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London bus and cyclist.jpgCyclists experience a "scary" near miss once a week according to study
Cyclists experience "a very scary incident" once a week according to results emerging from the Near Miss Project, a study to determine how often people experience dangerous incidents while cycling.
For the first time in the UK the project, led by Dr Rachel Aldred, shows the rate of near misses experienced by people cycling and shows those travelling below 8mph experience three times as many near misses than those travelling over 12mph, with women affected more than men.
Writing in the Guardian, Aldred calls this rate "shocking", and though she fears it could put people off cycling she says the issue needs to be discussed, and stopped because the incidents themselves are stopping people cycling.
Aldred, who is a senior lecturer in transport at Westminster University, says: "While a commuting cyclist in the UK might expect a cycling injury (most likely slight and self-treated) once every 20 years, they might be harassed by another road user every month, with a ‘very scary’ incident every week."
"This rate is shocking and I almost feel guilty for mentioning it," she writes.
"Am I, as some people worry, just going to put people off cycling? However, as with other hidden harassment, I feel keeping quiet doesn’t help. This happens to people every day on our streets, and needs to be discussed – and stopped."
Results from the Near Miss Project, to which more than 1500 people responded, show women experience 50% more close passes than men, though statistically the main predictor for near miss rates was speed, rather than gender. In short, the slower you ride, the more likely it is you will experience a near miss, whether because you are less "hardened" to road conditions, whereas faster cyclists might be overtaken less, while higher speeds might be associated with red light jumping, thus avoiding some of the traffic.
Aldred says: "Whatever the reason, it’s deeply concerning that people completing a journey at an average speed of below 8mph experience three times as many near misses as people completing a similar length journey at an average speed of over 12mph."
"The scariest incidents involve motor vehicles, particularly large motor vehicles. They include close passes, incidents where a driver pulls in or out across a cyclist’s path, or nearly left hooks them, sometimes deliberate abuse.
"This shouldn’t just be part of the normal cut and thrust of UK cycling."
A near miss, according to the project's definition, can range from rudeness to almost collision. Aldred says while these incidents can stop people cycling, most were "systematic and predictable".
"Participants said most incidents could have been prevented by different driver behaviour and/or changing the road environment – with the most cited infrastructural change being increased separation of cyclists and motor vehicles. By contrast, most incidents were not judged preventable by the cyclist themselves, adding to a pervasive sense of powerlessness."
Aldred says close passes have become part of the culture of British driving, as drink driving was a generation ago. She said: "As with drink-driving, we need an ongoing, concerted effort to make it socially unacceptable. This should go alongside remedying the many examples of road infrastructure putting cyclists at increased risk of close passes."
There will be a project report and event in September to discuss prevention strategies.
This article was amended on 16 june to say "higher speeds might be associated with red light jumping" where it previously said "perhaps because faster cyclists are jumping red lights".
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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Just read the section in the actual report that covers the relationship between speed of cycling and incidents - this does contain the comment about red light jumping - I thought that maybe the Guardian journalist added it! The section, I believe, misses an important issue which most who post on here are familiar with - that of road positioning, faster cyclists are generally more confident and position themselves out from the gutter where they will be seen early and driver tendency to try to squeeze past is reduced ( to some extent), cyclists who take a "commanding" position on the road and ride "big" are more visible at junctions and less likely to be hidden by parked vehicles and as said above in city traffic especially with multiple lanes I'll choose to ride faster to merge easier and give message that I am part of the traffic. Think the researchers need to kill the red light press bait line by revisiting the guinea pigs and finding out what they consider to be an appropriate position to be riding in on the road and if they always move in between parked cars.
Still good to see the barriers to cycling being addressed - have a specific hatred of road safety only looking at ksi data and not what stops people choosing to walk or cycle
edit
for those interested here is a similar but possibly more rigorous piece of work from here in Australia this has a relatively low "near miss" count but does report a lot of evasive action. From memory the riders were already regular cycle commuters
http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/reports/muarc322.pdf
Interesting Article, All commuter riders should check out the DING bike light currently being launched on Kickstarter it has two independent beams in the one light so you can be seen from all angles. My wife was nearly hit last week, coming home from late from work, not good. I showed her the DING Light and she immediately said yes I need one.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dingbikelight/ding-bike-lights
Ready just in time for next winter season
Once a week? Been commuting into Manchester for ten years and not had a single one yet. Guess it depends on your definition of 'scary' and/or 'near miss'...
Are you traveling by car?
no, bike.
Only once a week? Can I come and ride there? It sounds lovely. I'm passed too close about once a ride.
Sounds like you need to ride faster and jump a few red lights
I'd like to see the evidence about this myth that's being perpetuated that "faster" cyclists jump red lights....
