Well done Claire and Eleanor. I would be interested to hear what proposals you plan to place before Mr Evans. In my opinion, endeavours to promote 'Cycling Safety' on a local basis should be about education and awareness for both parties, ie; cyclists and motorists. An effective method of educating both groups of road users should be geared towards awareness of how the other group behaves. In an ideal world, all road users should behave with respect for each other but a change of this magnitude will take time and would require a serious committment from government to do so. In the mean time, a program of education on a local basis to raise aforementioned awareness may be very helpful. I do feel sure that quite a few motorists simply don't know how best to behave when they encounter cyclists and vice versa of course - education will help. How to put the message across effectively is the challenge and I shall certainly give the matter some thought. Any measures involving changes to the road network may well be useful but highly unlikely. Education is the secret and we have the power of the Internet to help. Some good ideas and clever marketing could see our locality become a 'Cycle Friendly' area.
I was very impressed with Dave Fearon's suggestions on cycling safety, a lot of common sense there.

Thanks Jed,

While we are on the subject of safety, it is worth noting that Craig is a member of British Cycling and therefore fully insured. I would recommend that anyone who rides a bike regularly joins either BC or the CTC. As well as providing insurance and advice in an accident, CTC has many other services to offer. They have a facility to report dangerous potholes and hazards on the road and the Cheshire West and Cheshire Council won the national award in 2011 for the 'Highest percentage of potholes fixed'. So it really does work! Their Stop SMIDSY ( ‘Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See You’ ) campaign is also ground-breaking.

http://www.ctc.org.uk

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/

Thanks for acknowledging my post Claire. I do endorse your comments re' insurance etc - most important and well worth highlighting. I just wondered if you had any comments about the content of my post. Did it make any sense? Do you agree with me? What proposals do you plan to place before Mr Evans? Forgive me for being rather probing but this is an important subject and I got the impression from your previous post that you wanted some support for the forthcoming delegation with Mr Evans. Kindest regards from Jed.

Hi Jed,

In terms of education, schemes to introduce safe cycling into schools, and schemes to get more adults riding their bikes, are in place and growing. This includes the Cycling England Bikeability scheme. As always, I am sure that more funding would mean better coverage. The demise of Cycling England was a retrograde step, but the Bikeability scheme will continue in some form or another. The Sky mass participation city events, and women-only cycletta events have been popular too. Do you think we should get more involved in this side of things? (I help Derek with a safe cycling course at our school....)

In terms of road management, I think a risk assessment of any changes should define the impact on cyclists. Therefore, no road should be built or altered without a consideration of the impact on cyclists, and this should affect the plans and be built into the costs accordingly.

I think that the lower the speed limit, and the fewer cars, the safer it is for cyclists. (See Hartford planning application above).

I would like to hear as many views and suggestions as possible before the club committee meeting on Monday 5th March, whether this is about local issues, personal experience, or more general ideas. That way, anything we discuss can be more representative.

I hope this helps, Jed?

Claire

Hi Claire
Thanks for the post.
I agree that cycling education in schools is important and so the reduction (or demise) of the Bikeability Scheme is regrettable. I heard from someone involved in this that the response from schools has not been as positive as had been hoped for, I may be wrong. However, this program was primarily aimed at children and will have little impact on most adult cyclists.
Working on the premise that our input is going to be on a local scale and concerned with improving awareness and behaviour amongst local cyclists and motorists, I'm convinced that a new approach must be adopted and it's ideas on this subject that I feel WVCC members should apply themselves to (assuming that they wish to be involved of course). We have a brand new web site, most local villages also have their own web sites and local businesses, schools and colleges do too. If we can come up with some good ideas, we may well find that local businesses and schools would like to become involved and help the cause. Perhaps school children could be persuaded to tackle the problem - this could well help to raise the awareness of cycling parents. There is a lot of potential but our aims must be clearly defined and the benefits to all concerned should be promoted.
Jed.

For those who are thinking about meeting Graham Evans MP regarding 'Cycling Safety', here is a link to his website: http://www.grahamevansmp.com/about-graham.html
Jed

Thanks Jed,

Anyone from the club who wants to put forward any comments and suggestions, or who would like to attend the meeting can contact me on:

claireobrien2@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks

Claire 🙂

Hi Craig only just heard about your accident !

Hope you are well on the way to recovery ,look forward to seeing you soon

All the best Nigel