Dear all,

Some information that might interest you. The government have published details of the locations of all of the cycle casualties in the UK. This has been plotted onto an online map that anybody can view.

You will find the map here.

Zoom in to North Herts and you can see where to avoid. Actually it is a bit of a random scatter for most of the District. No "hot spots" as such either in the main towns or the villages.

The one exception to this is when we look at Letchworth. Works Road has a procession of casualties along its length, as does the A505 between Letchworth and Hitchin. Neither of these surprise me. Works Road carries a relatively large number of cyclists travelling between the town centre and places of employment, retail areas and Baldock, or just avoiding the faster Baldock Road. At the same time it carries a significant number of HGVs and is a bit of a rat run. All in a rather battered, 7.5m road.

The A505 between Letchworth and Letchworth is a busy, congested road, and one of only three routes available between the two towns. The pavement cyclepath alongside it is worse than useless – interrupted by frequent barriers and driveways, with poor visibility, it is narrow at the top end and it is on the wrong (downhill) side of the road. It probably contributes to the danger rather than reducing it. From personal experience I know that it certainly adds to the belligerence that people experience if they choose not to use it.

The raw data can be accessed from here. There is not much detail (for that you need the casualty reports which can be accessed from HCC under Freedom of Information) but it is a very useful resource never the less.

Regards

Alasdair Massie

CTC North Herts