Cycling and Risk Taking survey

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  • wang popping his trademark wheelie as he crossed the line

  • wang

    fnarr fnarr yibb yibb k-woo k-woo

  • done.

  • done.
    on a related note, my final major project (product design) is based on indicating and visibility. I might put my questionnaire on here too.

  • Done.

    I don't know if the survey's author reads but I have a couple of comments on the survey design:

    a) In reply to a question such as "I always wear a cycle helmet", a better choice of answers would be something like; always, sometimes, rarely, never, rather than agree disagree etc

    b) Most people are very bad at assessing risk so asking to rate risk severity is a bit meaningless - you could simply ask if you would be prepared to do it (acceptable risk) or not (unacceptable risk)

    Also, I was surprised to read at the end that the majority of fatalities were women. I wold have thought that as the majority of cyclists are men, they would be the majority of the deaths. Why is that, I wonder.

  • Perhaps it's because less ladies cycle regularly and are unfamiliar with city traffic?
    I have noticed an increase of fluro'd-up women on my commute. It is noticeable how many RLJ and then panic when they make mistakes. I saw a woman yesterday start crying when she nearly fell off at the lights. I'm not knocking women as cyclists, but from personal experience, commuter ladies seem to be less aware of the potential dangers and less able to correct mistakes. Possibly drivers are less willing to drive dangerously near men for fear of a fight.
    It is also possible that men are better at falling / being knocked down and rolling out of danger as we take stupid risks growing up and have accepted that we may get hurt.
    There was a thread on here about a study into helmet wearing and accidents stating that drivers take less care when you are wearing one. I am yet to see a lady cyclist without one.
    I asked my wife to read this and she didn't find this offensive.

  • Women are on average much safer riders than men. It's only in these deaths by HGV that there is a statistical divergence. We don't really know why yet, but such research will hopefully help.

  • I'm not sure how to write it down, so it doesn't sound sexist...
    I think it's about the confidence and assertiveness. OK, often too much of both put male drivers and cyclists in danger, but they also help a lot while executing certain manouvers in busy traffic.

    There's a percentage of not very confident lady cyclists and drivers (I know many women who don't do North Circular/motorways or never went as far as the neighbouring borough). Often they are being bullied by overconfident male drivers. What I mean is, the more you cycle/drive, the better and more confident you are. It's easier to assess the distance and speed of other vehicles etc. The more mistakes you do, the more you learn. some people treat their bicycles as a cheap and easy mode of transport do get from A to B. They want to do this as quick as possible, dreading every morning of commute. Perhaps some assume, that there's a cycling/bus lane dedicated to their vehicles and it all should go smooth. You pedal fast and count the miles without really taking in what's happening around you. And you feel safe in your bus line...

    Obviously if you are overly confident, like some professional drivers, you count more on routine than your senses...

  • done thought this was really good, i did think if they want a good look at cycling they could provide helmet cams to people for a day and see how people make desisions?

  • I take your point about [some] women's lack of confidence and experience. I grew up in central London and cycled everywhere - I had no problem cycling down Park Lane at rush hour! Now 35 years later, I no longer live in central London but that experience has been invaluable over the years.

    I guess there are many people who take up commuter cycling in adult life without that early years experience, and maybe this group includes many women.

  • i did not like it either.

    it is the drivers that are causing the risk and danger not the cyclists.

    the effort should be spent on making those who cause the risk and danger responsible for it.

  • ^ just like in other areas of health and safety.

  • and particularly when a lot of journeys are unnecessary and a lot of motorists are illegal.

  • Women are on average much safer riders than men. It's only in these deaths by HGV that there is a statistical divergence. We don't really know why yet, but such research will hopefully help.

    a poorly thought up theory, but netherless, I think women usually follow the highway code more often than men (as they're usually safer than men on average as you said), and often cycle on the cycle lane/path when there's one, because it give out the illusion of safety, even if some of them were far from safe.

    Because the cycle path is between the pavement and road, it encourage people to undertake anything, even HGV, and met their untimely death when an HGV turned onto the cycle lane.

    like I says, a poorly thought up theory.

  • There was a thread on here about a study into helmet wearing and accidents stating that drivers take less care when you are wearing one. ** I am yet to see a lady cyclist without one.**

    Huh? Really? I choose not to wear a helmet because wearing one would just completely ruin my hair. I'll never find a good husband if my hair isn't looking its best.

  • Done

    Will pass this link on to others in the cycling e-mail list where I work. The more data that is gathered, the better. Interesting to read the comments regarding lorries. Kind of reminds me of the advice I was given when doing my rail safety training - 'Doesnt matter what they are doing - stay the fuck away from trains'. The bloke running the course reckoned that it was familiarity over time that was the killer, people who spend a lot of time around them kind of lost 'the fear' and took chances.

    I would rather wait a minute or two at a good distance, as I cant tell that the HGV in front is the one with the left hand drive, crap mirrors and a driver who has a high fatigue level, watching his laptop porn and murdering prostitutes while attempting to negotiate busy city centre traffic.

