Adrian Trenholm Coda del gruppo

10 tips for safe cycling

Four things have converged to spur me to write this post: I got on my bike after a long hiatus; Todd Storch urged me to be careful, during a discussion we had about motorists who abuse cyclists; Mike Little came a cropper on his bike. Finally, following the attacks in London a few weeks ago, with the resulting disruption on public transport, I hear there has been a surge in bike sales in London.

So I face a catch-22 with this post. I want to encourage others to cycle, but I want to talk about the risks involved. I don’t know if I am pitching my advice correctly, but the context for my advice is this: I love cycling. I have been a cyclist for as long as I can remember, commuting through central London for years and, for over a year, working as a bike messenger. It’s a great way to get around, it’s environmentally friendly, it’s healthy and fun and I have made great friends with other cyclists. I have also hit the deck half a dozen times. Thankfully, I have never had an accident involving a motor vehicle.

All the good stuff far outweighs the risk for me and I hope that it does for you too. Cycling can be dangerous. That doesn’t mean don’t ride. It does mean take care. Here are my ten tips for cycling safely (mainly for UK cyclists, but as international as I can make them):

1. Wear a helmet. When people talk with me about cycling in London, they invariably ask do I wear a pollution mask. I always reply “No, but I wear a helmet, because that’s the bit of me that I is in most immediate danger.”

2. Know the rules of the road and stick to them - but don’t rely on others to do the same. It’s no good saying “I had the right of way” when they are scraping you off the road and putting you in an ambulance. What I mean here is: don’t you be the one who causes an accident because you break the rules.

3. Concentrate. It’s easy to drop your head when you are tired or you are having gear trouble. Don’t. You have to know what is going on around you. You can develop the concentration habit by keeping up a commentary in your head of what you see and your responses (left turn coming up… green Audi turning in front of me… no… he is giving way… lights are red… there’s a queue… I’m going up the left hand side… I’m watching for car doors… etc etc).

4. Be a mind reader. You can’t see into the future, but you can develop good instincts. For example: big traffic jam? Then motorists will be impatient and erratic. They might U-turn or duck into a side road without signalling. If a bus stops, watch out for pedestrians stepping out from behind the bus and watch the other side of the road for peds running to catch it. Be aware of the time of day, too: if you pass a school, for example, is it “home time?”

5. Look behind you. Look behind whenever you turn or change lanes and whenever you approach a junction or piece of traffic furniture, whether you intend to turn or not. This will literally save your life.

6. Signal your intentions clearly. People give you more space if they know where you are going. If you can, identify the danger man or woman (the motorist who is on your shoulder, the pedestrian who is day dreaming) and make eye contact. Be ready to shout too (go for assertive, not rude), to make your intentions clear.

7. Use bus lanes - but keep looking behind, however, for motorists who use bus lanes illegally. These guys will squeeze past you. It’s safest just to get to the kerb and let them go past. Bus drivers are generally patient because they know a stop is coming up anyway, but occasionally a bus driver will be an idiot. Avoid the centre of bus lanes, that’s where buses drop diesel fuel and it’s like riding on ice, especially in the wet.

8. Use cycle lanes - but remember you are not obliged to use them. Many are designed more for the convenience of the motorist than the safety of the cyclist. If the cycle lane is tricky and dangerous, use the regular road instead, then rejoin the cycle lane when it is safe to do so.

9. Speed is your friend. Counter intuitive, I know, but if you ride briskly, it is easier to keep your balance and you are less likely to annoy motorists. If you keep up with the traffic, instead of holding it up, motorists generally treat you with more respect and give you more room to manoeuvre.

10. If necessary, drop your bike. Mike knew he wasn’t going to stop in time, so he put the bike on it’s side and slid to a stop. If you have the choice between laying the bike down and getting some gravel rash or going head first into a solid object, go with the gravel rash every time. Cuts and scrapes heal far faster than broken bones and internal injuries.

All of that deals with the business of staying safe in the face of everyday hazards. There is one final thing I want to share:

Never, ever get into a fight with a “bike-hater.” This is the motorists who is angry with you, or who is angry with his spouse/boss/kids/world and you are the nearest target. The warning signs are erratic or aggressive driving, rude hand gestures, verbal abuse. This is the person who deliberately blocks bicycle lanes, or who passes you with only a hair’s breadth between his wing mirror and your handlebars, then shouts abuse if you complain. Very rarely, it can escalate to objects being thrown at you, car doors being opened in your path, sometimes even to full on ramming. Don’t let it get that far.

