Each type of casualty is labelled to show the gender using colour or symbols - with the figures representing fatalities, drop shapes serious casualties and small circles slight injuries.
The data, published last week, show, unsurprisingly, that casualties are predominantly in urban areas, where 80% of the population live and where 68% of cycling occurs. See full screen.
To get a true picture of the risks of cycling, several years of data is required for each road, as well as exposure data for the amount of cycling that is taking place. We'd therefore urge caution before saying that such a location is 'more dangerous' than another, as it may very well be that the more dangerous locations have low levels of cycle casualties because most people wouldn't ever dream of cycling there to begin with.
However, each casualty represents a failure - a failure to create infrastructure which is inherently safe, and, in many cases, a failure to adequately protect the public by enforcing road traffic law and keeping recidivist bad drivers off the streets. If you want to see better conditions for cycling and fewer casualties, write to your local councillors asking for Space for Cycling, and find out about CTC's campaign for Road Justice.
For the data that lie behind this, and to compare local authority performance, see the Department for Transport's Road Collisions data website.
Comments
It would be interesting to
It would be interesting to introduce a different category of symbol. Instead of male or female rider it would be more informative to show which of these collisions were "hit and run". I looked at random at some collision sites around Sevenoaks. In 2 of the 4 sites I looked at the age of the driver could not be identified, so presumably he had failed to stop. I would guess that the police had also made little effort to investigate.
Additional information as
Additional information as answers to the following questions would make the information much more helpful to local road safety campaigners:
:
1. Was there a prosecution? If so then what for?
2. Was it a "hit and run"?
3. What was the speed of any motor vehicle(s) involved?
Similar information for the "minor accidents" would also be helpful. As I understand that. the differences between "minor and serious injuries" injuries" can be very subjective.