Near Miss Project returns - and its researchers want 2000 participants

The Near Miss Project, a study researching cycling incidents that don't involve injuries, is back, and this time it's looking for 2000 volunteers.

People who cycle on UK roads are asked to register on http://www.nearmiss.bike and fill in a one day diary, on a day pre-selected by them between 19 October and 1 November, and record each 'near miss', in order to build up a picture of how threatening or scary incidents on the roads affect the way people ride, if they choose to ride at all.

Headed by Dr. Rachel Aldred, Senior Transport Lecturer at the University of Westminster, the project is once again supported by bike lights company Blaze. This year it also has the backing of Chris Boardman, who has termed the project "critical".

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Aldred said: “The Near Miss Project was the first to generate per-mile near miss rates for cyclists in the UK. The second year will take this forward, asking whether things have changed, and gathering more data that will allow us to drill down into different incident types and how they affect people.

"Increasingly organisations such as TfL are seeing near misses as very important both for improving cycling experience, and for helping to reduce injury risk.”

Last time more than 1500 respondents completed a one day diary, around 85% or more of whom had one or more near misses that day. Around a quarter of participants experienced an incident that they defined as "very scary".

Since then the project secured funding to introduce new features to its site.

Aldred said at the Project's report launch last month: "A regular commuting cyclist that cycles to work every day might expect to be killed once every 8,000 years; serious injury, once every 400 years. Injury collisions are not happening that often to individuals, however, based on the data in the near miss project people are being harassed or abused 20 times a year."

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She said people experienced a very scary incident 60 times a year and any non-injury incident around 450 times a year.

Findings will help inform policymakers, planners, and driver training organisations, on what is needed to help more people feel safe cycling.

London Assembly Member, Val Shawcross, say the evidence from round one, which showed women and slower riders tended to experience more near misses than faster and male riders, is evidence for better infrastructure, and physical protection for cyclists.  

Chris Boardman said: "What this study does, which is quite unique...it's measuring perception and the things that make us do something, or stop us doing it, so I think it's absolutely critical, and the way it's being done -  to take anecdotal evidence and make it statistical to turn it into measurable facts - I think is critical."