Cycle Lane - The Norton Pub towards Chesterfield

[altus]

From travelling to work during rush hour for the last ten years and the percentage of people I know who own cycles and also have a driving licence and I have worked close to the city centre and worked with over 1000 people and if you take that as an average it's about 30% who cycle and also have driving licences compared with the number of vehicles actually on the road

 

So not a statistically valid sample then.

[denlin]

So not a statistically valid sample then.

 

Bit like the claptrap the government put out then LOL:D

[damageandy]

Im not argueing against cold hard facts andrew. I understand how statistics are made, but statistics are only valid when the concensus is larger, ie like a Mori poll on vote swings etc. I was trying to say that although the figures stated on the .gov site showed the 80% figure, the DoT,s own findings were different, and had been done on a much wider scale.

The bold ive pointed out does shows that you are probably more inclined to side with cyclists, which is OK if the cyclists you refer to are intellegent human beings, which is sadly not always the case. I wonder just how many people here on the forum are cyclists who dont drive a car, and vice versa.

I dont feel wrong to question this subject as I dont drive, yet I cycle every day. Im also a passenger in my boyfriends car, and the cyclist that I mentioned earlier in the post was a total loony. I wonder if he was a car driver too, because under the assumption that he was because apparently most cyclists are car drivers, well he shouldnt drive a car either.

How can that be arguementative, if you yourself claim the stats are right?

 

Well your previous suggestion of how statistics of this type were made up, suggested otherwise that is all. Personally i think the stats sound reasonable i know plenty of cyclists (some commuters, most for recreation) and i cant think of any of them who dont drive - and dont forgot you dont even have to drive to have a license.

 

Im not inclined to side with either, i drive about 4 times the national average a year and yes i also do cycle a fair bit, so i have decent first hand experience of both. As ive said before i see a few poor cyclists, but i see many more and experiecnce many more poor drivers. Whist driving ive witnessed countless near misses where with a slight change of circumtances someone would have been killed.

 

As for the original post, if someone is stupid enough to ride the wrong way up a dual carriage way i think they would be stupid at what every they do, cycle, drive, breathe etc.

 

---------- Post added 25-01-2015 at 16:46 ----------

 

So not a statistically valid sample then.

 

and doesnt even make sense

Edited January 25, 2015 by damageandy

[altus]

Bit like the claptrap the government put out then LOL:D

 

Yours was more like trying to find out the country's most popular football club by asking people outside Bramall Lane[1] on a match day.

 

 

[1] Insert other ground name as applicable.

[Bodie]

Apologies, I should have specified - to pass a stationary vehicle, or overtake a pedal cycle, horse or road maintenance vehicle, if they are travelling at 10 mph (16 km/h) or less.

Laws RTA 1988 sect 36 & TSRGD regs 10 & 26

 

It's worth pointing out for Bodie, and others who may not be aware of it,

 

Thanks Isabelle, the bold was what I was hoping for. I do know the highway code quite well and a lot of people are unaware of this rule.

 

Altus, I don't need anything pointing out but thanks anyway

[kelly4danny]

Yours was more like trying to find out the country's most popular football club by asking people outside Bramall Lane[1] on a match day.

 

 

[1] Insert other ground name as applicable.

 

Regardless of whether the stats are right or wrong, there must be something not quite right. It does seem that many people know many others who cycle, but dont drive. I can see that its probably a financial thing, equally as a driver may choose to cycle to reduce travel costs, but surely the the stats must be out by a considerable margin. Even just learning to drive these days is an enormous expense, never mind running a car. If the prospect of passing a test led to another massive expense of actually owning/running a car, it would make a lot of people not bother, and just cycle everywhere. If this is so, where were these non-driving cyclists when the research was done?

[denlin]

Yours was more like trying to find out the country's most popular football club by asking people outside Bramall Lane[1] on a match day.

 

 

[1] Insert other ground name as applicable.

