The danger of dangerisation

https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/talking-about-danger-again/#comment-32359

Good response from Bob Davis from the Road Danger Reduction Forum

The Freakonomics people (yes, the ones with the books) have today republished their first ever podcast, which was about dangerisation and "safety".

It's not cycling-specific, but it covers all kinds of interesting topics, including motorist behaviour, risk compensation, and even, um, helmet effectiveness. Some of you may find it tangentially interesting.

http://freakonomics.com/2015/08/13/the-dangers-of-safety-a-freakonomics-radio-rebroadcast/

Interesting podcast.

This is an interesting article with an interesting headline and first paragraph. Chris Boardman doesn't actually seem to say in the interview that he thinks 'roads are dangerous'. What he does say is:

The roads are statistically safe, but it doesn’t look it and it doesn’t feel it.

He may well have said what the headline and first paragraph say, but it's not quoted in the article. The headline doesn't follow from what he says--on the face of it, he only says 'it doesn't look and feel safe', and that is very different from saying 'it's dangerous/it feels dangerous'. It's mostly about his changed feelings following his mother's death. She was hit by a driver while out cycling. Anyone would feel very challenged getting back on a bike while going through that purgatory.

Newspapers love dangerising cycling--we saw it again in the last few weeks. As noted earlier in this thread, fear has been (successfully) used to try and suppress walking and cycling levels for decades, and this has definitely been on the increase again in recent times.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/31/chris-boardman-riding-a-bike-on-uk-roads-feels-too-dangerous-for-me

Not sure where to post this. Really backwards thinking.

https://twitter.com/Chris_Boardman/status/953642764092301312

I applied for life insurance today with Legal and General. They asked if I ride a motorbike or moped on the road, but nothing about bicycling on the road.

Insurance companies are strongly motivated to take an objective and unbiased view of risk, and they don't think cycling is dangerous enough to ask about.

This is brilliant, I missed it at the time. Anna is doing great work on flightfree.co.uk these days.

You bumping some excellent threads :)

Taylor Swift and or Harry Kane pictured riding bikes [/thread]

I was asked recently what would get more people cycling and this was pretty much my answer (with an updated tfy edit).

Yes, some good discussions & still very relevant. Prompted by thinking around my new thread posted which brings the average quality down slightly but hopefully will get some responses.