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on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Cyclist Casualty Map.
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I suggest that your suggestion Eve is so that you will then be able to say “oh look it was their own fault they were killed – serves them right” I suspect it would demonstrate the opposite. Sorry if I’ve mis-judged you but we have such a long way to go to change the attitude to cyclists by other road users.
I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s crash. What you describe should certainly have got onto these maps. I’ll send you a private email to get the details to see if it’s slipped through the net or been wrongly classified. There are about 300,000 records each year and you can expect some errors to occur from time to time.
i wonder how many other serious accidents dont appear on here. My husband was hit whilst onhis bike in Scunthorpe when riding past a T junction – a lorry pulled out who just wasnt looking (he only stopped when the passenger screamed). The police attended the scene, he was in hospital for 5 days & had to have months & months off work. I would’ve said that meets the criteria to be on this site – but it isnt!
Thanks for the comment. I think the sort of filters you’re suggesting would improve the utility of the map greatly. Sadly I won’t be able implement filters like this for some time.
This map is great and very useful for all of us who cycle to work everyday. I wonder if there is any way of being able to show indivdual years – road markings and layout can change over time and it would be good to see recent accidents and whether clusters still remain.
I support Dave Holladay’s suggestion that cyclists report crashes missing from this dataset. Was the crash reported to the police? If not it certainly won’t get reported
Checked out the Glasgow Map – I broke my hip in 2001 and had to be moved by ambulance to Hospital – in for over a week and 6 months on crutches – I had not checked whether the crash had been logged as a stats 19 report (which is should have been) and thus I’d ask of it would be possible for people to report in anu crsah they have had, or know of (with evidence of a hospital record) as I suspect we might proved the ACPO note that there is a 12-14:1 level of non-reporting for some very serious injury crashes
For the record my crash was at the junction of Stockwell Street and Clyde Street in Glasgow caused by a sunken trench – last month the same pothiole was again reappearing as a dangerous road feature some 9 years after the original crash, as the fundamental defect remains. THuis is not unusual as one set of holes appears where tram lines were removed over 50 years ago!
Would it be possible to change the colour of the markers, say that fatalities were red, serious injuries were yellow and light injuries blue, to show a better overview of what’s going on?
Thanks for that Matt. I’m working on a new version, which will include some of your suggestions and those of others. I should post the new version in the next couple of days.
Could I suggest we include the month? Would it be helpful to be able to estimate the lighting conditions i.e. 5 pm is safely light in June but not in January?
If it was last year (2009) then the data only covers the period 2000 to 2008. If it’s in that period then you may not be zoomed in far enough. Please let me know if it’s still missing.
Very interesting analysis and some valuable further comments.
Just one point – there was a faily high-profile fatality of a lady cyclist on a zbra crossing in Notting Hill Gate last year which doesn’t appear on the map. Trust that this might be an oversight.
The raw data is supplied by the Department for Transport and there is a limit as to how specific the user can as there is a risk of revealing the identity of the casualty. I will check just how much can be revealed and the next version may have more detail.
Also most impotant; we have the time, the day of the week, the year, but not the month.
19.00hrs in June is broad daylight, 17.00hrs in December is pitch dark
Like Dave I’d be interested in seeing if there’s a correlation with known hazzards/defects. It would also be interesting to see this overlaid with a map of London cycle routes and some sort of assessment if these routes really are safer.
Thanks for putting this map together. It is really useful, particularly when looking a individual locations.
It is good to be aware that there is very wide range of injuries in the ’serious’ description and that around 96% of collisions are not fatal. The police investigators describe the worst injuries as ‘life changing’ and they put more effort into gathering information about these cases. As yet there is no statistical records we can check on the worst injuries.
Compared to the mid 1990s there is a downward trend in the number of serious casualties, if we consider that there are about twice as many cyclists on London roads compared then the casualty rate has improved dramatically. Your map, however, illustrates how much more improvement is needed.
It would be interesting to compare the cycle data with that for pedestrians and other road users, in general there seem to be about three times more serious injuries amongst pedestrians and about seven times more fatalities, compared to cyclists. I don’t know why there is this difference.
