Cycling Safety Panel consultation
Brake response, 23 October 2014
About Brake
Brake is an independent charity working across New Zealand to make roads safer, prevent road death and injury, and care for road crash victims. Brake disseminates international research to road safety and fleet professionals, engages schools and communities to spread road safety education and runs public awareness campaigns. It is also a provider of specialist support for people bereaved in road crashes, providing support books for children and adults to bereaved families following a crash.
For more information contact Caroline Perry, development director,, t: 021 407 953, Brake, PO Box 133026, Auckland, 1146.
Response
Brake strongly supports the Cycling Safety Panel’s recommendations for safer journeys for people who cycle. Increased levels of cycling and walking provide significant health, environmental, economic, and community benefits, but road danger poses a major barrier to active travel.Road danger creates a barrier not only to people choosing walking and cycling as a transport choice to get from A to B, but also to people, particularly children and families, simply being able to ‘get out and about’ and walk and cycle in their neighbourhood for leisure, exercise and social reasons. Brake believes that the implementation of the Panel’s recommendations can help to reduce the number of cyclists killed and seriously injured on our roads, and increase the number of people choosing to cycle.
Brake strongly agrees that active transport (cycling and walking) needs should have much greater priority in all transport planning and investment decisions. These transport methods are considered too late in the process or not at all. Brake also calls for greatly increased provision of dedicated traffic-free or segregated routes for cycling (and walking), particularly on key routes linking residential areas with schools and colleges, places of work, shopping areas and leisure facilities, and linking neighbouring towns. Evidence from the Netherlands[1], London[2] and elsewhere demonstrates the effectiveness of these measures in reducing casualties among people on foot and bike.
Brake strongly agrees that action is needed to minimise the crash risk between cyclists and other road users. Brake warns that simply marking a cycle lane on otherwise normal roads, especially busy, fast roads with hazardous junctions, does not constitute provision of a safe route. Brake recommends continuous cycle paths, safe along their full length, including safe negotiation of busy and complex junctions, and using segregated and traffic-free routes as much as possible, or where not possible, making use of quiet roads with lower speeds. There should also be a partnership approach taken by local authorities and police to encourage implementation of accompanying measures to make these routes safer where they are on or crossing roads, particularly 30km/h limits, and wider enforcement, including through use of technology like average speed cameras for urban areas.
However, because it is not possible to have safe, segregated routes connecting every home with schools, workplaces and colleges, a vital action is to implement more 30km/h speed limits (see more below), to make whole areas safer for cycling. Making cycling and walking the automatic choices for shorter journeys requires that people feel familiar and comfortable with cycling and walking in their immediate local area. Making whole communities welcoming for walkers and cyclists rather than simply providing safe routes from A to B will encourage people to get more active in their leisure time[3]. By helping people to feel more confident and comfortable cycling and walking in their immediate local area for leisure and very short journeys, people (including children) are more able to build up the fitness, skills and confidence necessary to undertake other journeys like commuting on foot or by bike[4].
Having a national network of cycle trails will also provide people with safe places to enjoy cycling, practice skills, and introduce children to cycling in asafe environment away from traffic.
Brake strongly agrees that the New Zealand default speed limits are incompatible with cycling (and walking) mixing with motor vehicles. Evidence shows that slowing down traffic makes cycling (and walking) on roads safer[5]. Brake therefore recommends that in towns, cities and villages, traffic should be slowed to a maximum speed limit of 30km/h to allow people to get out and about and make journeys by bike and on foot (and by a combination of walking or cycling and public transport).
Other studies have shown that effective implementation of area-wide lower limits, traffic-free routes, and other measures to make walking and cycling safer and more pleasant can help bring about increased levels of walking and cycling[6].
Brake believes 30km/h is the most appropriate default speed limit for built up areas based on the huge difference in stopping distances between 30km/h, 40km/h and 50km/h, and the overwhelming evidence on the direct relationship between speed and road safety[7] and our belief that everyone should be able to walk or cycle without fear or threat to their safety. In the UK, evidence on the implementation of 20mph limits shows they brought about reductions in devastating and costly casualties for pedestrians and cyclists in particular[8], have widespread public support[9], and encourage greater levels of walking and cycling[10].
Brake feels that given this wealth of international evidence on the effect of 30km/h limits in decreasing the number and severity of crashes involving cyclists and pedestrians, and in increasing the number of people cycling and walking,the Panel’s recommendations should specifically call for more 30km/h limits in communities.
Brake concurs with the Panel that there should be reduced speeds on freight routes and rural roads, and that reducing speeds on roads used frequently by pedestrians and cyclists and outside schools should be a high priority in the Safer Journeys strategy.