The only way to tackle a bike-hater is not to tackle him at all. Simply get off the road to a place of safety as quickly as you can. If you feel threatened, get help. If that means walking up to the nearest building and ringing the bell, or walking into a shop to ask for help, do it. As soon as it is safe to do so, ring the police with your location and the car’s number plate.

You will want to fight back, your pride will be hurt, but never let that tempt you into escalating a confrontation. Let’s be clear about this: you might be in the right, but your antagonist has over a ton of metal at his disposal. When a cyclist mixes it up with a motorist, the cyclist will always lose. Just let the motorist go.

Like I said at the beginning, please don’t let any of this put you off. These tips are not to frighten you, but to help you have a safe and enjoyable time on your bike. Keep riding. Your confidence and fitness will improve quickly. Get together with other riders, informally, or through the London Cycling Campaign or the CTC or any other cycling club. Encourage others to get on their bikes, because the more of us who cycle, the safer it gets for everyone. And if you are in East London or Essex, look me up and we can go cycling together.

Above all, ride safely.

10 Tips For Safe Cycling

Adrian Trenholm has created a good list of safe cycling tips.

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Great list Adrian and a topic that is close to my heart. In fact, I have been mulling over my own list for weeks as I cycle in and out of work.

The one really important thing I would add to that list is:

Don’t wear headphones.

Aside from the legal issues (contributory negligence in the unfortunate event of an accident) cyclists need every sense they have. Taking one of the most important (hearing) away, is simply asking for trouble.

Quite right, Mark. Goes double for mobile phones, with or without a hands free kit.

Mike Little has pitched in with another two items for the list: keep your bike - especially brakes - in good working order and don’t run red lights.

Great reminder on all of these Adrian.

Be safe and have fun!

Todd

As a motorist AND a cyclist (altho an infrequent one at present) I’d add lights to that list of tips. Its easier to avoid a cyclist if you can see them, particularly on badly-lit or unlit roads. Also I have found in many cases that the small red backlights that many cyclists seem to have (myself included) are only visible from a very short distance possibly due to their placement. You may think because you have lights you are clearly visible but this often isnt the case. A combination of lights and reflective bands/jacket seems to do the trick even better.

Yes, you are right. I wrote this post in the summer when the days are long, but in the dead of winter, get all the reflective gear and lights you can. Reflective ankle bands, in particular, are really good because your feet are moving most of the time. I know several motorists who think ankle bands are the most eyecatching of all the reflective gear.

Its a great list and has really helped me. Good humor was cool as well.

i’m going to say this for good reason - if you think you’re keeping a safe distance from parked cars as you ride past, get another foot out. i had a car door opened on me tonight. boom, all of a sudden in a split second i knew i was in trouble. it was a major collision. the bike is fine. i am battered, cut, bruised and i hurt a lot. the car door is a write off. the driver admitted he didn’t check his mirror before opening the door.
this happened on a quiet dead end road and i now realise i had let my guard down because i wasn’t on a busier street. i always wear i hi-vis top and i always thought i was the most aware cyclist but i was wrong.
i’m going to approach cycling a lot more carefully on my ride to work in the morning, that is, if i haven’t seized up by then.
WATCH OUT FOR THOSE DOORS FOLKS. i’m one of the lucky ones. i got away with it, this time. give yourself an extra foot and keep ‘em peeled.

Sound advice.
I find the defensiveness of London cyclists a bit baffling. When I was a courier we’d sometimes meet up with five or six guys and lift cars parked on cycle lanes onto the road.
These days, without the support of a group I restrict myself to sometimes kicking the wing mirrors of the idiots’ cars. if we do not defend ourselves we’ll just keep getting run over - why should we not dream of turning London into a Norther Amsterdam instead?

Yes, Alex, a friend of mine was doored and injured such that he can no longer ride an upright bike. Of course, he invested his compensation payment in a recumbent trike!

Defensiveness need not mean timidity, Sy, but I can’t agree with damaging cars - I think it puts you in the wrong instead of just the offending motorist.

Amsterdam? Yes, please.

