But it really boils down to a change in attitude from everyone: cyclists, drivers and pedestrians; and perhaps some joined-up thinking when it comes to cycling lanes and the surfaces on them.

Apart from the reference to ‘enforcement of legislation regarding the use of bicycle lights’, among your recommendations there is no mention of ‘improving cycling behaviour’.

In all of these reports which draw on Garda statistics, there’s no mention of safe or responsible cycling. As an experienced cyclist, I’m shocked at the poor standard displayed by cyclists across Dublin – total disregard for their own safety, let along road rules and guidelines.

While some of your recommendations are commendable, cyclists themselves must shoulder part of the blame for the consequences of decisions made while cycling: people are only responsible for their own actions – not how others behave.

Many traffic rules endanger cyclists.This is because they are made for motor vehicles and they dont consider cyclists separately. It is far safer for a cyclist to go ahead of the traffic and filter left at a red light than to take the left turn with the motor traffic. Compliant cyclists have been killed in Dublin by left turning traffic.
The RAC in the U K has recommended that cyclists be allowed to turn left on a red light. Experiments are taking place in some other European cities.
Instead of criticizing cyclist we need to look at their needs and see how we can improve road design and engineering (there are some awful wastes of money out there called cycling lanes that are more dangerous than the road) and how we can modify the rules of the road to protect cyclists.

A neighbours son drove his Mothers car into a perimeter wall on our property (front of) in q2 2008. The car was wrecked, so was the wall. I had my house insurance with Ulster Bank at the time. I needed the wall back up as we were planning to sell the house later in the year, and had two options – claim on the house insurance (and let them sort it out) or claim vs the car’s insurer directly.
The value was in the order 2000 to 2400 to get the wall rebuilt. I claimed on the house insurance – who recouped all their costs from the car insurer and i know they recouped everything as they paid back the Own risk up front amount also by cheque about 6 months later.
On the renewal of the house insurance, (same insurer), they doubled the house insurance price, and issued new terms removing external perimeter walls from the house insurance. Yet… they had not lost any money. And all other insurers apply a penalty to their cover as I made a claim in the last 2 to 3 years. Not much peace of mind in this process as you can see.