Defensive riding. It was a big thing in MAG in the 1990's. On another note, I read somewhere that the data for this report included riders of stolen bikes and illegally ridden e-bikes. Personally I'd welcome seeing 100% fatality rates for these two categories.
Just back from a mini Cannonball in the Vosges, with a lot of progressive riding. Progressive does not mean without planning ahead.. I was disappointed but not surprised to see poor roadcraft. A rider I have not ridden with before that I met up with at Folkestone. Barley in France an hour and compromising my safety. Situation was a village with a car approaching a side road, to my right. Normally I would move over the road, away from the hazard a little. But…the un-observant rider decided it was the perfect time to ride alongside and start pointing at their petrol tank. Ffs. This said, most issues were car drivers.mirror, signal, manoeuvre…a joke. More like, decide to turn…turn! No checking…no signals. Unfortunately it comes down to us being extra vigilant. Governments legislate to the lowest common denominator. There will be more speed restrictions, more cameras and more solid white lines. Not car driver training or pot hole fixes Btw…any research in to how many accidents where pot holes may have been a factor…?? All motorists are having to drive to avoid..or swerving to miss the myriad of craters out there !
Could it be pure coincidence, looking at percentage increase being so similar…at 18%..? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cddn0n3p2ppo
so many different aspects to this, I tried to find a definitive guide to causes but more extrapolation needed, and not that relevant to thread opening topic as doesn't extend to 2026. interesting to see the effects of Covid (but please note, this is a separate subject!) https://www.collingwood.co.uk/insight/main-causes-of-road-accidents-uk/
Yep, imagine how many motorcyclists, car, coach and HGV drivers you'd save from KSI incidents by an enhanced cycling test. Don't worry though they'll have had a cycling proficiency course at school when they were around 11 years old if they owned a functioning bike. The majority of cyclists that I ever rode with already had a minimum of a licence to drive a car. Perhaps it's time that a test past at aged 17 that allows you to drive well into your twilight years needs a revision. An example in point is a neighbours brother who can't pass his motorcycle theory test after 6 attempts yet drives a HGV. Which questions are the ones he can't answer correctly, hopefully it isn't the hazard perception test.
I remember having to pass my cycling proficiency test at primary school in the 1970's before I was allowed to ride my bike to school. Maybe not a bad idea to reintroduce an updated version of that for today's kids.
I'd be very curious to see if there is a increase in accidents/fatalities involving motorcycles on motorways. My last few trips into the UK had me driving from top to bottom multiple times and the country has certainly adopted the lazy highway approach from America. Noone changes lane, they'll sit in the middle despite being entirely on their own. It's a very selfish road network now as a result and I wonder if it has any relation to the increased risk.
Some most certainly do, it's as though "some" take a delight in holding up cars almost like they are holding a grudge.
A riding instructor recently told me that in his experience, apart from (most) long term motorcyclists the most road aware people he had come across were HGV drivers and qualified the comment by saying that they become so because so many car drivers are desperate to get in front of them.
I can believe this, whilst the odd bad HGV driver stands out more than the much larger number of the average idiot in a 2+ tonne suv with a superiority complex. The HGV driver will more often than not see me on the bike first from my experience.
The sheer volume of HGV traffic on our main roads and motorways I believe are a major hazard. As said, it's not the HGV drivers themselves (apart from those who like to block the whole carriageway taking a mile or more to overtake each as a snails pace). HGV drivers are probably the best trained drivers on the road apart from the police. It's the impatience and frustration so many trucks produce in car drivers. Also I think a lot of people hog the middle lane so they don't get boxed in behind lorries, thus exacerbating the problem. If our rail network wasn't in such a mess and we hadn't lost our branch lines a lot of road freight could go by rail.
I have to say it is very frustrating when an HGV attempts to overtake and only has the capability of 1mph more. I'm actually surprised these days because they will virtually all have cruise control and they only have to flick it once to sit at comfortable speed behind the other HGV until they can comfortably overtake.
I suspect onerous tacho regulations and black boxes in cabs puts drivers under pressure to make as much progress as possible before their next enforced rest break. If they can find anywhere to stop or any free space if they do. Proper truck-stop facilities have become vanishingly rare and everywhere else they're filmed, surveilled, hounded and charged excessive fees. I thought about taking my HGV ticket a few years ago but everyone I spoke to in the industry talked me out of it. It is a stressful and far from easy job. Consequently there are a lot of agency and foreign national drivers on the road who may not have the same level of experience or training as HGV drivers of former times.
I could have a flashing beacon on my helmet and dressed like a lollipop lady and still some twat in a car would pull out on me, if they ain’t seen you they ain’t seen you, no amount of bike training will solve that. The problem lies with car drivers and they need the training not us. Every biker I know and have ever spoken to talks about improving their skills and trying to be a better, safer rider on the roads. We always try to improve our skills. Has anyone ever spoken to a car driver that wants to be safer on the roads or improve their skills? No because it’s pass your test and get in your box of steel.. we ain’t the problem. Oh and pot holes on a bike are lethal as we all know, is that in the data?
Motorways are by far the safest roads even for motorcycles. The top set of figures are fatalities, the bottom set are killed and seriously injured (KSI): From https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68d3d404c908572e81248c2c/ras0504.ods Fatalities are generally decreasing over time (1 extra fatality in 2024 compared to 2023), but KSI climbed in 2024. Maybe the effect you are noticing hadn't kicked in by 2024. Let's see what happens when the 2025 figures come out in September.
Interestingly, Danish research alleges that following the use of strobe lights by cyclists, their accident rate in the daytime is dramatically reduced.