 

Hardly the same is it. Football gounds have accurate statistics based on people going through turnstile. The government didn't answer the actual question that was asked and based their staistics on asking cyclists who in their household had access to a car, that was probably mostly as a passenger. A more accurate percentage would have been to ask in a properly conducted poll of car drivers how many actually owned and used a bike because from my observation in travelling to work over 10 years in a busy city environmemt IT IS NOT 83%

[altus]

Regardless of whether the stats are right or wrong, there must be something not quite right. It does seem that many people know many others who cycle, but dont drive. I can see that its probably a financial thing, equally as a driver may choose to cycle to reduce travel costs, but surely the the stats must be out by a considerable margin. Even just learning to drive these days is an enormous expense, never mind running a car. If the prospect of passing a test led to another massive expense of actually owning/running a car, it would make a lot of people not bother, and just cycle everywhere. If this is so, where were these non-driving cyclists when the research was done?

 

Don't be too sure of the financial argument as a reason for not owning a car. It's cheaper to own a car and save it for when it's really necessary than use it all the time. For someone who owns a car, commuting a suitable distance by cycle will save quite a bit even in just avoided fuel and parking charges.

 

---------- Post added 25-01-2015 at 18:32 ----------

 

Hardly the same is it. Football gounds have accurate statistics based on people going through turnstile. The government didn't answer the actual question that was asked and based their staistics on asking cyclists who in their household had access to a car, that was probably mostly as a passenger.

 

That's an assumption on your part.

 

A more accurate percentage would have been to ask in a properly conducted poll of car drivers how many actually owned and used a bike because from my observation in travelling to work over 10 years in a busy city environmemt IT IS NOT 83%

 

You've got the argument the wrong way round. It's the proportion of cyclists who drive not the proportion of motorists who cycle. The number of motorists who don't cycle doesn't come in to it.

 

So a definitive answer would be to take a poll of cyclists to see how many drive.

[JFKvsNixon]

Most cyclists don't drive and the ones that do should certainly have more comprehension of the rules of the road than the average 5 year old who should not be allowed on any road without the supervision of an adult so comparing them doesn't really make sense in the grown up world. BTW I think you meant moot point

 

Thanks for the correction.

 

Government figures do suggest the 80% of cyclists hold a driving license, so it doesn't matter what you believe on this point, unless you can come up with some compelling evidence that suggests otherwise.

 

Also, who suggested that a 5 year old should be allowed on any road? All I stated was that a cycle was so simple to operate that somene from 5 years up could operate a bike.

[Rob_1]

Ok, right. So the answer is to ride your cycle with all the attention of a 5 year old. I didnt realise that was the rules. I just thought the majority of cyclists had a death wish. Oh well, thanks for clearing that up:)

 

The sad, and very real fact is 99% of drivers will stop for animals, let others drivers out of roads etc but when it comes to cyclists they won't give them 2 feet of room or wait 5 seconds instead of overtaking dangerously. They'll pass you then turn left across you into a side road instead of waiting a few seconds, they'll turn right across you forcing you to brake, pass over double white lines right next to a blind bend and all sorts of other stupid manoeuvres.

 

It happens a hell of a lot more when I'm on the bike than it does when I'm in the car, so you can only assume that most drivers view cyclists differently to how they view other road users.

 

 

---------- Post added 25-01-2015 at 17:56 ----------

 

Higher than 83%, what 90%, 100%? The likelihood of that number of cyclists having a driving licence cannot be right. You seriously expect an honest answer in the Houses of Parliament. This is what it actually says

 

Cycling: Motor Vehicles

 

Ian Austin: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what his estimate is of the proportion of cyclists that own cars. [53988]

 

Norman Baker: Some 83% of the cyclists participating in the National Travel Survey in 2008 and 2009 were resident in a household with access to a car or van.

 

The equivalent overall figure for all survey respondents in Great Britain was 82%.

 

It does not say that 83% of cyclists have licenses only access to a vehicle probably owned and driven by someone else so Norman Baker, surprise, surprise, did not answer the question that was actually asked.

 

Out of all the cyclists I know there is only 1 who doesn't have a driving license.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Rob_1