Cycling

Nine Steps Towards Safer Cycling

As promoted in today’s Independent newspaper;

The London Cycling Campaign, which promotes safer cycling in the capital, has produced a nine-point-plan for reducing the toll of death and injury among cyclists:

* Enforce speed limits and clamp down on drivers who use mobile phones. (A young woman in Reading was jailed for three years this week after reading a text message and killing a pedestrian just round the corner from where I live. See the report in the Reading Post. She denied responsibility…)

* Crack down on hit-and-run drivers, who account for a large portion of serious road injuries.

* Introduce 20mph speed limits in all built-up and shopping areas of Britain’s towns and cities.

* Require all lorries to carry full safety equipment to help them avoid collisions with cyclists: six mirrors, sensors and safety guards. (See www.no-more-lethal-lorries.org.uk/)

* Require organisations which run lorries and other large vehicles to provide their drivers with cyclist awareness training, as already practised in four London boroughs.

* Include a “cycle awareness” section in the driving theory and practical tests

* Allocate more road space to cycling, as has been done in The Netherlands and Denmark, among other places.

* Provide all children with access to Bikeability cycle training, the current version of the Cycling Proficiency test

* Encourage less car use and more. cycling so that, as in The Netherlands and Denmark, collision rates for cyclists are reduced.

Categories: Cycling

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What do you think?