Cyclist deaths in London

[ichops]

So it's not just here in the good old Ar SS AA - picked this up on sky :-

Two deaths in london in the last 24 hours with a total of 5 deaths in 9 days

makes you wonder - doesn't it ?

[jcza]

  On 11/14/2013 at 12:55 PM, ichops said:

So it's not just here in the good old Ar SS AA - picked this up on sky :-

Two deaths in london in the last 24 hours with a total of 5 deaths in 9 days

makes you wonder - doesn't it ?

[gummibear]

The last place i will ever ride a bike is in or near London.

Even pedestrians are hit daily there.l

[ichops]

  On 11/14/2013 at 12:59 PM, gummibear said:

The last place i will ever ride a bike is in or near London.

Even pedestrians are hit daily there.l

And yet they have that wonderful "rent a bike sytem " ? plus the streets are full of bike commuters just doesn't make sence

When I was there last October I was amazed at the number of SS commuting bikes never mind all the others

[gummibear]

  On 11/14/2013 at 1:38 PM, ichops said:

And yet they have that wonderful "rent a bike sytem " ? plus the streets are full of bike commuters just doesn't make sence

When I was there last October I was amazed at the number of SS commuting bikes never mind all the others

 

There are thousands of bikes but the buses and taxis feel nothing for you.

[ichops]

  On 11/14/2013 at 1:42 PM, gummibear said:

There are thousands of bikes but the buses and taxis feel nothing for you.

Just like home ??

[gummibear]

  On 11/14/2013 at 1:44 PM, ichops said:

Just like home ??

 

Not like that place.

[cfcjim]

I"m in London three or four times a year and usually stay with my Mum in Craven Hill near Bayswater Road and usually cycle to work to Agar Street close to the Zimbabwean Embassy.

 

This normally takes me about twenty minutes through Hyde Park and cutting through various other streets.

 

I don't think I've ever had an incident free ride, usually someone; a taxi or bus and sometimes motorcycle couriers try to kill me.

 

Still better than sitting in traffic though!

[RichieT]

London taxis are not much better than our local ones... they just speak different!... many years ago, I rode a small Honda bike for about 9 months in London. The taxis crawl, blocking you when they're looking for passengers, but when they're loaded, they just run down anything in their path! They also do U turns without warning! So I was riding along minding my own bizz in central London and this taxi comes up alongside and tries to squeeze me into the pavement! No ways! So I balled up my fist and smacked the side of his vehicle as hard as I could, in the centre of one of the side panels! I so enjoyed that! I surprised myself! 'Cos there was an unexpectantly loud bang! He got such a fright, that he backed right off, and I disappeared into the distance. Gave him back some of his own medicine.

But that was years ago. The traffic there today is just mindboggling, huge numbers, and cyclists are cannonfodder..

As can be seen from this post, of yesterday:

11 cyclists killed in London so far this year...

https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/133241-bystanders-lift-car-off-a-cyclists-head/

[cfcjim]

And top tw@t Boris Johnson:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/14/fifth-london-bike-death-bus-superhighway

 

The man is a buffoon.

[kosmonooit]

I used to commute daily from Ealing to South Kensington for a year as a skint student, dodge death on a daily basis. Roads are very narrow, and when you get to a round-about. all hell breaks loose. And them lorries.

 

Still better than riding the toob though.

 

But the parks, commons and tow paths were great to ride.

 

London Cycling Campaign great organisation, made use of their insurance (had a few bikes nicked)

Edited November 14, 2013 by kosmonooit

[cfcjim]

Read the comments below the article.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/14/london-cycling-deaths-cycle-superhighways-infrastructure

 

Some of them made me feel quite ill.

[Lucky Luke.]

I cycled round London for about six years. I had near misses more than once a week, sometimes more than one a day. Plenty more dangerous than here - mostly due to the huge volume of traffic on the road. I also had bikes stolen - locked up ones - roughly every 3-6 months. The last one was taken from the central reservation in Oxford Street, during Christmas shopping. I thought things had improved due to the increase in cyclists and congestion charging, but it seems not.

[Eugene Oppelt]

Sounds rof...

 

Too many souls per square metre.

[Jewbacca]

Dunno... I lived in London for the whole of last year while working on the Olympics. I lived in Canary Wharf and had various sites and structures going up all over the city from the Village and park to Hyde Park, to Greenwich, Lords, Earls court to name a few... I never had an accident and I rode a fixie everywhere.

 

Again it comes down to awareness and attitude. This feeling of entitlement by road users of all description is the killer. If we all just ate humble pie and stopped trying to be faster/beat each other and shared, incidents would lessen and more people would smile on the road instead of swear at each other...

[leona]

really interesting reading this as a brit. I'm from outside london, surrey so fortunately didn't have to ride in central london too much.

when i did though it was always a test of survival. unfortunately there are way too many cyclists now for cars+cyclists+motorcycles and busses, lorries etc to share the same road. a lot of the cyclists are absolute idiots cutting through spaces that just aren't there and that really doesn't help matters. theres no sense putting in cycle highways, it clearly isn't working. they need separate lanes on roads away from the main ones the big lorries use. i can't see any way round that. also they need to make it an actual crime to kill someone with your car. at the moment you'd get a worse sentence if you stole a handbag...