Like some of the above comments, where I cycle, it tends to be the roadies that always stop at the lights, and the pootling old women in town sauntering through
How objective is the definition of 'near miss'?
It may be that the faster cyclists are more experienced and confident, and have lower standards for what they expect of motorists (cos they've been out there experiencing motorist behaviour for a long time) - hence they discount and don't even notice things that a less experienced cyclist would perceive (quite possibly entirely correctly) as a scary near-miss.
Oh, and probably there's a correlation between being a faster cyclist and 'assuming primary'. Riding in the gutter probably invites near-misses (though taking the lane of course invites abuse from angry entitled drivers).
"For the first time in the UK the project, led by Dr Rachel Aldred, shows the rate of near misses experienced by people cycling and shows those travelling below 8mph experience three times as many near misses than those travelling over 12mph"
This doesn't surprise me in general, but could we get some clarification on precisely what it means? Is this measured with respect to time or distance travelled?
All other things being equal, if someone is travelling 3 times faster than someone else over a given distance, it would 1/3 as much time and you would expect 1/3 as much stuff to happen.
Which is a massive oversimplification in any case, but the fact that faster people aren't on the road as long (for a given distance) may have some relevance.
What I think is more relevant is the speed differential. I generally ride a lot faster around town than I would like, simply to try and 'fit in' with the established 'correct' speed dictated by the current motor-centric hierarchy of the roads. I try and be 'part of the traffic', on the basis that a car can't overtake something that is going at the same speed. I deliberately ride at that speed to give me some autonomy on the roads that I don't feel if I'm going at my own, comfortable pace. I'm too scared to ride slowly.
In short, if a rider can perfectly 'slot into' an existing chain, then they will carried along with it until their destination, and not be subjected to a single overtake, let alone a bad one. Conversely, the slower the rider, the greater the speed differential, and the overtakes - good and bad - they will be subjected to.
I think the red-light jumping conjecture is unnecessary and probably inaccurate.
yeah I dont agree faster cyclists have less closer passes because they jump red lights, because generally they dont, its always the slow ones on BSOs I see jumping lights, I think faster cyclists are probably going to have more experience on the road and are probably more inured to the road conditions that face them
Ive certainly grown accustomed to close passes that would have been well within the distance limit the study used and would feel now they are hardly worth mentioning,whereas rewing to when I was a total newbie I found those far harder to cope with. thesedays its only really the ones where I feel I have to make an avoidance move to avoid contact Id mention.
so it becomes a really subjective measure, which is fine because the study was about what influenced peoples behaviours towards cycling, but its not going to be easy to turn the data into a "and this is how we fix this", the debate in the Guardian comments section quickly descended into fixing all kinds of non issues usual bingo list of insurance, registration,licensing riding two up, etc etc, not one suggestion actually said well we can fix close passing simply by just giving cyclists more room when we overtake.
Whenever i have the misfortune to cycle down Wilmslow Road in Manchester it is very much 'safer' to ride faster. If you can match or be faster than the buses that go up down there you are less likely to be experience close passes as your interaction with them is lessened.
As a passneger on the same buses i observe slower, less confident cyclist riding the same route and they are passed by the same bus several times. If im lucky i will never be passed by a bus because im matching their speed or ahead of them and able to stay on their outside.
As for a dangerous close pass every week? I'd say you will have one once a day in manchester.
I find it interesting that they think faster cyclists are more likely to jump red lights. My experience, outside of London is that it's the people on the old rusty mountain bike or on a boardman C2W bike that sail through red lights at between 8-10 mph. Its the people on road bikes at are waiting at the lights. I'd always put this down to, people who might consider themselves a "cyclist" are aware of the red light jumping perception, where as the general person on a bike isn't.
I had an interesting chat with a guy at work a couple of months ago who had just got a bike on the cycle to work scheme. We had left the office at the same time the day before. I saw him use the pavement on a couple of occations and jump two red lights. I asked him about it and he didn't think it was a problem as he was on a bike. In reality he's just a motorist who happens to be on a bike.
I agree and my experience is that it's usually the slowpokes who jump the red lights. I often overtake them and ask them why they've done it. The responses vary from abuse to surprise that I noticed.
Which is odd, one of the main sticks motorists use is that cyclists jump red lights.....
Strange as I have never never stopped at a red light and saw a car accelerate through past me (very close!)?
And how many times have I seen cars that have been sat in a queue and seen my coming up the inside and deliberately edged in (presumably to hit me and knock me off), even in a cycle lane, just so I don't go on my own way safely! Presumably if they see a pedestrian walk past them on the pavement they would just want to drive into them and maim them or worse?
