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news
broken bike.jpgCyclist deaths double during lockdown – at twice the average for the time of year
Cyclist fatalities since the UK lockdown began on 23 March are running at more than double the average for the time of year, road.cc can reveal, with 14 cyclists in Great Britain and one in Northern Ireland losing their lives in road traffic incidents.
> 15 cyclists killed on UK roads in first month of lockdown - here's what we know so far
While we would, as ever, caution against interpreting a sudden spike in casualties as reflective of a long-term trend, it is worth reflecting on some aspects of these unprecedented times that may have an influence.
According to Department for Transport (DfT) statistics, in the months of March and April from 2015 to 2018, there were 49 recorded deaths of cyclists in Great Britain – equivalent to a monthly average of 6.125 – less than half the total found by road.cc's analysis of news reports in the past month.
The fewest fatalities in those months during that period were recorded in March 2016, and in March and April 2017, each of which saw four cyclists die on Great Britain’s roads. The most came in March 2015, when nine were killed.
So, what might explain this sudden increase?
Well, it could be a short-term statistical blip, something we have certainly seen in the past.
But it could also be the result of one or more factors coming together as a result of how life here has changed in the past few weeks in a way that none of us would have thought possible at the start of the year.
First, while two of the fatalities we have seen reported since 23 March do not appear to have involved anyone other than the cyclist, all the others resulted from collisions involving motor vehicles.
Given that the roads are much quieter than usual, with traffic reverting to levels not seen since the 1950s, the spike in cyclist deaths does seem counter-intuitive.
However, a number of road traffic policing units across the country have highlighted issues such as an increase in speeding as some motorists take the opportunity of empty roads to ignore speed limits, as well as suggestions that drivers more likely to pose a risk to others are still out there while more law-abiding motorists remain at home.
In other words, there might be fewer drivers out there, but there is now a greater proportion of the ones who cause the most harm.
Turning to changes in cycling habits, under The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, which we analyse here, reasonable excuses for a person to leave their home include to undertake exercise either alone or with other members of their household, or to travel to work when that cannot be done from home.
Evidence from the cycling industry is that sales of bicycles are booming, whether to people to undertake their daily exercise, or to travel to work while avoiding public transport.
And in both cases, the run of good weather we have had from late March onwards won’t have discouraged people from taking to two wheels in the same way that a couple of weeks of low temperatures, wind and rain would.
All other things being equal, more cyclists on the roads collectively riding a greater distance would be expected to lead to more casualties, fatal or otherwise.
But that then needs to be balanced against other significant changes that have happened in the riding habits of regular cyclists in recent weeks.
One of those is that many people who would normally commute by bike are working from home. Collectively, that’s likely to lead to a big fall in aggregate miles ridden – although of course, many may be getting out on their bike for daily exercise to replace that which they were getting while travelling to work.
But we’ve also seen big growth in cycling indoors, for example on smart trainers using platforms such as Zwift which by their nature attract many riding for sport or fitness, and who are putting at least some of their miles in at home, rather than out on the road.
That, coupled with events such as audax rides and sportives being cancelled, is also likely to have led to a drop in the aggregate miles being racked up across the country, we suspect (we’re nowhere near the peak season for the latter, of course, but events being postponed or scrapped will have removed an incentive for many to train).
As we said earlier, it’s a complex situation, one that could be nothing more than a statistical anomaly, or that could be the start of a trend that could be due to the huge upheavals in the way we live and travel. It’s far too early to tell which, but it should not be ignored.
Across the country, campaigners have been urging governments and local authorities to reallocate road space to cyclists and pedestrians to create safe environments for travel and exercise, and there are signs that is beginning to happen, albeit very slowly.
Cycling UK is urging people to write to their local councils to call for more space for cyclists during the lockdown – you can write to your council via their website by following this link.
The charity’s head of campaigns, Duncan Dollimore, told road.cc: “Over the past weeks one of the few positives has been seeing families and individuals discovering the joys of riding or walking on largely empty rural lanes and roads.
“However, Cycling UK is receiving regular reports of a minority of people driving way too fast. While reports of collisions are few, with so many families venturing out for their daily exercise especially on narrow rural roads, the consequences of dangerous driving now more than ever is a burden our NHS can ill afford.
