Ian O’Riordan: Finding space and peace between driver and cyclist on Irish roads

On the roughly seven-minute drive from our front gate and through the crossroads at Glencullen, up over the 1,000-foot contour line that opens the perfect panoramic view over Dublin Bay, then down towards the nearest shop in Stepaside, there are 13 different blind spots, maybe more.

Especially this time of year, when the miracle of growth and golden blooming gorse either side of the road can further hinder that sense of visibility. From either direction too, naturally.

Coming around Ballyedmonduff, along the shoulder of Two Rock Mountain and into the leafy shade of Taylor’s Folly, it’s more jungle now than road. Similarly, around the sweeping hairpin at Cannon’s Corner, the road narrows suddenly in and out of itself, before the seemingly sheer drop down Stepaside Lane.

Having routinely driven and cycled this microcosm of Irish road over the last decade or so, I can say it’s evidently clear that keeping a 1.5 metre distance between driver and cyclist when overtaking is often practically, if not literally, impossible. It usually requires a bit of give and take from both sides, especially on weekends, and particularly now with the cycling season on all Irish roads more popular than ever.

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It’s easy to recognise, too, the cyclists familiar with this stretch of the Dublin Mountains, who instinctively keep as close to the verge as is possible and within reason, a learned skill of sorts. Especially if there’s more than one rider.

For others, the instinct is to stay out where they are, not realising perhaps that that only heightens the danger. It takes a sort a sixth sense to know sometimes where exactly you are, as driver or cyclist, because there is an in-between, as if there were a two-way street in the same direction.

Ernest Hemingway always said he preferred to travel by bicycle, as “you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are ... ”

Hemingway might not have been so confident about that now, given the new silent enemy on the road, also known as the all-electric vehicle, that silence more pronounced when approaching any cyclist from behind and beginning the process of overtaking, slowly, 1.5m apart or otherwise.

Which is why I find the old Range Rover Sport is still preferable, leaving no uncertainty about what’s coming and the need and desire to keep well in. Although there is still value in those cryptic finger exercises the rider sometimes makes to the driver in their rear, a sign at least they know what’s coming.

What isn’t helpful to driver or cyclist as things begins again is to turn it into a sort of extra season of Love/Hate. There’s enough of that out there already, without putting driver or cyclist into the person or group with protected characteristics who may be aggravated by hatred under the new Criminal Justice Bill. Spare that for other matters.

Which is why the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) Senior Agriculture Inspector Pat Griffin may have chosen his words more wisely when telling the Farming Independent this week that cyclists and pedestrians should “stay off the road” when silage harvesting is under way.

“I know it’s something that would probably be dismissive if I said it,” Griffin said, before saying it anyway, “but, stay off the road for a day.” Not just dismissive but divisive.

On Thursday of this week, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) began its new cycling awareness campaign, just in time for the new season. Irish professional cyclist Imogen Cotter is the face of it, and for good reason, the 29-year-old from Clare back racing again after a potentially fatal crash involving a van near her training base in Girona, Spain in January of last year.

In a tearful video message for the RSA campaign (sponsored, with some gentle irony, by a motor company) Cotter recounts the incident: “I remember seeing the van coming at me and thinking I was going to die. I hit the windscreen really hard. It was horrifying for my parents to get a call like that,” she says. “It felt so unfair, everything I worked for, for so long could have been gone in an instant.

“People need to slow down and see the impact not observing people cycling can have. They are people with whole lives and goals. If this campaign can make one person slow down, that will be a step in the right direction, to making roads safer for everyone.”

[ ‘If I was in Dublin, I wouldn’t be cycling’ - professional track and road cyclist Imogen Cotter ]

Of immediate and urgent concern after that crash was the smashed patella on her right leg, plus the fractures in her lower right arm; both necessitated repeated surgery. What made it all the more painful was the fact she was entirely without fault, the van fast approaching from the not blind curve on the road ahead, overtaking another cyclist, only instead of pulling back in, it veered off on to a slip road and directly into her line of direction, resulting in the full-on collision.

According to the latest data compiled by the RSA, more than 1,600 cyclists suffered serious crash injuries on Irish roads over the last seven years, 25 times more than lost their lives. Most fatalities occurred in rural areas, but just over 80 per cent of serious injuries were in built-up urban settings, on straight stretches of road.

No matter the location or speed, or the result, the impact on flesh and bone will invariably be worse than on metal and glass.

The RSA campaign is again urging drivers to give that 1.5m of space to cyclists when overtaking, and to check mirrors and blind spots. That’s not always possible, and ever harder to enforce. Although a law on dangerous overtaking was introduced in 2019, Garda data supplied to this newspaper shows fixed charge notices have been issued in just 75 cases.

RSA chief executive Sam Waide did reach out to make some peace between driver and cyclist: “I would challenge the view that there’s this war between drivers and cyclists,” he said. “Post-Covid, more and more drivers actually are gaining the experience of what it feels like to be a cyclist, and to be more fearful of that speed and distance. There has been a positive change in the culture.”

Cotter’s tearful message can only help bring further positive change, if only to those who didn’t already know there is no danger in that seven-minute drive down to the shop taking a minute or two longer.