Cycle safety day so say AA

So today having totally wonderful weather and my wife being on holiday not to nag me - I rode to work without a helmet, yes I will continue to wear a helmet most of the time but it is my choice.

What would be much more helpful would be if the person in the van last night didn’t do a right turn acroos the road I was cycling up mean I had to slam the brakes on very hard - that would have been a lot safer for me.

BTW would never wear a yellow AA branded helmet - what a great way to show you are a cheapskate, freebie chaser.

So the AA want to make sure that ‘more cyclists don’t lead to more casualties”? They might benefit from reading some of the information and statistics showing that cycle casualties decrease as the number of cyclists on the road increases.

Here’s one article to get them started: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Bike-accidents-in-reverse-as.2689392.jp

And figure 6 in this article gives some statistics http://www.bikexprt.com/research/pasanen/helsinki.htm

I’m sure if all cyclists wore full body armour and donned orange aircraft style strobe lights on their helmets and rode along slowly in the gutter and gave way to speeding drivers this too would result in fewer deaths and casualties.
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But yet again an organisation - this time the AA - is addressing the symptoms not the cause.
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If all drivers, including all AA members, drove with due care and attention and complied with the road traffic act (highway code) AS THEY SHOULD, there would be even fewer deaths and causalities.
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Yes, there are bad cyclist as there are (far more) bad drivers. But stop this ya-boo nonsense and take action against bad ROAD USERS, cyclists and drivers.
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“Yes”, I drive and ride and “yes”, I am insured in my car AND on my bike and “yes”, I wear a helmet.

And “Yes” my brother and I narrowly avoided a collision with a car yesterday which was coming towards us a decided to pull across our path to enter a driveway but then STOPPED, completely blocking the road (a narrow country lane). INEXPLICABLE!
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We were both wearing helmets - how did this help us?

I do believe every cycle sold should automatically come with a halmet. I applaud the AA saying helmets should be compulsary and yes it should lead to a lot less deaths after all you never hear the doctors saying “it would have been alot better if he hadnt been wearing his helmet”. But also it should be made clear that the laws need to be changed so that any driver hitting a cyclist should be charged unless the cyclist was to blame(much like some of our european counterparts) after all a car is potenmtially a weapon in the wrong hands. I cycle everywhere and have more than a few brown trouser moments.