This morning's commute and other commuting stories

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.