-
Interesting that you bring height/visibility/gender into this discussion .
You have probably observed that many victims of this type of crash were non natives* of this country ( clumsy phrase I know - sorry ) so could this be a factor ?- as in possibly more familiar with more benign road cycling environments ?
I don't know.
- as in possibly more familiar with more benign road cycling environments ?
not4sale-
Interesting that you bring height/visibility/gender into this discussion .
Well, sex of riders was originally brought in by Bsample.
You have probably observed that many victims of this type of crash were non natives* of this country ( clumsy phrase I know - sorry ) so could this be a factor ?
* as in possibly more familiar with more benign road cycling environments ?
Yes, although a few years ago when I first thought about it in this way, there were definitely fewer non-natives involved in such crashes. I'll look into it when I have time, but my unresearched impression is that I don't believe their numbers are a significant factor compared to other factors, e.g. location or organisation of building work (my standard example are the people probably killed in relation to Shard building work along Tower Bridge Road a few years ago, where there has hardly been a serious crash since, even though there has continued to be huge building work on London Bridge Station) or, simply, who commutes when. I'm also wary of the explanation from 'more benign cycling environments' because it can easily be flipped to 'lack of (London) cycling skill', and as I suggested above, I don't think victim-blaming helps anyone. But all that said, trying to understand causation in crashes is a complex business (so many factors), and very few studies have been completed that are even remotely adequate.
Oliver Schick
Women are generally under-represented in crash stats, partly as they cycle less than men, but it is also thought that they take fewer risks than men. There is one glaring exception to these general trends, and that's in the aforementioned deaths from left-turning lorries, where they are over-represented.
I've looked at this question for years and have found (where such information was available, which of course it wasn't in quite a few cases) that most victims, not all but a very significant majority, of this type of crash were quite short (men and women). As women tend to be shorter than men, this may explain why they seem more affected, but whether this is true or not, it highlights the need for direct-vision lorries.
http://lcc.org.uk/pages/direct-vision-lorries