Seeing so many riders on the ground in Dwars Door Vlaanderen and then the Tour of the Basque Country was grim. The fact that so many star names were involved has invariably given these incidents more prominence; more than the huge crash in the Roue Tourangelle a couple of weeks back. Unjust but if it leads to more debate and eventual safety measures than it might benefit all.Safety improvements have been a regular topic, rightly so. Changes are coming but they cant come soon enough. And they wont solve everything, far from it.There are more rules and regulations on safety than ever but the feeling in the peloton is that races arent getting any safer at all. Roads are more perilous thanks to more street furniture; racing more intense with riders wanting to go into a corner or a climb ahead of others and its not just a variation of the theres no respect these days refrain from senior riders, neo-pros remark on the intensity of a World Tour peloton too, of just how difficult it can be to maintain position in the peloton.Its hard to know if there are more crashes these days but the UCI is now keeping a race incidents database that logs most crashes with accompanying details. It might be where UCI boss David Lappartient got his line last week that 50% of crashes are caused by riders.Instead of UCI rule tweaks here and there from the top down theres a new collective procedure designed to get riders, teams, organisers and the governing body together. This project, presented on the eve of last years Tour de France (pictured), is called SafeR, as in Safe Road cycling. A UCI press release about SaferR says:SafeR will be funded jointly by the organisers, riders, teams and the UCI. The entity will be responsible for: analysing the risks relating to the routes of UCI WorldTour, UCI Womens World and UCI ProSeries races; providing safety advice to stakeholders in professional road cycling, in particular to the UCI; carrying out safety audits on race organisers and teams (including their riders); publishing quarterly safety reports.Analysis, audits, advice, quarterly reports? It sounds like corporate jargon and its for 2025 and beyond while an anxious peloton wants a more urgent response today.SafeR though sounds promising, there are gains to be had from better information and analysis. One idea is never waste an accident, so any crash can be informative and helps to prevent the next one. In some domains, take aviation, and accidents just cant happen. Pro cycling is a difficult arena as risk-taking is part of the competition, we implicitly tolerate a degree of crashes. A brief look into the world of downhill skiing sees similar concerns, and also arguments raging over proposed safety measures. In pro cycling SafeR can help here as it brings together all sides and puts safety on the agenda from the start. But its more a process than a solution.If SafeR is for 2025, were set to see a football-style yellow and red cards this summer. A rider that pulls a bad move will get a warning, do it again and they can be suspended. Bans happen already, you might remember Filip Maciejuks move in the Tour of Flanders last year that got him a one month suspension. Here the idea seems to be to give more warnings for smaller, risky moves that may not cause immediate harm or danger and to make them visible: calling out dumb moves. A bit like the UCIs moves to clamp down on littering, this could cause teething problems if riders are singled out while others act similar but arent sanctioned, and it might take a few months and even suspensions for attitudes to change. The ban of the supertuck position was similar with noise and misapprehension in the moment and now quietly accepted.Part of the plans including making safety more standardised, like adopting the same signage for all races so that visual cues about danger ahead can be processed quickly rather than open to interpretation, also shared standards for crash barriers. The big operators like ASO, RCS and Flanders Classics are cited as examples for other races to follow they are not perfect either but this means having their resources and networks. How to ensure smaller races are as good? Or put simply: who pays? There is a common interest for everyone. Race organisers want a safer sport as a Ronde without Van Aert isnt as good, ditto a Tour sans Vingegaard, Rogli and Evenepoel. Riders have an interest here too, they literally have skin in the game. Coordinating the politics of all this is a delicate mission to put it mildly but there is a collective gain to be had.Speed is one factor blamed for the incidence and severity of accidents. Bikes are faster, true; but they also stop quicker and grip better than ever. This is paradoxically part of the problem as these gains are banked such that if stopping times are shorter you can ride closer to the wheel in front and brake later: there is less precaution. Only theres surely no going back, its hard to make bikes slower for racing in practice; sure it might be safer to supply every rider with one of those Airhubs that increase resistance but would the peloton and public buy