Transcript Slide 1

Cycle safety:
a holistic perspective
How to deliver
More and Safer Cycling
Roger Geffen
Campaigns and Policy Director
CTC, the national cyclists’ organisation
About CTC
• CTC the national cycling charity
– c70,000 members, founded 1878
– Cycling activities, membership services (legal,
insurance, magazine)
– Cycling development e.g. cycle training
– Campaigning nationally and locally
Health Benefits
23
25
21.9
936
800
20
848
600
12.8 12.9
12.7
15
10.7
400
251
200
10
322
76
G
re
ec
e
Fi
nl
an
d
G
er
m
an
y
Be
lg
iu
Ne
m
th
er
la
nd
s
De
nm
ar
k
75
0
291
9.5
A relationship between
cycle use and obesity?
5
Obesity, % of population
1000
UK
…and a life
expectancy
2 years
above the
average
Cycle use and obesity in Europe
circa 2002 (years vary)
km cycled per person per year
• Cycling in mid-adulthood
gives you a level of
fitness equivalent to
being 10 years younger…
0
Cycle use
Obesity
Cycling is healthy not dangerous
• You are less likely to be
killed in a mile of cycling
than mile of walking
• Health benefits far outweigh
risks, by c20:1
• Those who do NOT cycle to
work have a 39% higher
mortality rate than those who
do (Copenhagen heart study)
Deaths in Britain 2003
50000
42000
40000
30000
30000
20000
10000
18
114
3508
0
Child
cyclists
All
All
Obesity
cyclists road users
It is dangerous NOT to cycle!
Coronary
heart
disease
related to
inactivity
Fatalities involving different road users:
who gets killed?
Health v safety?
Cycles
120
105
100
800
80
600
61
56
60
42
400
29
200
20
75
75
154
136
41
271
251
322
41
40
20
20
15
Ita
ly
nl
an
Sw d
ed
e
Be n
Ne lgiu
m
th
er
la
n
De d s
nm
ar
k
0
12
0
km cycled per person per year
936
848
Fi
– Cycle use up 150%, serious
and fatal injuries down 18%
– Many other examples from
UK and Europe
Peds
1000
UK
Fr
an
ce
Au
st
ria
• e.g. London since 2000:
Vans / M’cycles Buses /
Lorries
Coaches
Safety in numbers: European comparison
Sp
ai
n
(www.ctc.org.uk/safety-in-numbers).
Cars
Cycle fatalities per bn-km cycled
• Cyclists have a very low
rate of involvement in
injuries to others.
• High cycle use and good
cycle safety are linked: the
“Safety in Numbers” effect
Cycle use
Cycle fatality rate
Safety in numbers:
Why does it happen? What does it mean?
Three possible explanations:
1.
2.
3.
Drivers become more aware of cyclists and better at
understanding / anticipating them.
A greater proportion of drivers will themselves be cyclists,
improving their understanding.
Increased political will to improve cycling conditions.
Implications:
•
•
•
•
More cycle use and better cycle safety can, and should, go
hand in hand. But action is needed to ensure they do.
Tackle actual and perceived risks to cycling: hostile
roads/junctions, speeds, bad driving, lorries.
Provide ‘Bikeability’ national standard cycle training for
people of all ages, backgrounds, abilities.
Measure actual cycle safety (i.e. per unit of cycle use, not
just cyclist casualties) and perceptions of safety.
www.ctc.org.uk/safetyinnumbers
More and safer cycling:
Key points
• Cycling is good for our own health, and that of our
communities and the environment
• Cycling gets safer the more cyclists there are
• So “more” AND “safer” cycling can and should
go hand in hand: complementary not
contradictory aims
• Tackle the fears which deter people from cycling
− Speed, irresponsible driving, hostile roads and junctions, lorries
• Set targets and indicators which encourage this
1. Traffic speeds
• Welcome positive noises on
20mph, but Government needs
to “speed up on slowing down” in
both urban and rural areas
• Benefits of 20mph
– 90% fewer KSI in Hull’s 20mph
zones, 56% decrease in collisions
(1994 – 2001)
• Benefits health, road safety for
all, quality of life, economy
• Popular!
- 75% support 20mph limits,
incl 72% of drivers
2. Irresponsible driving
• Better training and testing
• Clear focussed driver awareness campaigns
– Close overtaking
– Looking before turning at junctions
– Car doors
….LINKED TO
• Increased enforcement activity (and hence
police resourcing)
• Fundamental review of policing, prosecutions
and sentencing needed
CTC’s Road Justice campaign
aims to tackle bad driving and
promote responsible road use
www.roadjustice.org.uk
3. Hostile roads and junctions
• Set new design standards based on EU best
practice (incl. innovations currently being
trialled / proposed reg changes)
• Focus on major junctions / one-way systems
• Ensure network coherence and continuity.
• Cycle-proofing: audit process to ensure cyclefriendliness is designed in at outset
• Professional training / awareness
4. Dangerous vehicles
• HGVs: account for 20-25% of
fatalities in GB, 53% in London (20015), 6 out of 8 fatalities in London so
far in 2013.
• Solutions relate to vehicles, driver
training and awareness, fleet
management and (above all) demand
management / access restrictions.
• Motorcycles also have a
disproportionately high involvement
rate in both pedestrian and cyclist
casualties, especially serious and
fatal injuries
5. Positive promotion:
cycle training & other “smarter choices” measures
• Cycle training and other targeted opportunities to cycle: continue /
extend availability incl for adults – focus on workplaces, women, health
patients, minority / disadvantaged groups
• Cross-departmental/organisational collaboration: importance of
involving depts for / partners from health, education & business
• Positive promotion and activities (e.g. TfL’s ‘Catch up with the bicycle’
campaign, Sky Rides)
• Avoid scaring people e.g. with shock-tactics “road safety” campaigns!
6. Measuring success
• Set rate-based targets – e.g. the national target to halve the risk of
ped and cycle KSI per 100,000 miles travelled – to encourage
“more” as well as “safer” cycling
• “Perception-based” indicators - could be monitored as an add-on to
survey on perceptions of PT safety, would avoid data problems at
local level, and would end tendency to scare people off cycling!
• This will encourage action to tackle the
fears which deter people from cycling:
speed, irresponsible driving, hostile roads
and junctions, dangerous vehicles
(especially lorries).
• Fewer deterrents => more cycling =>
safer cycling
Cycletopia
• A visualisation of a model
cycling town, based on
what is already
happening in the UK.
• Includes infrastructure,
promotion, integration and
leadership
• You don’t need to dream
of the Netherlands, it can
be done here too!
www.ctc.org.uk/cycletopia
N.B. For CTC’s campaigns briefings (e.g. on health, safety,
infrastructure, local transport and many others) see
www.ctc.org.uk/campaignsbriefings
Cycle safety:
a holistic perspective
How to deliver
More and Safer Cycling
Roger Geffen
Campaigns and Policy Director
CTC, the national cyclists’ organisation