Brake supports the recommendation for minimum passing distances, however repeats that separation of cyclists from other vehicles, and lower speeds, are essential in reducing cyclist casualties.
Cycle skills training for children is important, but the places in which they cycle must be safe for them to do so. If children are to be brought up with walking and cycling as the normal way to make short journeys, they need to be able to walk and cycle for school and leisure purposes, to get used to those activities safely[11]. Children are safer where traffic is 30km/h or slower, and where they can travel and play away from traffic entirely, such as on traffic-free routes and spaces. Children are not often allowed to choose how they travel to school, but if their local environment is safe, they are more likely to be allowed to travel actively and play outside[12], making them more likely to be fit and healthy, and more likely to choose active travel for their shorter journeys when they are older[13]. In this way, 30km/h limits and traffic-free routes are also important in allowing children to practice and get used to active travel.
In addition to the Panel’s recommendations for point 9, road user behaviour and awareness (which Brake fully supports), Brake feels there should be a recommendation to have more resources for parents and young drivers through practice websites and other providers of road safety education on how drivers should share the road with cyclists (and pedestrians), thus not only reaching the young drivers but also their parents/caregivers.
Brake agrees that at-work drivers should receive specific safety training on how to share the road with cyclists, but that this should encompass all vulnerable road users, not just cyclists.
Brake calls for New Zealand to follow Europe in mandating safety features on trucks to help protect cyclists and pedestrians. These features should include side under-run barriers, additional mirrors and electronic blind spot devices that alert both cyclists/pedestrians, and the truck drivers, to a potential collision. These are necessary, common sense, and cost-effective solutions to helping protect vulnerable road users. Given the involvement of commercial vehicles in serious crashes with pedestrians and cyclists, and scope to improve the safety of vehicles on roads for the protection of vulnerable road users, it seems likely this move would save lives and serious injuries and help to encourage active travel, with all its associated benefits, as streets are made safer for walking and cycling.
However, there is much more that companies can do to improve the safety of their fleets above and beyond what is required by law presently and these proposed actions, in terms of vehicle adaptations, staff training, and better overall road risk management practice. A Brake survey of fleet operators showed the majority do not provide driver education on protecting pedestrians and cyclists, plan routes to avoid high-risk areas such as schools and local communities, or use technology to help reduce crash risk[14] so there is much more that can be done in this area.
Brake engages proactively with and advises fleet operators to promote best practice and improve road risk management, including protecting vulnerable road users. Ourfleet safety award scheme has evidenced how effective and straightforward fleet safety interventions and policies can help operators to significantly reduce costs as well as improve safety.Find out more at .
[1] Kraay, J. H., “Woonerfs and other Experiments in the Netherlands” Built Environment 12 (1986) 1/2 : 20-29
[2]Grundy, C., Steinbach, R., Edwards, P., Wilkinson, P. Et al. “20 mph zonesand Road Safety in London” Report for Transport for London, 2009
[3] Pucher, J. and Buehler, R., ‘Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.’ Transport Reviews, 2008.
[4] Zlot, A. and Schmid, T, ‘Relationships Among Community Characteristics and Walking and Bicycling for Transportation or Recreation’ American Journal of Health Promotion, 2005.
[5] Grundy, C., Steinbach, R., Edwards, P., Wilkinson, P. Et al. “20 mph zonesand Road Safety in London” Report for Transport for London, 2009
[6] Where widespread 20 limits have been introduced levels of walking and cycling increased by 20% Citywide Rollout of 20mph speed limits, Bristol City Council Cabinet, 2012
[7] Speed and Road Safety: Synthesis of Evidence from Evaluation Studies, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2006 ( and The effects of drivers’ speed on the frequency of road accidents, Transport Research Laboratory, 2000 (
[8]20mph speed reduction initiative, The Scottish Executive, 2001 ( and 20mph Speed Limit Pilots Evaluation Report, Warrington Borough Council, 2010 (
[9] British Social Attitudes Survey, 2011 (
[10] Bristol City Council found a mean increase of 23% in walking and 20.5% in cycling Bristol City Council, 2012 (
[11] Understanding Walking and Cycling, Lancaster University, 2011.
[12] Brake and Bolt Burdon Kemp survey of parents on cycling, 2012, and Brake and Churchill survey of parents on walking, 2012
[13] Timperio, A., Crawford, D., et al. ‘Perceptions about the local neighbourhood and walking and cycling among children’. Preventative Medicine, 2004.
[14]Brake and Licence Bureau survey of fleet operators, 2014