Cyclists less likely to cause accidents

SIR, – Cyril Smith’s insistence that cyclists should have compulsory insurance cover, MoT and regular competency tests (The Press and Journal, February 11) shows that he has not read the Department for Transport document “Reported road casualties in Great Britain, Annual report: 2018”.

The data shows that, in accidents, cyclists had contributory factors logged against them 50% of the time. By comparison cars had contributory factors 58% of the time and van/ light goods 59% of the time.

We can therefore infer that cyclists are less likely to cause an accident than car or van drivers.

However, along with pedestrians and motorcyclists, cyclists are classed as vulnerable road users and, at a casualty rate of 1,139 cyclists killed or seriously injured per billion miles travelled compared to 27 motorists, are obviously much more likely to come off worst in any incident.

With this information I would suggest that the UK should adopt the position of the Netherlands’ Article 185 which says: “The objective is to protect vulnerable road users from financial damage caused by drivers of motorised vehicles. Because due to the differences between motorised and non-motorised road users, it is very likely that the latter will suffer more and more severe damage and/or injuries when both are involved in a traffic accident. The law also considers the fact that drivers are obliged to be insured for such damage and nonmotorised road users are not.”

I would go further and propose that motorised road users should be compelled to cycle for at least six months before being allowed to take a motorised vehicle driving test and undertake regular compulsory training for cycle/ pedestrian awareness, especially when overtaking.

Cycling brings immense health benefits when done regularly and has an overall reduction in costs to our NHS. It also has almost zero impact on climate change.

John Johnston, Abbey Cottage,

Fintray, Aberdeen