What utter rubbish. Could we have a bit of peer-reviewed evidence to say that drivers pay less attention than cyclists on the road? Or are we just going to make do with one person's highly subjective take on the subject? I know that when I drive (not often, as I usually cycle) I strive to stay as aware of my surroundings as possible at all times. Equally, I have seen hugely dozy cyclists put themselves in very dangerous situations without even realising it. Everyone should pay attention on the roads, regardless of their method of transport - simply saying that drivers are at fault because they're lazy is, ironically, a very lazy argument.

you may not like this but I remember J. clarkson saying that cars are so safe that people are more removed the consequences of a crash and if you designed a car that when you crash it a spike comes out of the steering wheel, drivers would drive a lot more cautiously.

However as cars become safer I strongly believe drivers have a sense of indestructibility, unfortunately this means the cyclist who will never have an air bag will always come off worse because of this. So as motorists become more belligerent cyclists become more vulnerable.

I can't wait for the day the cyclist is seen as the saviour and not the problem.

In the last year I have been forced off the road twice (once witnessed by the police, all they did was tell the motorist off but as he did not physically hit me there was no more they could do?)

And hit once at a junction by a car not signalling right (a case of SMIDSY)

I don't know what the answer (stronger laws?) is but I wish some one would come up with something.

I totally agree and it comes down to a simple fact.

The majority of cyclists enjoy the activity of cycling and therefore take active involvement in it and want to do it well and constanlty improve their fitness and technique.

The majority of drivers simply don't care how they drive. Its simply a means of getting from A to B, most drivers have no interest in driving well or improving how they drive.

I enjoy driving and I find that some of the techniques learned from riding singletrack readily adapt to driving (especially on A and B roads) such as scanning well ahead, matching sight with speed and being smooth with the controls.

In an ideal world that would be much less traffic on the roads and cycling would be far more prevalent, but thats unlikely to change soon. Better driver education is needed including a harder driving test and compulsary retesting.

Motorcyclists / cyclists if you make a mistake it will result in both a loss of cash and probably a great deal of pain. For that reason the threat of imminent pain is normally to the forefront of your brain so you pay attention rather intently.

If you are driving a care, you're pretty safe if you make a mistake it's unlikely to hurt much outside of an insurance claim. So you don't pay as much attention. Plus you're warm, probably still tired in the morning and listening to the radio or fiddling with the CD player.

In towns there's a definite contrast.

@20mph the bike rider is pedalling hard, blood pumping, alert.

@20mph the car driver is putting no effort in, bored, frustrated.

No wonder we can't understand how each other reacts

Give it a few more years and the computers will be doing all the driving. Bye-bye innattentive motorists.

But does any body have a solution as to how to get the message across? I'm in a despondent mood full stop today so it was a pretty much down in the mouth question.

I agree that the passivity of driving coupled with the warm, safe and sealed cocoon is the a big contribution but also think Aspman77 makes a good point that there is so little chance of catastrophic personal consequence in a car at 30-40mph should you crash (and be wearing a seat belt), that drivers just don't seem to realise that other road users aren't so safe.

Short of doing a Clockwork Orange and pinning a bad driver's eyes open and forcing them to watch the footage of cars hitting cyclists, I'm at a loss now having spent years trying to make others aware of what will happen to other road users if they don't change their attitudes or take responsibility more whilst driving. Yet seeing no change, even amongst close friends who seem to see me as a cyclist but that’s okay ‘cause he’s our mate.

Or is the motorist blaring his horn at me telling me to 'move out the fkin way' this morning (whilst we waiting at a red light for crying out loud!!), clouding my outlook?!

Agree totally with solsurf (and by implication J Clarkson) that cars are simply too safe. They also don't involve drivers with increasingly everything being done for the driver apart from steer; lights come on automatically, wipers come on automatically, gears change automatically or semi-automatically, inside there's a plethora of 'entertainment' gear including, nowadays, screens. One of the biggest issues I face on a bike in London is drivers not signalling - it's an epidemic, and I'm sure it's because cars are too easy to drive and driver 'aids' have got out of hand. SatNavs are another issue - why is it okay for a driver to instal an LCD screen in the middle of the windscreen? It's crazy! Ban them from being installed anywhere in the front of a car. What's wrong with a map, FFS, make your brain do a bit of work and work out where you're going before you set off.

