Cyclists Find Safety In Numbers

Buying high visibility shirts and other accessories is just one thing that cyclists may want to do to ensure that they’re easy to see on the UK’s roads, but the Evening Standard recently revealed that the roads with the most cycle traffic are the safest for riders.

Research conducted on cycling in London by the University of Westminster found that the streets with the highest volume of bicycle traffic were 13 per cent safer than other roads in the UK’s capital.

Dr Rachel Aldred, a transport expert at the university and leader of the research, told the newspaper that “a street with 1,000 cyclists per day is 13 per cent safer than one with 500 cyclists per day”.

The research also found that one-quarter of all journeys by bike in the capital follow streets that see fewer than 2,000 vehicles driving along them per day, and that just one in seven cyclist injuries occurred in such locations.

This is compared to two-thirds of injuries to cyclists which happen on the city’s A-roads. One suggestion to come from the research is to block off residential roads to prevent rat-running motorists from using them, while making them safer for pedestrians and cyclists alike.

“One thing you can take from the paper is that if you get more people to generate more cycling trips, that should create a ‘safety in numbers’ effect,” Dr Aldred added.

Cycling UK recently challenged the government to take action on a range of issues that affect cycling safety, including changes to road and street design to make it safer for those on bikes, as well as alterations to the Highway Code to encourage drivers to think more about cycling safety.