Neighbour knocked off bike.

terrysgirl33

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I found out today that a neighbour was knocked off his bike and killed yesterday at citywest. His son's birthday party was going to be tomorrow. I'm shocked, and so sorry this happened. Be careful out there.
 
RIP. My friend was killed last week. The young mother up in Balbriggan knocked down as a pedestrian. Baby is in hospital.
 
Three cyclists have been killed on the roads already this year, compared to five killed for the whole of last year. Not good....
 
May they rest in peace.

Gardai have been cracking down on cyclists in the past six months and I see that as a good thing. Without wanting to generalise, my experience is that cyclists are the biggest offenders of breaking the rules of the road particularly running red lights, going the wrong way down one way streets and cycling without lights. I've had near misses with cyclists doing these things both as a pedestrian and a motorist. Luckily I was taught to proceed with caution, not every driver does.

I'm not sure if you still have to do a test in the UK but there was some sorts of cycling education in primary schools over there when I was young, I always remember being baffled that we could just hop on a bike and hit the road but you weren't supposed to do that in the UK. It does seem like a fairly common sense idea to teach cycling safety in school? It wouldn't cost lives and might save some.

Not for a minute am I saying that any of the dead were anything other than in the wrong place at the wrong time...but staying safe should be everyone's priority. It's clearly not on everyone's mind all the time, but it should be.
 
I'm not sure if you still have to do a test in the UK but there was some sorts of cycling education in primary schools over there when I was young, I always remember being baffled that we could just hop on a bike and hit the road but you weren't supposed to do that in the UK. It does seem like a fairly common sense idea to teach cycling safety in school? It wouldn't cost lives and might save some.

Many Irish councils do provide this kind of training to schools;
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However, I'm not sure that they've copped on to the need for cyclists to be assertive. Hugging the gutter on the side of the road is the most dangerous place for a cyclist. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but cyclists need to be well out from the kerb, in a visible position, taking the space they need to cycle safely.

Most of the UK cycling schemes follow this ethos now, and the recent ads and videos from the RSA here were along these lines too.
 
Sorry to hear about the losses of friends and neighbours, may they rest in peace and condolences to their families and friends. I love cars and enjoy driving but there's huge responsibility with getting behind a wheel and taking to the road.
 
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