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Alex Dowsett backs Collideosco.pe cycle incident tracking websiteALEX_DOWSETT

Alex Dowsett backs Collideosco.pe cycle incident tracking website

London data to be used by Barts and the London Charity project
by Alex Bowden
Sat, Oct 18, 2014 18:44
3

Commonwealth time trial gold medallist, Alex Dowsett, has come out in support of the Bespoke project, an attempt to explore bicycle related injuries. The project makes use of data gathered via Collideosco.pe, a website that allows cyclists to log collisions and near misses on a map. Although the Bespoke project is London focused, Collideoso.pe can be used to record incidents nationwide.

The Bespoke project is a collaboration between the research teams of the Orthopaedic and Emergency Departments of Barts Health NHS Trust, along with Barts and the London Charity, ITP and mySociety. The aim is to gather high quality data about bicycle related injuries and to then use this to improve London for cyclists.

Speaking to the London Evening Standard, Dowsett said of cycling in the city:

“I don’t go near it. I don’t need to. I can train in the country lanes with minimal traffic.”

With the help of a web app, the project is looking to build a real-time picture of cycling related incidents and to create maps of accident hotspots.

Dowsett, who receives treatment for haemophilia at the Royal London hospital, explained:

“I got involved because I have had some near misses on the road myself. It’s a good tool to advise doctors of the most likely injuries cyclists are likely to get.”

Key to the project is the Collideosco.pe website, a crowd-sourcing project that seeks to build a national database far richer and more detailed than official equivalents. Although the Bespoke project is focusing on serious injuries, cyclists can add details about any incident they see fit, including near misses. They simply find their location on a map and then add details about what happened and when. When visiting the site, it is also possible to see if any incidents have taken place in your vicinity recently.

The thinking behind the reporting of near misses is that it will hopefully help in identifying danger situations before crashes happen.

Earlier this week, we also reported on The Near Miss Project which is looking for cyclists to record any near misses they might have over the course of one particular day. The aim is to find out how frequently such incidents occur as well as to gain some understanding of their impact on the rider. The hope is that the findings can then be used to brief policy-makers, planners, and driver training organisations.

the Bespoke project
Collideosco.pe
Barts and the London Charity
Alex Dowsett
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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Initialised | 10 years ago
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All the policy makers need to do is mandate collision avoidance tech in all new cars and existing commercial, passenger carrying and and heavy goods vehicles. It worked with seatbelts and side impact bars, why not for collision avoidance?

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bikebot replied to Initialised | 10 years ago
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Initialised wrote:

All the policy makers need to do is mandate collision avoidance tech in all new cars and existing commercial, passenger carrying and and heavy goods vehicles. It worked with seatbelts and side impact bars, why not for collision avoidance?

We're absolutely heading that way, it's a matter of when. Back in August, the US began the first legislative moves to require anti-collision technology in future cars. The biggest problem for the lawmakers is trying to stay ahead of fast moving technology, and this early move appears to be focused on collisions between vehicles at junctions (turning across oncoming traffic), as that's the most mature system that can be universally mandated at relatively low incremental cost.

The important thing is that these are laws that make it clear that control should be taken away from the driver if there is a safety benefit in doing so. That's quite a precedent.

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thebongolian replied to Initialised | 10 years ago
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Initialised wrote:

All the policy makers need to do is mandate collision avoidance tech in all new cars and existing commercial, passenger carrying and and heavy goods vehicles. It worked with seatbelts and side impact bars, why not for collision avoidance?

One question that would need to be answered is whether the cost in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided is worth the cost of fitting the technology to new vehicles? The other is how it compares to other options.

I suspect this would be pretty expensive thing to do for the change it would provide - it takes something like 20 years for the vehicle fleet to change so it would be at least a decade before there was a critical mass of enabled vehicles on the road. Far better would be to reduce the urban speed limit to 20mph which would probably be cheaper and have a much bigger benefit.

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