Deaths of cyclists on Britain’s roads soared by 40% last year – despite a drop in road traffic, new data shows.

Provisional figures released by the Department for Transport (DfT) show 140 cyclists were killed in crashes in 2020, compared with 100 in 2019.
The AA expressed concern at the increase, as it occurred despite a decline in vehicle traffic due to coronavirus restrictions.
Edmund King, AA president, said: “It is staggering that with car traffic down to as little as 22% of pre-lockdown levels and the big increase in protected pop-up routes, the level of cyclist casualties was so high.
“This points strongly to the need for better engineering, more education and more cops in cars to help eliminate road deaths.
“We will continue to push our Think Bikes! campaign so that drivers take more care around cyclists.

The U.K. Department for Transport (DfT) has written to local authorities stressing that prospective cycling schemes will “need to include segregation” and that cycle lanes “”marked only with white paint will not be funded.”
The letter doubles down on the department’s ambitions set out last year aimed at those local authorities bidding for “Active Travel Fund” money. This funding is for cycling and walking schemes.
The latest bid invitation, sent out to local authorities this week, hammers home the importance of high design standards in securing funding. To have any chance of progressing bids must meet the new LTN 1/20 standard.

I’m an advisor to the mayor with a much expanded brief; trams, trains and active travel – everything people need to not have to drive. 
I’m going to be the person across the details on these modes, to give the mayor considered advice on how best to deliver the Bee Network – and he will take the decisions he chooses. 
I {also} co-ordinate Active Travel on his behalf – everything from discussions with stakeholders, such as yourselves, from councillors to government. 
We’ve now set up his weekly Bee Network delivery board – so he can stay across everything in real time. It’s been a frantic few weeks putting everything in place – a huge learning curve for me personally … and I’m choosing to tackle this very complex world in a simplistic way.
I start with the overriding question – ‘what would I need from this network for me to choose it over driving?’ because ultimately that is what this mission is, and if it doesn’t make me change, it doesn’t work; so super complex and super simple at same time.
As for top three priorities I’ll give you four –

A report published today says that 10 million more cars will hit the road between now and 2050, despite a government drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. This will lead to an 11 per cent rise in overall traffic.
Researchers said that green transport policies were largely focused on the shift to electric vehicles which emit no emissions from the exhaust. However, the study said there was “no such thing as a zero-emissions vehicle” because of the manufacturing process and the concrete laid for new roads

Cyclists who drive are better behind the steering wheel than motorists, a new analysis has found. The link between cycling and safer motoring was revealed by a UK insurance firm which offers specialist motor insurance policies for cyclists. This analysis correlates with an earlier study which found that cyclist-drivers tend to have faster reaction times than non-cyclists.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cyclist-drivers were significantly faster at detecting the appearance of fellow cyclists.
Cyclists (and motorcyclists) have a wry acronym for the inattention of motorists. “Sorry, mate I didn’t see you” – or SMIDSY – is said to be a typical excuse from motorists who have crashed into two-wheelers. For the same phenomenon, UK government incident reporting uses the phrase “looked but failed to see.”
Beanland’s study concludes that “cycling experience is associated with more efficient attentional processing for road scenes” and she suggests that road safety would be improved for all if more motorists also cycled.

Joe Dunkley 17/6/21

South Gloucestershire are consulting on expanding road capacity, and to justify it they cite their Climate Emergency declaration and tell us that building roads will solve climate change.
As a local issue, I’ve written about it elsewhere. But it covers lots of themes that are really At War With The Motorist material: zombie road schemes, highways departments who have never yet seen a problem for which they won’t suggest building roads is the solution, no matter how absurd, and councils who sell you road building with the empty promise that it will be accompanied with investment in public transport, active travel or liveable neighbourhoods.

Your performance age—or how fit you are—is a better predictor of how long you’ll live than your chronological age is, according to research from the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

Those who exercised regularly lived about 10 years longer than those who didn’t exercise.

This is the largest study of its kind, with over 126,000 patients examined over a period of 24 years.

You know how good getting out on your bike makes you feel. But it also may be doing your body more good than you thought, too: Getting out for a ride on the regular may help you live about 10 years longer than your more sedentary peers, a study published the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology suggests.

The hearing is taking place in person at the Royal Courts of Justice, but only the legal team will be allowed to attend.  The public, however, can watch proceedings online, but need to register with the court, the day before (on the Tuesday) as follows:
• To observe proceedings remotely, people need to email listoffice@administrativecourtoffice.justice.gov.uk no earlier than Tuesday 22nd June, with case ref. no. CO/4844/2020.

• A link will be sent to them up to 15 minutes before the hearing.

Please note it is illegal to record or take any screenshots of proceedings.
Thanks to your support the target has nearly been reached, but not quite.

So, please continue to encourage people to sign the petition and contribute to the crowdjustice appeal.