A lot of the time, it doesn't even take skill. Just the forethought to purchase tickets in advance; perhaps even the evening before, as I do for 30 minute journeys.
At least on the train you don't have to worry about where your next tank of fuel comes from
You can visit a pub, but not try many of the core sales! Driving cars is often very inconvenient.
Depends on who's doing the driving!
Many rail fares appear to be set deliberately to price people off.
That's a very good reason to travel by train, but many people underestimate the risks of driving and the thousands of road deaths/injuries each year are generally deemed not newsworthy by the media.
I realise this; I was deliberately making a point.
Exactly.
Indeed; people erroneously worry about being unsafe on a train when statistically it's a very safe place to be
As you say people erroneously see small risks as big risks
I regularly take late trains without issue. I know of numerous people who died or were seriously injured in road traffic incidents, while in contrast I am not aware of any comparable issues relating to rail travel in anyone I know, that I'm aware of.
According to page 10 of this government report for 2019, there were 195 accident casualties of car occupants per billion passenger miles, or put another way 1 casualty per 5 million miles, death rate is 1.6 per billion passenger miles. Granted I'm sure rail is much lower (would be interesting to see the stats), but when the odds of being injured as a car occupant in a traffic accident are that low, it's not unreasonable for people to not give it much thought.
Exactly. Very few roads charge tolls. Very few urban areas charge for the congestion or air pollution cars emit. Parking is very commonly underpriced because it is not taxed, or 'bundled' e.g. you can park at nominal cost or for free in your workplace or in a city centre if you're a customer of the business on whose land you're parked, like where a cinema charges for parking but gives you a 100% rebate of that on your cinema ticket.
I bet your car doesn't also charge you a £10 admin fee when you change your mind and want to leave an hour earlier than you planned...
Anyone discussing safety should be very wary of using "per mile" figures instead of "per hour" because people travelling many miles will mostly be bike-train-bike with some bike-coach-bike and bike-carshare-bike, whereas almost all car users will only use cars. Simple analysis like per mile will mislead you.
Depends on the context, if you're looking at switching your daily commute from wholly car to wholly bike, a per mile figure is relevant. The one aspect this report doesn't take into account is road type, with motorways being statistically the safest roads which skews the figures in favour of car safety. Having said that it's difficult to dispute the fact that a cyclist is at greater risk than a driver.
Agreed on all points, but....
Of course those figures are very skewed because it's the car drivers who are largely creating the risk, which is mostly transferred to others. Many of those who are killed or seriously injured are not inside cars. Then there's the polution and emissions generated by cars.
These are all very good points.
But we also have to bear in mind that if I chose to drive to work instead of cycle, I would not be making anyone safer; on the contrary I would be generating additional risk. Admittedly most of the risk is passed onto others.
You would be making yourself safer.
Is it? I thought people commuted an average amount of time no matter what their method and, in urban areas at commute time, cycling speeds are similar to motoring speeds. As you acknowledge, using distance results in motorways dominating the figures, with currently no comparable "fietsnelweg" in the UK to balance things out the other way (and do not make me laugh by mentioning the London "Superhighways" of which only two stretches of routes 3 and 6 would come close to being fietsnelwegs and then only if the traffic light timings were improved).
It is very easy to dispute that. You apper to be comitting the grave error of assuming that the population averages necessarily apply to every individual cyclist or driver.
Why? Does your local area have unsafe cycle routes? If so, then start there, rather than suggesting it is an unalterable fact.
I trust that you are responsible and considerate but are you also infallible? I dout it, so you do increase the risk, even just a little and lots of littles add up.
Driving to Central London is one journey where rail wins hands down. But Warwick - Wimbledon. Perhaps not.
My daily commute is 6 miles each way regardless of whether I drive or cycle. How is a per mile figure NOT relevant?
Do you have any evidence to support an argument that drivers are at greater risk of death or serious injury on the road than cyclists? Such an argument defies not only all evidence I've seen but basic common sense, ie being enclosed in a 4 wheeled metal box with crumple zones and airbags vs being completely exposed perched on 2 wheels mounted on a frame.
There are relatively safe routes which are fine for cycling for leisure or health reasons but of limited use for the journeys I actually need to make. Commuting for example would require travelling along very busy A roads with limited cycle lanes.
The general health benefits of cycling is a valid point, though cycling as a means of practical transportation is not the only way to achieve that.
No, I'm not infallible, and don't dispute there is always a risk I could kill or seriously injure someone due to a lapse in judgement. If I'm cycling myself however I run the risk of falling victim both to a similar lapse in judgement of other roads users AND to the dangerous driving of people who really shouldn't be on the roads in the first place. I consider the second possibility to be a higher likelihood than the first.
it's difficult, if not extortionate, to find anywhere to park in Greenwich, never mind Central London
