BBC article on cycling accidents

Different studies have shown women account for between 25% and 33% of cyclist fatalities in London - roughly in line with the numbers out there. However when looking at types of fatal crashes women seem to be involved in around a half of HGV related deaths and a much smaller proportion of non-HGV related deaths. Studies from Germany show a similar disproportionality as does anecdotal evidence from other places.

The way it adds up women are much less likely than men to be killed by a car and slightly more likely to be killed by HGVs. To be honest I have no idea why this is so. One suggestion is that women are smaller than men and so are more vulnerable to inattentive lorry drivers; that doesn't explain why they seem to be much less at risk from car collisions.

Yes this is the pattern that seems to be present in the Inner London data in that BMJ paper that Sharkstar provided the link to.

Much as I I am reluctant to publicly speculate in a relatively uninformed manner on such a sensitive topic, I can't help thinking that this pattern could show that men and women cyclists are to a large extent equally likely to be killed by HGVs because it appears that they may not be seen by the driver, hence no gender determination is made, which means that potential differences in driver behaviour towards women and men cyclists do not occur, hence equal probability of collision/fatality for men and women.

However, women cyclists are less likely to be killed by other vehicles [which do not share the blind spot issue of HGVs] purely because they can be seen to be women, which may in itself be sufficient to invoke some extra caution on the part of the driver. This low level of fatalities of women cyclists (when compared to men cyclists) caused by non-HGVs is very apparent in the Inner London data in the BMJ paper.

Obviously this assumes that cycling behaviour between genders is roughly equal which may not be the case.