On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:32:41 +0000, Peter Parry
wrote:

On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:25:46 +0000, Bertie Wooster
wrote:

http://lcc.org.uk/articles/death-of-...-street-design

The single biggest risk to young people in this country is from motor
vehicles, with road crashes being the largest cause of death and
disability for children in the UK.

Approximately twice as many children are killed or seriously injured
when passengers in cars compared with cycling. About 3 times as many
child pedestrians are killed or seriously injured as child cyclists.
Should not both these groups be a higher priority?

We can explain all day that the absolute risks are very low (according
to available data, Ali is the first primary-school-age child to be
killed cycling in Greater London for at least six years), but until we
do something radical to our city, most parents will say putting a
young child on a road with fast-moving traffic is unacceptable.

So cycling is incredibly safe therefore we should spend a vast amount
of money "doing something" to achieve nothing other than to convince a
few of the chattering classes that something has been done and
therefore the non-problem which wasn't there has become a non-problem
which isn't there?

I can see the logic behind that.

There are organisations trying their best to encourage cycling to
school, such as Sustrans’ worthy Big Pedal, but if we want to see
significant increases in cycling to school, we must start redesigning
our streets for people, especially young people.

I though you just said cycling was incredibly safe? In any case why
do we want more cyclists when walking is better exercise?

The Dutch approach of 'Sustainable Safety' ensures that when children
move from areas where streets have been properly calmed on to busier
roads, they're typically provided with high-quality, segregated bike
tracks, affording them the necessary safety from a young age.

Unfortunately the UK cycling powers that be are totally opposed to
separate bike lanes. The idea that cyclists should be put on their own
little streets and banned from roads is an anathema to the Lycristas
who worship "momentum" above all else and dread the thought of being
held up by utility cyclists.

And this approach works: as well as having the highest proportion of
bike journeys in the world for the whole population, the Netherlands
has nearly half its primary-age children cycling to school in what are
the safest streets for cyclists in the world.

Because they are for bikes alone. What everyone ignores of course is
the very simple correlation between the Netherlands having the highest
number of bike journeys and being the flattest country in the world.
Put a few small inclines in place and Dutch cycling numbers would
plummet.

No-one is blaming the driver (we don't know what really happened),

Would it not be a really good idea to find out what happened _before_
producing these rambling waily waily articles?

Until we adopt a new approach, these tragedies will continue to
happen.

Once every six years according to the author.
Wouldn't the money be better spent on improving pedestrian facilities
for children rather than wasting it on the insignificant number of
child cyclists?

Perhaps it wouldn't be such an insignificant number of child cyclists
on the roads if there were Dutch style cycle facilities around primary
schools.