News: Times Cycling Campaign Rolls Out
In today’s Times, you’ll see that the newspaper has kicked off a comprehensive campaign to raise awareness of cycling safety issues. Following a serious accident last November, Times journalist Mary Bowers is lucky to be alive and is still recovering (get well soon, Mary).
The campaign, more information on which can be found on the Times website (and is not blocked by their paywall), is entitled ‘Cities Fit for Cycling’ and lays out eight requirements (see above) for safer cycling.
All of these make perfect sense, but over and above all this drivers (and to a lesser extent pedestrians) are just going to have to get used to there being ever more cyclists on the road - and change their behaviour accordingly.
In my opinion, one of the biggest causes of injury to cyclists is quite simply aggressive drivers or driving without due care and attention. Every day I will be overtaken by drivers because they feel they have to, rather than there being any real need. The instances when this happens will not reduce their journey time by any more than seconds (if at all, given the amount of traffic lights in London), but rather dramatically increases the likelihood of an accident as a result of decreased time and space for manoeuvre.
Overall, it would help if everyone chilled out a little bit :-)
Here’s to the Times campaign. Get those signatures in. And Tweet ‘#cyclesafe’
Is there anything you would add to the eight requirements laid out by the campaign, I’d love to hear ‘em?