    Guess I am lucky riding in a city that doesnt have many HGV's operating in it.

  • Fuck it, the survey closed last night.

  • Women are on average much safer riders than men

    What it should really say is that on average men are more dangerous than women. This is because the numbers are skewed by men in their late teens and twenties who are the group in society most likely to die from traumatic causes, whether that is road crashes, sporting injures or fights down the pub.

  • What it should really say is that on average men are more dangerous than women. This is because the numbers are skewed by men in their late teens and twenties who are the group in society most likely to die from traumatic causes, whether that is road crashes, sporting injures or fights down the pub.

    This sounds true, but I prefer to formulate it positively--no material difference, surely? If putting it this way, I also find the wording 'are more dangerous' to sound quite ambiguous.

  • , I also find the wording 'are more dangerous' to sound quite ambiguous.

    True, and the same goes for 'safer'.

    That's the trouble when we start using common language to describe scientific results. Words such as safe and dangerous have a host of meanings and are imbued with all sorts of values and connotations.

    You should really quote death rates for men and woman cyclists (if you know them), not forgetting to include a denominator, for example:

    *There is one female death for every X miles cycled and one male death for every Y miles cycled *

    This does not make any value judgment.

  • True, and the same goes for 'safer'.

    True, but I did say 'safer rider', which makes it a little clearer. But I appreciate that you were speaking in general.

    That's the trouble when we start using common language to describe scientific results. Words such as safe and dangerous have a host of meanings and are imbued with all sorts of values and connotations.

    You should really quote death rates for men and woman cyclists (if you know them), not forgetting to include a denominator, for example:

    *There is one female death for every X miles cycled and one male death for every Y miles cycled *

    This does not make any value judgment.

    I couldn't agree more--it's one of my biggest complaints that people mostly talk in terms of absolute numbers as opposed to putting things in context.

  • True, and the same goes for 'safer'.

    That's the trouble when we start using common language to describe scientific results. Words such as safe and dangerous have a host of meanings and are imbued with all sorts of values and connotations.

    You should really quote death rates for men and woman cyclists (if you know them), not forgetting to include a denominator, for example:

    *There is one female death for every X miles cycled and one male death for every Y miles cycled *

    This does not make any value judgment.
    Part of the problem is that there is no good data on how many cyclists there are or what gender, age, gears, etc. The best guess is that there are between 33% to 38% women on the streets of London. In terms of all casualties about 78% are men and 22% women. So that men seem to be more at risk than women. Looking at fatalities about a third or so of victims are women, although the numbers are small and vary a lot from year to year. The discrepancy comes in the number of HGV related fatalities, about half the victims are women, which is more than you would expect.

    This difference is not nearly as high as some of the media reporting has made out but it has shown up consistently over many years and also in other countries (eg. Germany). No one understands why this is. It has had high profile because of exceptionally high numbers of women being killed by HGVs last year, and in 2007.

    The overall difference between men and women is not explained by the 'reckless young man' effect. In London relatively few of the casualties are in the 15-24 age range and again the proportion is about 3/4 men to 1/4 women. Over half of all cyclist casualties happen to people between 25 and 39, it may just be that most of the cycling miles in London are travelled by those people.
    Some of this info is in a TfL report.

    The survey on 'risk taking' has now closed. It will be possible to analyse to see if there is a difference between men and women in attitudes or 'risk taking' behaviour. I am not overly hopeful that it will give us a reliable answer, partly because of the structure of the questions. Many have commented on the interpretation of the questions. Can the replies be segregated between the people who understand the risks and take relevant precautions and those who think they understand but still put themeselves in dangerous places?

  • Some interesting data there. One thing that is missing is a denominator. It may be that certain age/gender groups ride more or fewer miles than others and this is at least partly responsible for the differences.

  • There was a thread on here about a study into helmet wearing and accidents stating that drivers take less care when you are wearing one. I am yet to see a lady cyclist without one.

    You need to open your eyes. I know a lot of females who cycle regularly, and I would guess less than 1 / 4 regularly wear a helmet.

  • Part of the problem is that there is no good data on how many cyclists there are or what gender, age, gears, etc. The best guess is that there are between 33% to 38% women on the streets of London. In terms of all casualties about 78% are men and 22% women. So that men seem to be more at risk than women. Looking at fatalities about a third or so of victims are women, although the numbers are small and vary a lot from year to year. The discrepancy comes in the number of HGV related fatalities, about half the victims are women, which is more than you would expect.

    Just a note to Charlie's post. Whilst he is right to say that most years the split male / female HGV fatalities is 50 / 50 more or less, last year it was 8 females from 9.

    http://www.movingtargetzine.com/article/8th-female-london-cyclist-killed-by-lorry

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Cycling and Risk Taking survey

Posted by Avatar for Velocio @Velocio

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