in knowing the average age of riders in say 1994 & 95 as vs. the average age of riders in 2005 & 06.