I was involved in a crash this morning. As I was cycling to the shops, a slight detour on my way to work, I was turning right at a roundabout. As the person on the roundabout, I am supposed to have right of way. But you only truly have right of way if others give it to you. A car made its way into the roundabout and we collided.
On the whole I am fine. I was able to get up and walk away. I am stiff, and I suspect that I will have some large bruises tomorrow. It could have been much worse. I managed to drive myself into work and get on with my day, just a little slower than normal.
When I talked about what happened, I fear that I am doing cycling a disservice. I am reinforcing the idea that cycling is dangerous. That it is fine in places like the Netherlands or Denmark, but not on the streets in Britain.
I want to be sure that my collision is recorded properly, so that resources and infrastructure are directed towards improving the situation. But perhaps those same statistics will just lead to more people being scared off the idea.
If less people cycle, there is less motivation to install the infrastructure. Drivers are less used to seeing cyclists and don't look out for them. This makes it more dangerous and the cycle continues. All the while the country continues to suffer from sedentary lifestyles.
I don't know what the solution is. I doubt anything I can do will have any meaningful impact. But I fear I am not helping all the same.
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Comments
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said on: 10 Dec 2019 at 07:39
Sorry to hear about your being hit by a car, typical that cars drive on roundabouts with barely slowing down so dangerous. As for cycling in the countryside, my view is that Road safety would be considerably be enhanced if all the money on new roads was directed to putting Footpaths with space for Cyclists on ALL Country Roads. Not a thing that you hear in any Election.
From JonD
said on: 10 Dec 2019 at 08:22
Looking back, I was lucky. The driver paid to repair my bike without fuss. I have recovered without any further problems. It was scary and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous when I got back on my bike, but I think it is still worth it.
The problem with elections (the way we hold them) is that you get to write one X on a bit of paper and with it, try to convay how you want every aspect of society to be ran.