Excellent use of data Ted. You could tidy up the explanation about ’severity’ of injury though because you say that severely injured means an injury which involves treatment as a hospital ‘in-patient’, yet the incidents themselves show ‘Serious’ injury not ‘Severe’.
As I understand it in-patient means an overnight stay in hospital, but actually if I’m involved in a collision and my arm is broken it should be recorded as serious – and I wouldn’t have spent the night in hospital. See “Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2008″ page 101 for a definition of “Serious” injury. http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/rrcgb2008.pdf
Serious injury: An injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an “in-patient”, or any of the following injuries whether or not they are detained in hospital: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock requiring medical treatment and injuries causing death 30 or more days after the accident. An injured casualty is recorded as seriously or slightly injured by the police on the basis of information available within a short time of the accident. This generally will not reflect the results of a medical examination, but may be influenced according to whether the casualty is hospitalised or not. Hospitalisation procedures will vary regionally.
As have been knocked off my cycle at Kennington Road, Oval junction by non-insured motorcyclist in Oct.2003, suffered concussion taken to Kings Coll. Hosp. I night stay.
wonder if there might be some correlatio with reported road hazards (as in fillthathole log (contact Anthony C) I know hat on a nmber of my regular cross-town trips I have regularly appearing road defects which I plan the avoiding move for in advance (eg the slot at the lights going round the Aldwych on the bend which is asymmetric and almost impossible to take a clean line on leaning in to the corner – then you hit this ’slot’ and I’ve come off a couple of times there when traffic has left me striking it at a bad angle. Do some cluster relate to long stsnding road defects or deficient road designs
Could a liked ‘commentary/reports’ map be developed – eg “Waterloo Bridge – turning right (Southbound) ignore cycle lane at roundabout and move to claim offside lane/space for right turns and avoid being cut across by traffic for Waterloo Road and Stamford Street”
I suggest that your suggestion Eve is so that you will then be able to say “oh look it was their own fault they were killed – serves them right” I suspect it would demonstrate the opposite. Sorry if I’ve mis-judged you but we have such a long way to go to change the attitude to cyclists by other road users.
Great maps. Could we stop talking about accidents and refer to collisions?
I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s crash. What you describe should certainly have got onto these maps. I’ll send you a private email to get the details to see if it’s slipped through the net or been wrongly classified. There are about 300,000 records each year and you can expect some errors to occur from time to time.
i wonder how many other serious accidents dont appear on here. My husband was hit whilst onhis bike in Scunthorpe when riding past a T junction – a lorry pulled out who just wasnt looking (he only stopped when the passenger screamed). The police attended the scene, he was in hospital for 5 days & had to have months & months off work. I would’ve said that meets the criteria to be on this site – but it isnt!
How about the details including whether or not the cyclist involved was riding in accordance with the law/Highway Code at the time of the accident?
Thanks for the comment. I think the sort of filters you’re suggesting would improve the utility of the map greatly. Sadly I won’t be able implement filters like this for some time.
This map is great and very useful for all of us who cycle to work everyday. I wonder if there is any way of being able to show indivdual years – road markings and layout can change over time and it would be good to see recent accidents and whether clusters still remain.
I support Dave Holladay’s suggestion that cyclists report crashes missing from this dataset. Was the crash reported to the police? If not it certainly won’t get reported
Checked out the Glasgow Map – I broke my hip in 2001 and had to be moved by ambulance to Hospital – in for over a week and 6 months on crutches – I had not checked whether the crash had been logged as a stats 19 report (which is should have been) and thus I’d ask of it would be possible for people to report in anu crsah they have had, or know of (with evidence of a hospital record) as I suspect we might proved the ACPO note that there is a 12-14:1 level of non-reporting for some very serious injury crashes
For the record my crash was at the junction of Stockwell Street and Clyde Street in Glasgow caused by a sunken trench – last month the same pothiole was again reappearing as a dangerous road feature some 9 years after the original crash, as the fundamental defect remains. THuis is not unusual as one set of holes appears where tram lines were removed over 50 years ago!
Version 2 of the map is coming out later today, incorporating differentiated markers and more details on each accident
Would it be possible to change the colour of the markers, say that fatalities were red, serious injuries were yellow and light injuries blue, to show a better overview of what’s going on?