I understand some of the more bike friendly continental cities have strict liability for the motorist: if you hit a cyclist in your car, the law says it is the motorist’s fault automatically. There can be no contesting the issue. I suspect that would do a lot to focus the UK car driver’s attention.

My thought is one of thinking ahead. I have been in situations that have lead to me cycling with more caution, such as drivers cutting across my path, into car parks. I thought I should mention that point.

Hi guys, also be aware of stationery cars at the side of the road, I had one start to pull out just as I was beside it forcing me onto the opposite side of the road. The driver of the car gave no indication and he couldnt of checked his mirrors because he would of seen me coming. I now always kind of assume all cars at the side of the road might pull out so its always in my mind to take caution when passing parked cars. I guess the same applies for the car door opening caution.

A great list. There’s a needle-fine line between assertive and aggressive cycling, and I certainly DO NOT recommend damaging a motorist’s car as one of our contributors has suggested. Every time you kick in a wing mirror you make sure that another one of us has abuse, fast food detrius or worse thrown at us further down the line. I think a couple of additions might be helpful:

1. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security by colour-marked cycling lanes that now follow the course of roundabouts. They can make you forget the kind of precautions you would normally apply as a matter of course. If anything, slightly pull out away from the cycle lane if possible before you hit the roundabout to buy yourself as much space as you need.

2. Don’t trust anyone, and take the irrational, stupid and dangerous as a matter of course. I was recently waved on at a junction by a perfectly respectable-looking right-approaching middle-aged man who slowed his 4×4 for me to carry on, only for him to accelerate and drive past me, just missing my front wheel.

3. Avoid Friday afternoons at all cost.

i ride a bike daily, the most thats ever happened to me is i slid off into a wall on a icy winters day. i dont usually ride in london but i ride more on country roads where there is only the occasional tractor, but i still follow most of the rules here. the only one i dont is the worst one which is wearing a helmet. I know i should but i just never got round to getting one that fits. all my bikes are in fine condition so im okay.

Just remember not to go riding on an icy day without some extra grip tyres on. patches of black ice can kill.

Regarding parked cars, I can’t agree more that you should always take extra caution when cycling past them. My girlfriend (who is an experienced cyclist) rode past some parked cars on Lea Bridge Rd. She assumed she was safe as the cycle lane goes round the parking bays. A driver stupidly opened her door in her path and my girlfriend was knocked off. A 4×4 coming behind her over the brow of a hill had no time to stop and drove right over her hips and legs. Had she landed the other way, she would have died. As it is, her femur snapped in two places and she’s now left with a permanant disability. She’s not got the confidence yet to cycle around London roads but I’ve just bought a bike so we can go out together.
Also, and I know it sounds obvious, but please don’t drink and ride. I drive for a living and am sick of seeing cyclists around Old Street clearly intoxicated and veering into my path.

I wish road planners would leave roundabouts flat and plain.Where I cycle the main route out off town has a three lane roundabout (in a 30mph area)on an incline so when entering it after you have stopped your going uphill and you have to contend with motorist zooming round trying to break the speed limit and unable to see across the roundabout due to the “art”and bushes on it.I have had quite a few scary moments on the roundabout.

Hello, I totally agree with everything that was said in here. I’ve been in accident with a car while I was on my way to work. Apparently back then I was stupid enough and thought that I’m save with my flashing lights(I had no helmet or hi-vest on and to make it even worse I was listening to the music on my headphones..) It was around 11pm(September) so it was pretty dark outside, I was driving in a narrow road wasn’t paying attention who’s behind or in front of me, I saw something on a road and I tried to avoid it but turning deeper in a road and of course I got hit by a car driving behind me.. Luckily I got away just with some scrapes and my arms, legs, face and 8stiches to my left ear.. Well that thought me a pretty good lesson to watch out after myself..