“Worse still are the casualties we hear about. Without official figures it’s too early to say whether this is more than the usual. But even if it is less than ‘usual’, any death on our roads involving collisions with other vehicles is one too many.
“Quieter roads are not a licence to speed,” he added. “Cycling UK is appealing to all drivers to give plenty of space when overtaking walkers, cyclists and horse riders and slow down - you never know who could be just around the corner.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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41 comments
"According to Department for Transport (DfT) statistics" - is there a link to the DfT figures please?
I was almost knocked off my bike by a person driving whilst wearing full ppe, so potentially a nurse, carer or other essential worker. They turned off a main road left into a lane - and then continued towards me on the wrong side of the road. What can I say? It will be the cyclist at fault whatever...
There's probably a combination of issues causing this. In Greater M/cr police are reporting that 40% of motorists are now breaking the speed limit. Also there are a lot of novice cyclists out there, enticed by empty roads and nice weather, and wanting to exercise. But also there has been a huge surge in cycling this last month (I've seen figures of upto 300% increase mentioned). What I've been trying to do is get our Mayor and council leaders to provide emergency bike lanes like other EU cities are doing, but sadly getting no response so far, but physical protection would see even further increases in cycling whilst reducing collision, and reduce NHS scarce resources at this important time.
Not surprising really is it. I've not really had any issues with speeding motorists but I can well believe with empty roads some people are dicks I think that's obvious from Police reporting.
I'm not sure average milages will be down at this time of year I'm normally stuck on the trainer still because the times I go or come home from work it's still dark so I prefer the trainer working from Home I can go out anytime of the day and more often so my Road milage is massively up.
As for more inexperienced people cycling we all know that's 100% true because they feel less threatened by cars the problem is many don't hold a line and don't really look over a shoulder before making a drastic change in direction for potholes etc. I've been catching people from fair distances back and a few times I've wanted to have a shout out at how risky some people are being.
Let's be clear though they should be allowed to ride and with more experience and us politely educating them on the danger they may actually stick at it.
As David Icke would say problem - reaction - solution.
Problem - cyclists are being injured
Reaction - cyclists are putting a drain on the NHS
Solution - restrict cycling
One thing's for sure - motorists aren't responsible.
I note this piece uses the word 'accident'. Can we please stop using this? The word 'crashes' is far more accurate. Using 'accident' infers that the incident is unavoidable, which we know not to be the case in many/most instances.
I have seen a big increase in the numbers of novice cyclists, in the last few weeks. I've also seen a big increase in drivers, driving at excessive speeds. That's not a good mixture. I hope that this is just a 'blip'.
My view is that it is solo riding that is the issue.
Riding in groups gets motorists pissed off, but a pissed off motorist knows you are there.
My club has had 6 deaths since I joined, 5 of which it is reasonable to say the motorist was to blame. The common factor in all 6 was solo riding. The most recent one hasn't come to court, but that was a Porsche driver on the wrong side of the road, don't know whether it was loss of control or an overtake. The other 4 all have an element of "temporary distraction" in their defence, which goes down very well with juries who see themselves in the same position.
I ride with cameras to and from our group ride start. Most rides I'll have some form of incident on that bit, and then can switch off the cameras for the group ride.
There are a mix of incidents, but the worst are the ones where it is clear that the driver isn't really aware of me, typically pulling out, but the worst close passes are ones where you get the sense it is not deliberate, they just haven't taken in you are there.
Generally, driver behaviour has been excellent in lockdown, the more relaxed roads have taken away the stress, but you still have the 1% - the ones who don't realise they'll meet their twin driving the other way down a single track road one day.
Final point, a lot of novice riders out there doing scary things, but 2 local lockdown incidents, one fatal and one today which I'm not sure of the outcome, are not novice riders though not with our club.
One of most concise, well written and thought provoking I've seen.
I only ride solo and I can only think of two rides in four weeks where there hasn't been an "incident." I've started riding with lights on all the while now and can only hope that makes a difference.
I agree with your analysis.
It's the close pass that we all hate, but these may not be the cause of most accidents.