Thanks for that Matt. I’m working on a new version, which will include some of your suggestions and those of others. I should post the new version in the next couple of days.
great resource and we are indebted to Ted
Could I suggest we include the month? Would it be helpful to be able to estimate the lighting conditions i.e. 5 pm is safely light in June but not in January?
You don’t need to apologise!!!
Apologies – the accident was February 2009
If it was last year (2009) then the data only covers the period 2000 to 2008. If it’s in that period then you may not be zoomed in far enough. Please let me know if it’s still missing.
Very interesting analysis and some valuable further comments.
Just one point – there was a faily high-profile fatality of a lady cyclist on a zbra crossing in Notting Hill Gate last year which doesn’t appear on the map. Trust that this might be an oversight.
The raw data is supplied by the Department for Transport and there is a limit as to how specific the user can as there is a risk of revealing the identity of the casualty. I will check just how much can be revealed and the next version may have more detail.
A very good map indeed.
Will it be updated each year in the future ?
Also most impotant; we have the time, the day of the week, the year, but not the month.
19.00hrs in June is broad daylight, 17.00hrs in December is pitch dark
Like Dave I’d be interested in seeing if there’s a correlation with known hazzards/defects. It would also be interesting to see this overlaid with a map of London cycle routes and some sort of assessment if these routes really are safer.
Thanks for putting this map together. It is really useful, particularly when looking a individual locations.
It is good to be aware that there is very wide range of injuries in the ’serious’ description and that around 96% of collisions are not fatal. The police investigators describe the worst injuries as ‘life changing’ and they put more effort into gathering information about these cases. As yet there is no statistical records we can check on the worst injuries.
Compared to the mid 1990s there is a downward trend in the number of serious casualties, if we consider that there are about twice as many cyclists on London roads compared then the casualty rate has improved dramatically. Your map, however, illustrates how much more improvement is needed.
It would be interesting to compare the cycle data with that for pedestrians and other road users, in general there seem to be about three times more serious injuries amongst pedestrians and about seven times more fatalities, compared to cyclists. I don’t know why there is this difference.
Jon Thanks for that suggestion, I will tidy up the definitions
Carolyn, I think Jon has answered your question
Excellent use of data Ted. You could tidy up the explanation about ’severity’ of injury though because you say that severely injured means an injury which involves treatment as a hospital ‘in-patient’, yet the incidents themselves show ‘Serious’ injury not ‘Severe’.
As I understand it in-patient means an overnight stay in hospital, but actually if I’m involved in a collision and my arm is broken it should be recorded as serious – and I wouldn’t have spent the night in hospital. See “Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2008″ page 101 for a definition of “Serious” injury. http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/rrcgb2008.pdf
Serious injury: An injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an “in-patient”, or any of the following injuries whether or not they are detained in hospital: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock requiring medical treatment and injuries causing death 30 or more days after the accident. An injured casualty is recorded as seriously or slightly injured by the police on the basis of information available within a short time of the accident. This generally will not reflect the results of a medical examination, but may be influenced according to whether the casualty is hospitalised or not. Hospitalisation procedures will vary regionally.
Can you define what costitutes a serious RTA?
As have been knocked off my cycle at Kennington Road, Oval junction by non-insured motorcyclist in Oct.2003, suffered concussion taken to Kings Coll. Hosp. I night stay.
wonder if there might be some correlatio with reported road hazards (as in fillthathole log (contact Anthony C) I know hat on a nmber of my regular cross-town trips I have regularly appearing road defects which I plan the avoiding move for in advance (eg the slot at the lights going round the Aldwych on the bend which is asymmetric and almost impossible to take a clean line on leaning in to the corner – then you hit this ’slot’ and I’ve come off a couple of times there when traffic has left me striking it at a bad angle. Do some cluster relate to long stsnding road defects or deficient road designs
Could a liked ‘commentary/reports’ map be developed – eg “Waterloo Bridge – turning right (Southbound) ignore cycle lane at roundabout and move to claim offside lane/space for right turns and avoid being cut across by traffic for Waterloo Road and Stamford Street”