A new one that happened to me this week. Large truck sitting parked off road on opposite side suddenly decided to join road without signalling. As it joined the road it needed more than one lane to turn and it’s front crossed over onto my lane. No problem in itself as I still had enough room. However, the car attempting to overtake me at the same time suddenly had a problem! Thankfully, both vehicles braked and came to a halt (blocking the road) but if they had collided I think I would have been taken out.

if a person was parked and arrived at the car and got in whilst closing the door a bus struck the door the door was lest than 6 inch out when the colooision occured and more than that and the door would have been riped off when in fact it closed in on the car

Whis is at fault.please

i thought they were some great tips,

thanks

Great blog.
you guys ought to check out holland, the pineacle of urban cycling. whole families ride together, safely, and drivers are likely to cycle after parking their cars, so everyone sings to the same himsheet. best, Paulo- buying my fist bike in London to comute to work from Feb 2009!

just to clarify something. after my post where i talked about my crash, it seems my comment about the car door being a write off may have been misunderstood. i didn’t cause any damage to the door after the crash - it was me crashing into it that bent it. 2 broken ribs and a knackered foot to show for my troubles. and i got wiped out by a car 5 weeks later. really not my year.

good news though. i did the norwich 50 miler bike ride and i can recommend it as a cracking ride/day out. its run by the british heart foundation. june 7th this year. http://www.bhf.org.uk/getinvolved/takepartinourevents/eventfinder/view_event.aspx?ps=1000333

keep it safe folks.

Hi Alex - don’t worry, I understood that it was the car driver’s fault not yours. The following ommenter advocated damaging cars deliberately, which I am against.

Great news about the BHF Norwich 50 miler. Well done.

A good starting list, and I think the extras added by commentators are worth incorporating too.

I’m about to stick your ‘bike hater’ section onto our BUG blog, with attribution and a link to your page of course, and suggest our readers scan the additions and see that the ‘bike hater’ is as globalised as every other madness in our consumer led self-oriented world.

Our city drivers thought the new bike lane WAS a car door opening lane, just for them! To make it so m uch safer for them to fling their car door opening without having to ‘waste time’ with a glance in the mirror.

The number plate point really needs to be emphasised too. Car drivers are oblivious to the role these play in getting them to Court.

The Police should be encouraged to prosecute vehicle owners with dirty or obscured plates far more vigorously and frequently than currently happens.

Come to Oz to cycle in our September ride:
http://www.bq.org.au/cq/

hello everyone,

some really good tips for a novice rider like myself!
i live in a very rural area which is lovely, but you do need to have your wits about you on country roads/lanes.
cars (especially 4×4s)drive very fast. last night 2 cars nearly had a head on smash because one of the drivers came around a bend very fast and hadn’t anticipated a cyclist to which he had to give some room!! very scary.

anybody out there doing the capital to coast 28th june 2009?? our team (there are 4 of us) are training really hard to complete the 60 mile course, so it would be great to hear from others out there.
to see us go to;
http://www.justgiving.com/joe’steam

I love the cycle lane on the A4 in West London, but have one major issue. The cycle lane is on the pavement which is most conveniet and functional, pedestrians mostly respect the cycle lane and keep off it despite pavement being shared. The problem arises where cars/vans coming out of the side roads onto the A4. They have their yield road markings after they have crossed cycle lane, which means they cross the cycle lane and only then look out for cars or cyclists; so you have to slow down at every side street, which I hate when momentum is on my side… It would really help if the yield markings were placed before the cycle lane, together with a big sign to look out for cyclists. Hence london will never be Amsterdam!

I’ve just signed up to the Ride2work scheme to get from Liverpool Street to South Kensington everyday and I must say I am terrified. I’m sure I will be fine once I get the hang of it but the first few days when I don’t know my way are going to be hard. I’m trying to memorise the route but not sure that is completely possible.

Has anyone got any tips on how they coped through their first few days?

Good list.
I regularly ride a mostly empty cycle/bus lane that has a stream of cars in the lane next to it. Drivers in the side road trying to pull into the stream of traffic don’t look in the bus lane (as its hard to miss a bus bearing down on you) - they are busy trying to make eye contact with drivers in the car lane to get them to let them out. Invariably the drivers in he queue fail to check their mirrors before letting them into the queue across my path.

Developing a sixth sense is the only way to survive.

How far out from the pavement would you recommend riding? When commuting, during rush hour on a busy route, I am nervous that riding close to the kerb encourages car drivers to squeeze past and present the cyclist with a narrowing triangle of space ahead of them. My view would be to position the bike about 1 metre from the kerb, thereby forcing motorists to slow and overtake giving more width to the rider.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? I feel that I need to preserve my safety without causing unfair irritation to drivers, and I wonder if there is an accepted view on this.

