Chris Boardman is entirely right when he says that cycling is increasingly dangerous (Boardman: I avoid cycling on British roads, 1 September), citing the death of his own mother in a bike accident. But it’s not just British roads. Both my ex-husband and my daughter sustained extensive injuries having been knocked off their bikes by reckless car drivers in Oxford and Singapore respectively. My daughter was lucky to come out of her terrible accident alive and is still recovering six months after she was hit.
While redesigning streets is the best possible outcome, that is going to take time and money so, meanwhile, why is the wearing of cycle helmets not made compulsory when cycling on roads? Medical staff said that my husband and daughter’s lives were saved by wearing theirs. It is particularly upsetting to see people cycling with children on the back of their bikes also not wearing helmets.
Sue Miller
Oxford
• I have Dutch friends who refuse to cycle in the UK, and they claim that one has to be very brave to do so. Four out of five of my family have been involved in at least one cycle crash. I have witnessed the death of three cyclists and two pedestrians in the UK.
What are we doing spending millions of pounds to gain a few gold medals, when the everyday cyclist has very few options when it comes to riding a bike in safety? It is not just the inadequate cycling facilities, but the hostile attitude of so many motorists towards us.
On top of an abundance of safe cycleways, Germans have a marvellous network of rural roads with motorists restricted to 30 km/h (20mph) when here they are largely legally allowed to travel at almost 100 km/h (60 mph) on shared-use roads (those without separate cycleways or footways).
During the second world war I cycled four miles to and from school, despite enemy aircraft overhead, but we didn’t think it was dangerous because there were no cars to worry about. I have cycled extensively in 14 different countries and, apart from a few exceptions, there is no doubt which country presents the most threatening environment for cyclists: the UK. Pedestrians get a pretty bad deal too.
Ted Prangnell
Ashford, Kent
• Let’s hope Chris Boardman can achieve his ambition to close parts of Manchester city centre to motorised traffic, as has already happened in Barcelona, where many areas, including residential, have been closed to through traffic and some streets have been turned into parks and gardens.
As for his focus on getting people out of their cars, schools already play a vital role here in encouraging students to walk and bike whenever possible. Could it be hoped that the citizenship GCSE syllabus will soon include a section on whether the private car should as soon as possible become an archaeological artefact, and learning to drive history, except for those who drive for a living?
My children and their friends have not rushed to learn to drive and many never will. A car-free household is viable and practicable.
Bruce Ross-Smith
Oxford
• The need to rebalance the way we travel is stronger than ever, not least because walking and cycling are part of the solution to so many challenges we face – from air pollution to congestion, obesity and physical inactivity. While cycling is a relatively safe activity, we need to continue to make our streets safer for people on bikes and increase people’s perception of safety. In the biggest survey ever conducted on attitudes to cycling in the UK, Bike Life 2015, nearly eight in 10 people said they wanted improved safety for people riding bikes and three quarters supported more investment in cycling. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, 59% of people perceive that roads are too dangerous to cycle on – a record low. There’s a pressing need for strong leadership in walking and cycling. Positive change is already happening in London with the mayor of London’s commitment to invest £17 per person in cycling. This type of commitment and investment needs to be seen across the UK.
Rachel White
Sustrans
• Hardly anywhere in this debate about cyclists and car drivers are we poor pedestrians mentioned. Chris Boardman is all for drivers changing their habits but says almost nothing about the reckless cycling seen everyday around Manchester. There have been new cycle lanes constructed in Didsbury which reduces the traffic to single file. But cyclists still ride on the pavement and do so at breakneck speed.
I suggest Mr Boardman spends a day in Didsbury to see for himself just what a menace cyclists are and the angry response he would get if he asked the residents here what they thought. We are hardly a “lynch mob” but feel a justifiable anger at the contempt cyclists show for those of us on foot.
Helena Gilbert
Didsbury, Manchester
• How can Chris Boardman write so movingly about the impact of the tragic death of his cyclist mother at the hands of a motorist but then go on to describe the death of the pedestrian Kim Briggs at the hands of a cyclist as a “story taken out of all proportion”, stoked by a “proper lynch mob”?
In the new orthodoxy of our increasingly threatening city streets, is the pedestrian’s death somehow less important than the cyclist’s? There is a pecking order of vulnerability involved here, and fragile pedestrians are de facto at the bottom of the heap. People do not drive, cycle or even walk just with their hands and feet; they do so with their characters and their sense of responsibility to others.
This is what is being lost on our streets – and until everybody starts showing mutual respect, these tribal wars will continue with sometimes tragic results, as both the husband and children of Kim Briggs and Chris Boardman himself now know only too well.
lan Clark
London
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