Personally, I think this all just comes down to one word, 'OVERCROWDING'. There are just too many folks crammed onto our small rock. I'm not going to get into why or how and I don't pretend to know of any solution. All I will say is that there have been many scientific experiments which look at the behaviour & interaction of rats in varying population sizes and the conclusion is always the same. When the populous gets too big, there is aggression and mayhem. Ladies & gentlemen, I give you the British highway. I try never to plan a route with less than 80% off-road. Give me mud, puddles & gravelly hills any day over tarmac.

Amen to that. Apparently cycling on the road was actually considered a pleasure 100 years ago!

@RichMTB and others...

The big misconception is that the majority of people on bikes are battle-hardened commuters or die-hard roadies. Yes, these people will tend to be alert and safe, probably more so than the majority of car drivers. However, depending on exactly where you are in the country, the majority of people on bikes don't fall into the above categories and are often without lights, cycling on pavements or RLJing. Student towns have huge numbers like this - just visit Cambridge. And central London... don't get me started. I know many on this site wouldn't brand these people as cyclists, but just as everyone behind the wheel of a car is a motorist, so everyone riding a bike is a cyclist.

To make a massive generalisation that motorists are dozy and cyclists alert is unhelpful and wrong.

But the difference is that a dozy cyclist will often end up hurting themselves (but only rarely someone else) whereas a dozy motorist will often end up killing someone

There's a great book by Tom Vanderbilt called Traffic that talks about this syndrome in cars. He calls it finding yourself 'awake at the wheel'. It's that time where your mind has been wandering and you struggle to remember the past 5 minutes of road. I've had it happen loads in a car, but never on bike.

I think Steve Worland makes a very valid point. Driving is not actually easy if you do it properly, because there is such a massive amount of visual data to taken in, especially in urban areas. It also requires the experience and training to anticipate what might happen ahead and account for that by setting an appropriate speed, visualising escape routes etc.

The point is that a good proportion are not engaged with this driving process and are not much more than a reactive passenger.

A 5 year old can get a car moving, but it takes a lot of training and skill to drive properly and safely. A large part of the problem is the lack of skill and attitude that has resulted from 2 decades of 'speed kills' crap. It's a lack of skill and the wrong attitude that kills, not exceeding an arbitrary speed limit. If this time had been used training drivers and testing competence then we would have seen a significant reduction in the number of killed and injured on our roads - drivers, cyclists and all.

Unfortunately, those who follow the 'speed kills' mantra like a cult religion (I certainly would not want to advertise the fact that I was taken in by putting a camera partnership 'I'm sticking to the speed limit but I know fk all else about driving' sticker in my rear window) and those who have profited from two decades of inappropriate speed camera use through the bribery and corruption, deliberate misrepresentation of stats and taxation revenue are unlikely to agree. It's got so bad now that you even have cyclists like Roger St Pierre talking about bad driving and only managing to list 'speeding' as a type of bad driving. Speeding is so insignificant as an accident causation factor that you can just about ignore it. I have never been put in danger on my bike by a 'speeding' motorist but every time I go out and train on my bike, I will have to change my speed or course due to someone pulling out, leaving insufficient room, passing on the approach to a roundabout and the hitting the brakes.... need I go on? Motorists please speed past me giving plenty of room, don't run me over within the speed limit, thanks.

Speeding is massively under-represented in accident causation stats. When 'failed to give way' (e.g. SMIDSY accident) causes many times the number of accidents that 'speeding' causes, why do we still have a proliferation of speed cameras and no other road safety strategy? And that's just to mention one genuine causation factor, there are dozens more and they have all caused the death and injury to 1,000s more people than 'speeding'.

Start coaching the right skills and attitudes and we will all be less at risk.

1. an led light on elbow this is the part which sticks out the most, in addition I think drivers are more cautious when they see wobbly lights, putting a mirror on the bike it is a legitmate way of making the bike wider, then stick another led on that.

2. Get a light (or lights front/rear) that gives out enough power to make traffic think you are motorbike, it makes drivers thinking harder.

3. get a headcam, and place a small warning triangle on board, saying something like 'CCTV on Board', nothing aggressive but if people think you are recording, do they want to chance dangerously overtaking, make people accountable for their actions.

