One of the spin-off benefits from the recent cycling summit (convened to provide input into NZTA’s inquiry panel about cycle safety) was a great compendium of knowledge about where cycling is at in New Zealand at the moment.
NZTA staff have gathered together what seems like almost all the various statistics about cycling (not just cycling safety) in New Zealand. The whole was then collected in a highly-accessible presentation format we can provide to you here. It’s too much material to cover directly (in fact, the contents would make for a wide number of blog posts!) but we are thinking some of you will find this very useful – either as an interested read, or for your own advocacy work.
So whether you are interested in how much Aucklanders cycle compared to other parts of NZ (Page 27, not looking too good) or whether you want to explain to the guy at the work-do that most cycle accidents are caused by non-cyclists (Page 44), the report has you covered.
And even before the safety panel makes their recommendations, there’s glimmers of hope in there – for example, cycling numbers have finally started rising again, and cycling in Christchurch is about twice as safe as in Auckland. So Kiwis certainly CAN have safe cycling. We just need to create the conditions for it.
