"50% of crashes are due to rider behaviour" - UCI President David Lappartient suggest cards system as a punishment for dangerous rider behaviour
CyclingSunday, 07 April 2024 at 01:00
UCI President David Lappartient spoke to Cyclingnews about rider and race safety before the start of the Paris-Roubaix Femmes, calling on everyone in the sport to come together for the good of the sport. His solution to the issue seems to be the introduction of the yellow and red cards system, which would ideally prevent some of riders' dangerous behaviour.
"Safety is clearly the most important topic for the sport at the moment, for the UCI and for all the different stakeholders," Lappartient told Cyclingnews. "I think 38 WorldTour riders have crashed and been injured since the start of the year. That’s a lot."
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"We created SaferR to make some decisions and improve race safety. We have an important meeting next week," Lappartient said. "We carried out a survey and created a database of all the crashes in all the races of the last three or four years, so now we know the reasons."
"50% of crashes are due to rider behaviour, with 50% due to other factors, such as obstacles that are not signalled or the speed of the peloton. I'm not here to say it's all their fault; it could just be a brief moment of inattention. That's why we want to introduce a principle of yellow and red cards, like in football, so that dangerous behaviour is better punished."
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Does not really good at all...
Also, of those 38 who crashed, several of who several times, a large proportion were either leaders or leading contenders (did he even take into consideration minor crashes at the back of peletons?) but they all have one thing in common, they all crashed during the time the UCI was just collecting data and making surveys and not visibly doing anything that would really IMPROVE anything.
Roubaix changes are just displacing/translating that problem
Demoting Matthews (I think) does nothing much in the context of the random selective punishment this represented.
To be honest, I have no idea what the official obligations of organisers are in terms of course safety and whether the UCI actually checks anything for enforcement but if we take the Basque incident as an example a lot of easy cheap improvements can immediately be implemented without the need for discussion.
Had it been the case, that a dozen riders who’d have gotten away with rash and pain instead of fractures and punctures. All this is costing some people quite a lot and at some point THEY will start becoming more demanding or picky about where they’ll go. Wouldn’t be surprised if a few teams start boycotting (maybe loudly, maybe quietly) certain races if they see nothing changing.
I had to agree
I don’t understand how that is going to change anything.
Firstly, what is a yellow card in this case, just a warning?
It will be very rare that one rider causes many crashes (it is also difficult to judge who is responsible for a crash, sometimes the rider isn’t even down and it all depends on versions told afterwards with or without confrontation).
If you (cause a) crash several times what is the red punishment, two weeks out? Sorry but probably the injuries already programmed that.
Peleton speed, sorry, first of all that’s by and large predictable so a consideration to be included upstream in suitable course choices, secondly, peleton speed is basically defined by one or a small number or riders leading so why would that be considered different to dangerous riding, are they expecting the guys at the front who see their line and have space to manoeuvre to slow down in consideration of others they don’t see behind them knowing those won’t see anything and have no manoeuvring space?
This all sounds like PR that (as someone else posted) justified a bunch of lunches/dinners as meetings.
If I’m not mistaken 100% - 50% leaves another 50% wherein probably lie a bunch of things far easier and less controversial to change/improve that remain completely impartial.
And, if I’m not mistaken again, they already have plenty of punishment tools for dangerous driving, are they allowing alcohol at these meetings that they seem to have forgotten or is it age or are they admitting their tools are worthless.
Or are they so incompetent that they throw this kind of stuff out hoping to get feedback to help them with their inability to improve things?
It looks that way sadly
Maybe there is too big a gap between the two (three) sides like it seems to be in amateur racing.
I don’t seem to notice many freshly retired riders converting to UCI jobs, the UCI might do well to do surveys on this instead of ones confirming what just about everyone was expecting anyway?
Agreed