4.lastly be inventive you can scream your rights all the way to the cememtry but don't be a martyr, seek out the quite roads, the bridleways, paths etc. It might take twice as long but then you have twice as much fun.

I thought firearms were for defense in the good ol' USA?

http://www.wyff4.com/news/20187786/detail.html

Freaks.

Having been a motorbike rider and now a cyclist and of course a car driver I have noticed certain things about car drivers and general lack of consideration and attention.

In general road position of a car gives more indication to proposed direction than any type of indicator. Also certain types of car drivers are worse I find Nissan Micra and Honda Jazz drivers among the worst. I have noticed the less interesting the car the less interested they are about driving and hence paying attention.

I believe every car driver should be made to ride a motorbike or bicycle for a few hours through busy traffic to show the level of concentration required. Being vulnerable really brings the hazards leaping out towards you.

Anyhow I'm done now

I was nearly knocked down this morning at a junction, while taking my son to school on the bike seat.

I attempted to make eye contact with the driver, but realised he must have just left home half asleep (residential cul-de-sac), window still demisting from the left over ice... he even thumbled with his mobile phone.

There are plenty of people, I must say, who I know, who do have kids themselves, and I would not let them take my kid with them.

Accidents do happen, but the consequences are very limited if all care has been taken.

I now drive an auto-gearbox car. I actually think it makes me drive better, since I don't have a gear stick to fiddle with.

I like gizmos that reduce risk: auto wipers, auto lights. But I am also an alert driver.

Maybe cars could have all the gizmos, including stability control, traction control, ABS: they do help and make the car safer, for everyone.

But what should be removed is the insulation from the outside: starting from sound insulation. Next could be a cap to how loud the stereo can be in the car. Suspensions should be pretty hard so you know what kind of surface you are on. Basically most comforts should be removed, so you can actually concentrate. And maybe 70mph on the motorway would not seem so slow.

Compulsory roof down driving?

fnegroni makes a good point - we have a couple of friends that we avoid going in the car with and would never let them drive our kids. They are not nutters, just incompetent. My wife got a lift with one of them and the driver was so nervous and incompetent that she completely neglected to look right when entering a main road and missed a motorcycle by inches. The collision was avoided by the skill of the motorcyclist. How did she pass her test in the first place? Why is there not a programme of ongoing coaching/training and assessment to weed these people out and improve their skills or remove them from the road? How is it possible to have someone on the public road that is so incompetent that they turn right onto a railway at a level crossing, or mount the kerb having lost control at low speed and mow down a mother and child - both recent incidents in my local paper. Neither caused by 'speeding'. Why is this particular to driving which has become some sort of birth right. Imagine if the same low requirement of competence was applied to flying a plane.

I agree motorists are blinkered to the extent of stupidity, I have been a biker all my life and have had some very powerful machines topping the lot was a CBR 1000. I also drive cars, bus's and small lorries. I consider myself a good driver and have always looked out for bikers who seem to appear from nowhere and cyclists, even the ones that cut right in front of you, in the dark, with no lights. I have never been in an accident that was my fault and have only had a couple of incidents involving the incompetence of another motorist. I would not go back to a car or a motorcycle again, I love my MTB and the benefits and fun it provides, I have had a full licence for the last 25 years and all my vehicles have served me quite well, however, the best form of transport is my MTB. I don't own any vehicles now and to be honest i don't miss the insurance, tax or MOT, the money I save gets spent on my home, family and MTB for either upgrades or goodies. Cars do tend to make you lazy and lacksidaisical you have too many gadgets and such that take your mind off driving, motorcycles you have to be very aware and concentrate, MTB's you need eyes everywhere to avoid the former, bikes rule the roads in China, we should have more laws on our side as the worst accident I have ever had was when a Capri driver trying to impress a female passenger took my Claude Butler Racing bike from underneath me a week after another Escort driver wrote my motorcycle off, luckily someone was watching over me that week...........

Make car and bike tests even harder and possibly raise the age of being able to drive or ride a potential weapon, a few of my friends are not here through either their own lack of ability or the lack of someone else's. I remember the Cycling Proficiecy Test when I was at Primary School that taught basic road safety in a pedal bike, does that still exist ? i doubt it.