I put near misses into three groups
1) The drver is a perfectly competent rasonable person,, but doesn,t see a problem in getting close to a cyclist. He needs educating.
2) The Driver cannot judge speed and distance or is innatentive and has not seen the cyclist.
3) Aggresive driver deliberately trying to frighten the cyclist. He probably does not intend to cause a collision, it may damage his paintwork. There are some psychopaths on the road but they are rare.
It's group 2 that really scare me, there is not much you can do about them. The other problem is that very often you don't know wich type is coming up behind you.
The ONLY useful and comparable statistic is deaths per million km cycled (or any other constant distance). Without knowing how many kms are normally ridden during these months and how many kms have actually been ridden in the past month, no conclusions can be drawn. Deaths per month is meaningless. Maybe the increase just means that the danger level has remained constant while people are cycling twice as much as usual. What rubbish journalism.
Reporting the facts is hardly "rubbish journalism." Just because someone doesn't draw the same conclusions as you, doesn't mean that you are right and they are rubbish. You could have just pointed out that there is an explanation for the figures which hadn't been considered, but no, you had to insult them. They have pointed out some salient facts which inform us all, and while you might be right about the cause, it's hardly gentlemanly to call them rubbish journalists.
I for one am grateful that they unearthed these figures and brought them to our attention, and they don't deserve carping, snidey comments like yours.
The point regarding language is well made, but the original point also has a great deal of merit. There is a well known logical fallacy which has the rather officious sounding title "post hoc erg propter hoc" which roughly translates as "this happened so that caused it". A better way to put this is that simply because there is a correlation in things doesn't mean that there has to be causation.
Let me give you an example. If you were to plot the sales of soup in a cafe on a popular cycling route against the sales of ice cream, then you wouls be likely to see the sales of soup falling as the sales of ice cream increase. Does this mean selling soup causes people to stop buying ice cream or vice versa? The obvious answer is no, there are other factors at play and seasonal variation has to be taken into account; you're more likely to buy a mug of soup in October than an Ice Cream.
In the case of the staistics here there are many factors that could be at play. Statistics does accomodate the concept of exrmes in a normal distribution. Just because the mean number of deaths is an specific month is 6.125 doesn't mean that 14 is an extraordinary number. It is no more unexpected than only 2 deaths in another year. The figures also fail to look at the cause of death in each case. The 2 fatalities where no other vehicle was involved, were they cases where the trauma of crashing was the cause of death or were they cases where an undiagnodes cardiac event caused the rider to suffer a cardiac arrest before falling from the bike?
So, yes, there are questions arising from the figures but we need to understand the wider context and we need to first understand whether this figure is statistically signigicat or simply a case of regression to the mean. I would refrain for calling it "rubbish journalism", but equally there are more nuanced qustions to be asked and "deaths double during lockdown" is somewhat sensationalist in tone.
Tox (1 post) you are cm2white and ICMFP.
Your arguments are verbose, long winded, full of spelling mistakes and mostly already made. Try and be a little more subtle and not so outrageously obvious next time.
Doesn't that mean "following that, I ended up on the turbo trainer"?
Actually, if you consider the other point of view, deaths (of cyclists) by motorists per km, then given that almost all cycling deaths are collisions with vehicles, then you have a highly significant rise, because there are many fewer cars yet their contribution has doubled. If you consider the number of cycle/vehicle interactions, statistically the failure rate per interaction must have increased massively.
Obviously, I am making an assumption that the accident rate has increased due to vehicle collisions, but the two serious incidents locally were with cars.
Many safety advocates discourage analyzing road deaths per miles traveled and encourage a focus on the number of people killed and seriously injured. Rates are conducive to thinking of some “acceptable” level. By contrast, Vision Zero demands a much more aggressive engineering outcome with a moral basis. And, it is achievable, as trends in Sweden, Norway etc show. So, rates are interesting but they are not the only thing that matters. Fewer or no people dying matters, a lot. A careful look at the causes of each crash during the current spike, and past crashes, probably tells us the most interesting information. That kind of detailed analysis is seldom done, but with several dozen crashes would be feasible.
Completely wrong.
If people are cycling more, that makes the cars on the road even more dangerous, and is a still stronger reason for restricting them. What matters his how many people motorists are killing.