If a child stepped out onto the road I would have thought most motorists (and cyclists) would move around them or take evasive action, such as slow down, rather than head towards them, speed up and 'teach them a lesson'? To be honest I think most drivers would do that for a dog, cat, hedgehog etc - but not for another human being on a bike!!! Watch how much room and respect drivers will give an animal sauntering along a gutter in the road (or even in the middle of the road) and then watch how much room they give a cyclist and you can tell which they feel has the greater right to safety!
True. I've just assumed that they're jealous. Interesting, though, that if a cyclist takes primary through a pinch point then 'how dare he presume to control what I can and can't do? why is he holding me up?' whereas when a motorist in a queue moves over to stop a cyclist passing up the inside (or the outside, or at all) then that's OK and the motorist is just doing his cicil duty to stop that evil cyclist...
Maybe, rather than naked bike rides and tweed rides and stuff, we should have a day where all cyclists dress up in fursuits (rabbits, deer, whatever) and see if we get treated better? Unfortunately, we'd probably get run down by horse'n'hounds instead of by SUVs
Some nice ideas - brooksby
Being a rural rider predominantly I see drivers hanging onto the back wheels myself or a group back wheel then trying to over take on a blind bend then thinking nothing of closing into myself/riders when they misjudge their ability to overtake. But I even had one beep me then whizz past close as you like and then immediately brake as he saw a horse up ahead slow down so I almost rear ended him (guess what i didn't swear, beep a horn or bang on his roof for holding me up!), then wait patiently for traffic and slowly pass on the other side of the road without raging beeping his horn or anything and the horsees rider had the temerity to take all of his power away and slow him down even more. perhaps he just thought I deserved to die for my hobby whilst a horse rider didn't? Or maybe his conscience could handle killing or maiming a human being but not a horse (or maybe he recognised there would be no loss, significant punishment or public outcry for hitting a cyclist like there would have been for hurting a horse or it's rider) after all 'they are all asking for it because I've read all about these cyclists that run red lights'? No doubt they think there argument is so much different and more intellectually coherent than the 'she wore a short skirt and was of sexually active age - she was begging for me to physically abuse her'?
At the end of the day a good road user does not have accidents - can anticipate and obey rules of the road. A good road user does not look for ready made excuses for unacceptable/unsociable behaviour they don't need them they take pride in their ability to avoid accidents. Every accident is avoidable and sometimes it will be the cyclists fault - unfortunately when a cyclist makes a mistake they pay a heavy price and even more unfortunately when a driver makes a mistake it is the cyclist that pays a heavy price.
At the end of the day it is the road users responsibility to use their vehicle safely and share the road equally not based on value of vehicle, desired time of arrival or and nobody has the right to injure or force others of the road because there was once one of their respective groups did something against the law (because if we play the percentages then it would be drivers that would be banned first). Maybe that's what we need more drivers banned and forced into cycling to see how it works. If the rules of the road are so important why are drivers given 4 chances to ignore them (speeding or jump red lights) even when caught? Surely if they do not obey the road they should be banned or physically harmed in some way - as they would 'deserve' it!
I ride into Manchester, I'd agree with the sentiment about once a week generally...
I find that thinking like a driver helps considerably, it is amazing how many cyclists pootle along near the kerb, they have no where to go in the event a car gets close... Feels like they are mentally in a cycling bubble, that the dashed white line of the cycle lane will protect them rather than taking control, riding in the primary position and owning their bit of the road for their own protection.
No excuse the regular abuse from drivers who'd get to the next set of ride lights a fraction of second quicker if we 'got out of their way'...
Unfortunately, even among cyclists who know what 'primary' and 'secondary' mean, many lack the nerve to put themselves out in traffic like that.
And even fewer motorists (I suspect) know why a cyclist might want to do that, so as far as they can see the cyclist is just doing it on purpose to hold them up.
Red rag / bull, you know...
Somewhat disappointed that it's assumed faster cyclists are jumping red lights. I took part in this survey, and as a 'faster' cyclist (18-20mph in urban areas) I don't jump lights, and have been abused by drivers a number of times because I won't enter a junction on yellow.
Sadly, I worry that the assumption voiced here, that fast = law breaking, will come back to bite us.
I find if I ride up-tempo to ambient traffic speed, say 18-20 mph then I have less "stress". I ride in London; down the Kingsland Road towards London Bridge. The only time it gets stressful is in and around Liverpool Street.
Confidence and alertness are key - but that's just me. There are many ways to ride a bike (and drive my car), but you shouldn't be made to feel scared or be intimidated.
It's worrying if people have scary moments so often.
From experience it would be once a day. But I ride in London. Can't say anything about other places.
No surprises there but good to have some hard evidence. About time someone in power started speaking out about this - they do us all a disservice with their silence.