I have no idea what you can base the fact that london is the safest place to cycle in the UK. Safer than rural Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands and on and on. You are having a laugh saying London was the safest place to cycle. The mixture of idiot cycle couriers and LGVs who get paid more on bonus. Plus van delivery makes London and other big cities in the UK very very dangerous places to ride bikes. So where did you get these spurious statistics from?
Not spurious statistics, just facts.
There is an average of 112 cyclist deaths per year nationally over a population of 64.5 millions. London's population of 8.5 millions is 13.2% of that, but the London's annual average of 14 cycling deaths until recently is 12.5%, so previously only marginally better, However, considering that the rate of London cycling has been so much higher than the rest of the country over the last decade, still London has been safer.
But the changes I mentioned have drastically improved the situation. In the last calendar year of 2015 there were 8 London cyclist deaths, a near 60% reduction. And in the one day short of 11 months to yesterday there were no cyclist deaths in London. Normally in an average previous 11 months over that last decade we'd have suffered 13 deaths, so the change is dramatic.
If the rest of the country had performed like London in 2015, instead of 113 cyclist deaths there would only have been 65 deaths. If the rest of the country performed like London over the last 11 months, including this latest London death, the country would have dropped to only 8 deaths for this year instead of the usual over 100.
Clearly London is now by a huge margin the safest area in the UK to cycle.
So what do I mean by area? Clearly one must compare like with like, so an area of circa 8.5 million people, not an area of Cheshire countryside with few thousand people. In this connection you may learn from this extract of the Department for Transport report TRL445 on cycling accident causes, giving the lie to the country areas being safer:
The study found that rural roads present particular challenges for cyclists, as the risk of being killed is much higher than for other roads. Almost half of cyclist fatalities occurred on rural roads, and the proportion of collisions on these roads increases for those aged 40+. Casualty severity was found to increase with the posted speed limit, and so measures to reduce traffic speeds in rural areas may benefit cyclists.
Collisions at night/in the dark were more likely to result in a fatality, and rural roads present particular difficulties, as not only are the speed limits generally higher but the roads are often unlit. A detailed examination of these accidents found that the bicycle was commonly impacted in the rear by the vehicle.
Why do i use deaths as my statistic? That's because it's more reliable, there's no argument about whether someone is dead. Accident statistics in comparison contain many anomalies due to judgements and grading methods, and in any case, both KSI and serious injury statistics roughly track the death rates.
I trust that you can see now that I take great care in ascertaining the facts before posting. As long term members are aware, I've been closely tracking this subject for years and taking an active part in the campaign to reduce London cycling accidents and deaths.
P.S. An additional fact. London has over 580,000 cycle commutes each weekday, not counting all the other forms of London cycling, club rides, MTB/leisure, utility cycling, BMX etc. That's over 133 million cycle commuting journeys in the country's heaviest traffic during the almost 11 months without a single death. That should be celebrated.
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