in? Bike brands are a teams second source of income after the title sponsors and its hard to tell the industry to back off on marketing faster equipment given the sport functions as a shop window for the industry. Theoretically there could be some you could try to get the peloton to slow down by adding even wider tires. Why not rule a return to jerseys and shorts instead of speedsuits? Marginal, and someone reading this at a clothing company will already be thinking how to make the fastest jersey-shorts outfit. Which again brings the collective dilemma: the peloton might want more safety as a whole but the moment the new rules appear, individually riders are incentivised to arbitrage the rules to get the jump on their rivals.One topic regarding speed is limiting the gears used. Not long ago 5311 was the top gear. Now a 54 chainring is standard and 56T, even 58T are not uncommon. Several riders have mentioned how this is adding to the risks, the peloton can speed through towns littered with street furniture like never before; descents can be raced hard when they were freewheeled before (even if still cornered fast). Philippe Gilbert raised gearing during his tenure on the UCIs Road Commission, active pros have cited it on social media recently too. But where to set the limit, a 54T? This feels an indirect way to address speed, if the incentives to attack on a descent still exist would we not see riders bobbing frantically at 120rpm? Still, it might be worth trying and to see what the feedback from the peloton is.One of the perils here is the responses are some kind of Rohrschach test which reveals preoccupations. If you think race radios are spoiling racing then you might want them banned, in the name of safety. If you think TT-style helmets in road races with riders racing behind visors is making the sport look too remote then you might suggest banning TT-style helmets, for safety of course in order to reduce speeds. Likewise for disc brakes, power meters and GPS devices, even carbon frames have been cited in recent days as blame-worthy.One idea is keeping race radio but with one common channel for the peloton to sharing course info and give urgent updates so that riders tackling a route can be informed of troubles ahead. Only surely this still prompts everyone to get up front and out of trouble? Or if the device becomes less useful riders might save weight and forget it.Last week riders mentioned the use of finish bottles and caffeine, the suggestion that jittery riders are more crash-prone. Pro cycling led the way in banning tramadol because one of the effects its abuse was having was said to be rise in crashes. This was hard to prove and it made sense to ban anyway. A caffeine ban would hard to enforce, how to allow a cup in the morning versus a finish bottle laced with 300mg of caffeine? Here some sort of agreement among teams and riders could work if it was agreed to be a problem.Incidence vs harmSo far, the ideas doing the rounds seem to be about reducing the number of crashes, limiting the incidence rate. There are other angles to explore like reducing the harm and severity of crashes. Some go together, for example if the peloton could be slowed then perhaps the rate of crashes might go down and so would the extent of the injuries.Seeing Richard Carapaz and Enric Mas suffer wrist injuries of the opening day of the Tour last year invited ex post thoughts of why not at least start the hectic opening days of a grand tour with some added body protection? More recently, reading Het Nieuwsblad lately () has seen the use of an airbag suggested, something that is going to be adopted in skiing. Here a rider wears a sort of collar which can suddenly inflate to cushion a fall. You might have seen helmet versions but this is to protect the neck and upper body. Similarly wrist protection, the rigid kind used by beginner skaters could help and other sports use various types of body armour. But in a sport where riders jettison empty gel wrappers to save weight for a summit finish this would probably require regulation and compulsion. Unthinkable? Well youre now thinking about it here. If its a cultural change, helmets were long unthinkable in competition and now the reverse is true.ConclusionReducing the incidences of crashes is one aspect to explore and the sport is trying to do this, there have been many rule changes over the years. The SafeR joint-initiative is the next part of this and offers the possibility of more comprehensive cultural change. Reducing the severity and harm from injuries could be another angle to explore too.Exploring the issues around SafeR and ideas raised by riders in recent days in a blog post is one thing. But having done the walk-through it feels like a sidestep too: were not addressing the root causes. Pro cycling is inherently dangerous and the radical position is to ask how many crashes are acceptable and what level of injuries and worse is tolerable? Its a tough question to ask, and harder to answer even given so much is out of control.The post On Risk and Safety Improvements first appeared on The Inner Ring.