I think that’s about right John. It’s about asserting your right to space. If you have space to your left, you effectively have an escape route. It would also make it easier to move to the right of your lane if you intend to turn right for example. Drive in the gutter and you’ll go through all kinds of detritus too. Stay about 1m from the kerb, and don’t let anyone bully you out of your space, unless of course it would be unsafe to yourself to hold your line.

I regularly cycle on a busy windy country lane with a lot of school run in a rush 4 x 4s. I normally cycle just 1/2 meter from the edge and there is room for a car to overtake me comfortably if there is an oncomming car. If I see a large van or lorry coming towards me I look behind and if there is a vehicle I move out to 1 meter but make sure they are slowing and am ready to get off the road. Just recently I have taken to sitting 1 meter out and have noticed that motorists slow down and give me more room. I now worry that I might get cleaned up by someone who has not seen me. Which is the safer option?

Thanks to experienced cyclists for putting up these tips. I have just got my first bike since childhood, on the ‘cycle to work scheme’ but at the minute am terrified of negotiating all the junctions and roundabouts and am worried about getting flattened!

Hi, just a link to a really good US site How now to get hit by cars. just needs all scenarios swopping left to right bicyclesafe.com

[…] Hér er ágætis lesning. Gefðu þér smá tíma í að lesa þetta ) […]

Great advice and comments. Had a bad fall in May when I clipped a raised kerb trying to avoid a traffic calming strip. Ended up sanding the pavement with my face and unconcious! A&E on a Saturday night was, er, ‘interesting’! Just got a new bike and looking forward to doing some off road cycling again. Be careful of those traffic bumps! Good cycling everybody.

Good list of recommendations. But of course there are a thousand and one other things a cyclist should take note of. Always ride safe and ride defensively too. Even if the driver of the vehicle is at fault during an accident, it is the cyclist who feels the pain. Try to predict other road users at times of need.

There are a lot of moronic drivers who feel they can’t afford to add the extra 3.5 seconds onto their journey in order to safely overtake cyclists.

Numberplates are almost useless too. There is no practical way to report a dangerous driver to the Police in the UK, unless you are actually hit by them - in which case you are unlikely to have time to make a note of the plates!

Get a good rear light visible beyond 2m and with a strength of 0.5 watts or 200 candle stick power

Good article.

I’ve just bought my first road bike and have been out on a couple of short rides.

Thinking about commuting once my confidence is up and I’m fully used to the SPD pedals (I went on a 20 mile ride yesterday, was fine all day and only when I got back to my house stacked it over when I stopped as I accidentally put clipped my right foot back in when I’d come to a halt!).

My tip for clipless pedals is a pretty simple one - don’t know where I learnt it - repeat to yourself the mantra “heels out, heels out, heels out” as you come to a standstill. I fell over at the traffic lights once and had a few other close calls, but since adopting this trick, I have never had a problem.

Hmm. Not a word about the importance of correct (primary) positioning when cycling, not a word about taking the lane when things get complicated, narrow or otherwise unsharable. Not a word about the importance of conspicuity through riding inside the motor-traffic flow. May I recommend “CycleCraft”, John Franklin’s comprehensive guide? ISBN-13: 978-0117037403

Point 8 would be better headlined as “Don’t use cycle lanes”, then give some exceptions (rather than “Do use cycle lanes” followed by exceptions), given that most inexperienced cyclists tend to use them in all circumstances, even when they are inconvenient or dangerous.

Some parts of this article are good (I enjoyed the bit which stresses the usefulness and safety of speed when riding), but how boring to see the helmet issue given pole position. The world is full of people, both knowledgeable and ignorant, urging cyclists to wear helmets. no matter how important it is, or whether wearing a skidlid is a good idea, it has become boring, and it would be more effective to say something less predictable — why not redraft to give correct lane positioning the importance it deserves?

Urging helmets is all very well, but (inexperienced) cyclists are dying or being seriously injured because they are riding too far to the left (in the UK, a drive-on-the-left country), running into unexpectedly opened car doors, being clipped by motorists squeezing past, or falling under the wheels of trucks turning left.

Even when not dangerous from a motor-vehicle point-of-view, hugging the kerb makes cycling less enjoyable, causes difficulties when needing to turn right, and makes punctures or collisions with pedestrians more likely.

So, you’ll probably get some brownie points from the health-and-safety militia for the banal helmet stuff, but you could do more for cyclists by helping them see the non-intuitive things which increase their safety and pleasure in cycling.

Keep the good work up.