(Also, it's quite obvious to me that drivers are speeding even more than usual, so it's a combo of more lethal driving and a 'target rich environment')
I'd find deaths per unit time cycled more useful. If a novice and a pro cyclist both go cycling for one hour the pro is going to travel further, but both are exposed to danger for the same length of time.
I really wish these figures would not be presented as deaths of cyclists, rather deaths due to motor vehicles. The latter would give the common denominator, the former shifts blame to the victim. Divide and conquer...
I ride every day to replace my normal commute. in generally I notice that drivers give a wide berth. Theyt are also considerate in towns when I have moved into the midlle of the lane to pass pedestrians at a safe distance . However on country roads some drivers treat the roads as race tracks and close pass even when there is no traffic. I have also seen many cars pulling out of junctions without looking propperly for cars or cycles because they assume it is quiet and nothing will be coming. I have also seen people with children cycling on A roads, although quiet are still pose a risk even for experienced riders.
The usual arseholes delivery drivers are driving even more like arseholes imo. Add in some sort of 'key worker' hero complex and they think they own the road now.
Some pedestrian arsehole shouted something about having a bell at me today even though he was on the pavement and I was on the road when I passed him. Corona keep out our village rant was probably incoming.
Jogger arseholes with earphones seem to have bred in lockdown and seem even more lemming like and run off the pavement without looking whenever it suits.
You seem to offer the complete explanation for the high toilet paper use
Contrary to your observations of delivery drivers I have noticed that where I work (Leeds) the delivery drivers have all slowed down somewhat and are extremely courteous to other road users. I feel it is because the lack of taxi cabs and busses that regularly clog up the city has enabled much quicker stop to stop performance for these drivers so they do not need to go tearing about like their hair is on fire.
And no, we (had you guessed?) do not have a hero complex, just a dread as to when we are going to get it. We know it is coming and we know we are in harms way.
By the way your universal description of everyone else but you as an ar$ehole says more about you than of those you opine.
It would be interesting to see if the inexperienced/returning cyclist is a factor but, I had an online discussion with a few members of our cycling club the other day and we were all sharing examples of dubious driving with the sense it was more than usual.
Another factor could be the lack of groups of cyclists. Whilst they are often decried by some members of the driving public, there is arguably safety in numbers. All of my current rides are solo whereas many of them would previously have been in a group.
Out for a short bike ride the other evening, I came across a red light at some roadworks so stopped as usual.
As a few cars had queued behind me, when the light turned green I beckoned them through, knowing I'd get through it slower, but the lady at the front didn't move, I frantically gesticulated (what I thought was) a considerate gesture, but she just blanked me and stayed put.
Sensing the other cars would be properly miffed if the lights changed back, I set off to get through the works as quick as possible.
Just as I got going, she floored it, sped past me then slammed on the anchors and turned left in front of me!
On the same ride, approaching more red lights, I checked behind and signalled to turn right. A car, previously a long way back and slowing for the lights, floored it to get past me just to slam on the brakes as he hit the queue!
Fortunately in both cases I was riding on full alert as if my sixth sense was telling me the behaviour was odd.
I have not been out riding since the lockdown started so cannot comment on empirical evidence but it is a shame there is no suggestion in the article that riders may also be concentrating less becasue they think the road is empty. It is always apparent in London when there is an inexpereinced rider or conditions change and riders who should know better ride carelessly. As someone else noted in the comments, there is a balance point between being busy enough to take care...data is mostly objective but its interpretation is very subjective
You're right, you can't comment.
thanks for your guidance and at least I know 40 years of riding in London counts for nothing...
I've only got 30 years of experience of cycling in London and my family and I have been riding a bit since the lockdown started. There are a lot of inexperienced riders out there taking advantage of the quiet roads. And I've noticed an increase in the numbers of maniac drivers taking advantage of quiet roads to drive at absurdy high speeds.
I would say your 40 years distorts your perception and makes your opinion less meaningful.
The cyclists aren't killing themselves, I highly doubt many are due to newbies just randomly falling off the bike. The problem is drivers not being sufficiently careful because they think the road is empty. Remove the drivers and the deaths will fall dramatically.
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