Pavement perils

brat

esuhl wrote: »

Interesting... So you'd never employ anyone who had ever broken the speed limit whilst driving either, then?

The majority of drivers break the speed limit at some point. Wouldn't your company struggle to find any suitable employees if you were able to tell who had broken the law?

Perhaps it's the lottery of 'being caught' that makes the difference. :cool:

It's believed that drivers speed on average more than 10,000 times before being caught.
This routine offending behaviour has no impact on their ability to put in a good day's work.

However, it would appear that as soon as their routine offending behaviour leads to a ticket, or an incident, or, worse still, it gets caught by CCTV, these people become the devil incarnate, and should expect to be hung out to dry by society's holier than thou brigade.

The cyclist deserves punishing. He will be punished.

But the next time any of us drivers stray very slightly over the limit, or obstruct a pavement by parking on it, we should understand that our actions have the potential to be at least as dangerous as this cyclist.
Perhaps then we would stop throwing stones.

AndyBSG

Can't find more recent ones but from 2001 to 2009 here's some figures

Pedestrians Killed by cyclists - 18
Pedestrians seriously injured by cyclists - 434

Now lets compare that to car figures...

Pedestrians killed by cars - 3,495
Pedestrians seriously injured by cars - 46,245

These figures are for all of Great Britain and are from the Department for Transport.

In accidents between adult cyclists and motor vehicles the driver of the vehicle was found solely responsible in over 60% of cases with the cyclist solely responsible in under 25% of cases(the remainder were no fault/both parties at fault).

These are also DFT figures but only from 2009 as they're the most recent I could find.

to really put those figures into perspective, here's some figures for causes of death in 2008

387 pedestrians were killed by motor vehicles
4 people were killed by bees
3 pedestrians were killed by cyclists
2 people were killed by lightning

Odd that lightning and bee deaths don't receive the same press coverage that pedestrians killed by cyclists do considering the comparable number of deaths!

Cyclists are simply an easy target for the press

moneyistooshorttomention

:rotfl: at comparing Acts of God (ie bees and lightning) with Acts of Carelessness (ie cyclists).

Hundreds of people injured (and a few even killed) by Acts of Carelessness over that time period wouldn't be something that would count as negligible in the eyes of the people concerned (or their friends and relatives).

Tobster86

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

:rotfl: at comparing Acts of God (ie bees and lightning) with Acts of Carelessness (ie cyclists).

Hundreds of people injured (and a few even killed) by Acts of Carelessness over that time period wouldn't be something that would count as negligible in the eyes of the people concerned (or their friends and relatives).

Acts of god? !!!!ing bees off and not seeking appropriate refuge during thunderstorms sound like pretty careless acts to me.

And in how many of those three pedestrian killings was the cyclist being careless?

AndyBSG

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

:rotfl: at comparing Acts of God (ie bees and lightning) with Acts of Carelessness (ie cyclists).

Hundreds of people injured (and a few even killed) by Acts of Carelessness over that time period wouldn't be something that would count as negligible in the eyes of the people concerned (or their friends and relatives).

What is even more :rotfl: though is the fact that you picked up on the deliberately silly stats there but completely ignored the staggering 3,495 pedestrian deaths caused by vehicles.

If 3,495 people suddenly started dying every year from accidentally strangling themselves putting a tie on or from someone dropping banana skins on the pavement there would be a national inquest and a rapid change to the laws to prevent them

It just goes to show how deeply ingrained it is in our subconscious that such a huge number of deaths from vehicles are seen as normal but deaths from cyclists which make up less than 1% of those by vehicles are seen as unacceptable(also labelling all cyclist related pedestrian fatalities as carelessness is completely unfounded. All my pedestrian related collisions for example have been when the pedestrian has stepped into the road without looking).

Propaganda is a wonderful thing!

There's also roughly 10 deaths a year caused by horses. Are those acts of god or carelessness by the people riding the horses?

Guest101

brat wrote: »

A warning to those who choose to cycle on pavements to be wary about unexpected hazards...

...no, not the chavvy parents - the child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=p6sfDbPOzLU

That said, had the mother crossed the road to get to her car, that child would have been under a car.

A warning to those who choose to cycle on pavements to be wary about unexpected hazards...

please pick from the below:
1: A fixed penalty notice
2: deliberately slow moving pedestrians. ringing the bell will cause them to stop
3: being told in no uncertain terms to dismount and walk your bike on the pavement!

Norman_Castle

Guest101 wrote: »

A warning to those who choose to cycle on pavements to be wary about unexpected hazards...

please pick from the below:
1: A fixed penalty notice
2: deliberately slow moving pedestrians. ringing the bell will cause them to stop
3: being told in no uncertain terms to dismount and walk your bike on the pavement!

4, Miserable people who need something to focus their misery on.

Guest101

Norman_Castle wrote: »

4, Miserable people who need something to focus their misery on.

Have no problem with cyclists, cant stand the ones that insist on using the pavement in a city which is literally filled to the brim with cycle tracks & lanes.

It's a 'cycling city'.

If we've spent however many thousands making the things, bloody well use them!

Tobster86

Guest101 wrote: »

Have no problem with cyclists, cant stand the ones that insist on using the pavement in a city which is literally filled to the brim with cycle tracks & lanes.

It's a 'cycling city'.

If we've spent however many thousands making the things, bloody well use them!

The flaky-as-it-is ones in Worcester are used by pedestrians with iPods, usually next to a perfectly good (and vacant) pavement. I prefer to use the road.

There are also many shared paths. Ringing your bell at people on these often elicits a similar response to asking them to remove their trousers.

AndyBSG

Guest101 wrote: »

Have no problem with cyclists, cant stand the ones that insist on using the pavement in a city which is literally filled to the brim with cycle tracks & lanes.

It's a 'cycling city'.

If we've spent however many thousands making the things, bloody well use them!

The problem though is that many cycling lanes simply aren't fit for purpose and are death traps waiting to happen.

The infamous Bow roundabout and the Elephant & Castle roundabouts are prime examples.