A Crash Course in Cycling (or, why everyone should be a cyclist)

[Haighus]

I wonder if all the follow on economic benefits that fall out from the health benefits include the following factors:

1. OAPs who have cycled throughout their lives needing new hips or knees earlier.

2. Motorists dying earlier because lycra clad idiots doing things like stopping them driving at the speed limit or hopping onto the pavement to get through red lights, stress the living sh*t out of them.

3. The time and cost to the economy when a road is closed as a crime scene when an idiot cyclist undertakes a lorry in London and is wiped out.

Some how I expect that these 3rd and 4th order effects are ignored in favour of the narrative 'A cyclist isn't a fatty so he costs the NHS less'.

1. Cycling isn't a weight bearing activity on your knees and hips, so tends not to wear out these joints unless the individual is predisposed. Activities like running have a much higher risk of causing arthritis. This isn't to say there are no long term health issues to cycling- 'cyclist's palsy' is a thing for example (compression and eventually damage to the ulnar nerve in the hand from leaning on handlebars). However they are fairly minor and easily compensated for on the whole (modern, proper cycling mitts/gloves have padding that lies above the hypothenar eminence on your hand, to prevent damage to the nerve). On the other hand, being overweight comes with a huge health burden:

An evaluation of the economic costs of chronic disease for the years 2006-2007 showed that overweight and obesity cost the NHS £5.1 billion compared to £3.3 billion for smoking.[9] The cost of people being overweight or obese to society and the economy was estimated in 2007 to be almost £16 billion.[4] The forecast of this cost increasing to almost £50 billion by 2050 prompted the 2011 Department of Health policy "A call to action on obesity in England".[10]

A knee replacement costs about £4000 per operation, and usually lasts for ~20years. A heart attack costs £5-6000 for the stay in hospital, and most survivors will have future heart attacks. There are also long-term medication costs to heart attacks, joint replacements usually require no ongoing therapy with a successful operation. Basically, the off-chance that someone needs a knee replacement due to their cycling is far cheaper than someone getting obese and having a heart attack, along with the many other co-morbidities that are likely to happen with obesity.

2. I don't really see why this stresses people so much? Unless they get stressed at lots of things, at which point a cyclist in the road is unlikely to make much difference in the overall stress situation. I drive, and I don't find myself stressed at all by cyclists, unless they do something stupid that nearly causes an accident. But then it stresses me when any road user nearly causes an accident.

3. Probably less overall than the effects of motor accidents.

Also, the latter two points are somewhat negated by more people cycling. When you reach Netherlands-levels of cycling, then 2. basically doesn't exist, and 3. is very unlikely.

In short, they are probably not counted because they probably don't have much effect overall...

[grimmas]

There's annually about 100 fatalities in the UK of cycle riders, 10-15% of which don't involve the action of another person (falling off or riding into parked vehicles etc). Not great it you are one of them but as things go not very dangerous really. I've ridden to work for the last 20 odd years including 5 riding through North and central London and have never been involved in an accident. To be honest I don't think the problem with cycling in the UK is the danger it's the weather, it's bloody cold and rains all the time.

I still wear a helmet though just in case I fall off it won't save me from a car hitting my head but will protect my head from hitting the ground.

[Haighus]

I still where a helmet though just in case I fall off it won't save me from a car hitting my head but will protect my head from hitting the ground.

Likewise.

To be honest I don't think the problem with cycling in the UK is the danger it's the weather, it's bloody cold and rains all the time.

Most definitely agree!!!

[Wolfshade]

I wonder if all the follow on economic benefits that fall out from the health benefits include the following factors:

1. OAPs who have cycled throughout their lives needing new hips or knees earlier.

2. Motorists dying earlier because lycra clad idiots doing things like stopping them driving at the speed limit or hopping onto the pavement to get through red lights, stress the living sh*t out of them.

3. The time and cost to the economy when a road is closed as a crime scene when an idiot cyclist undertakes a lorry in London and is wiped out.

Some how I expect that these 3rd and 4th order effects are ignored in favour of the narrative 'A cyclist isn't a fatty so he costs the NHS less'.

WebTAG unit A5-1 sets out the current economic case for all active modes. The fatality rate of cyclists through cycling is low, very low, so low in fact that the cost of a cyclist death is minimal when compared against the reduction of risk of premature death.

Research has shown that the red light jumping rate is about 10% regardless of mode. Now, the actual numbers of cyclists and incidentally motorcyclists is much more uncertain, both in terms of much less numbers and harder to understand the actual numbers engaged. This being true, given that there are much higher numbers of non-cyclists than cyclists.

How does not driving at the speed limit kill people? Also, I know of 0 deaths of motorists because of cyclists, which seems a bit seems abit low when compared with the thousands killed on our roads by motorists.

The cost to the economy of a life is about £1.6m a standard police investigation is between 6-8hrs. Now, given that motorists are killing many more pedestrians than cyclists, and more other motorists this closure time is quite small in comparison. Now there are plans to speed this up to about 1-2hrs using laser scanning technology.

"Undertaking" is quite illegal, I think you mean filtering, which is legal and described in the highway code. It is something that I do very frequently, almost every commute I do it to save me being stuck in queues. I've never once been hit, nor killed. But the highway code does make it abundantly clear that the onus is on the stationary vehicle pulling off to check. If they fail to look, fail to see, fail to indicate then it is clear where any blame lies. That is not to say that every cyclist is blameless, but the official road stats (STATS-19) show that most commonly the cause is the person who is struck, especially at junctions.

But even if all of this is ignored we have one undeniable truth as Corbyn spoke of this, air pollution. It was the “sad truth” that 500,000 people will die “because of this country’s failure to comply with international law on air pollution”, citing a recent Royal College of Physicians report that this costs economy £20 billion a year. How do you get people moving without pollution? Electric cars are a start, but then you are pushing the carbon from a city to a power station. So re-newables/nuclear both are very expensive. Indeed, public transport seems not to be the solution as the days that the bus strike occured were days of the lowest pollution levels. But let us bury our heads behind myth and half-truth to ignore these basic truths and that the relationship between GDP increase and MPH decrease and hope that people driving more, putting more emissions into the atmosphere getting more inactive will somehow be fine.

[Denzark]

The whole thing of air pollution makes massive sense to city dwellers who do cycle to work, but starts to peter out for those of us that live in the sticks - the economy is predicated on people driving to work who have absolutely no other choice to do so.

As to 'filtering/undertaking' I have never heard of filtering. Suffice to say (not sure if linking to FB works) this video shows what your average conscientious lorry driver sees - anybody going on their inside at lights is asking for a Darwin award. After all, if I am expected to be patient and give cyclists adequate space as a car user, why would a bike go up to the junction on the left of a HGV - rather than stay in a safe 6 o'clock position?

[URL="https://www.facebook.com/649160495150394/videos/839409616125480/?pnref=story"]https://www.facebook.com/649160495150394/videos/839409616125480/?pnref=story[/URL]

[grimmas]

Well like living in Ankh-Morpock there's many ways of commiting suicide on a Cycle and filtering in the blind spot of a HGV turning left is one of them. It doesn't happen as often as people would have you believe though. Having proper separate cycle lanes rather than painted things helps. As does proper instruction to all involved.

[Psychosplodge]

Did these "heart shaped" cycle lights make it on here?

[Wolfshade]

Yup, and also my FB several times... going to get some THough the blue ones

[Al Shut]

Aren't blue balls something you would want to avoid?

[Psychosplodge]

I thought it was an integral part of the cycling experience?