Women's Safety in Traffic

"2 of 7 of the young men I trained were very very worried about riding on the road- something I'd have bet my moots would be more likely to be a female point of view."

There is a natural link between this thread and the Cycle Training forum so I hope that people reading this will also have a look there. I had one rider, pretty 'advanced' and capable but he just would not contemplate making riding on busy roads a regular part of his commute. At the weekend I had a trainee who had come for training specifically because she wanted to shorten her commute by using busy roads; and she was great, by the end she had the confidence and knowledge to do that. He could not conquer his fear, she could.

Festus is absolutely right--men can be extremely worried about this, too. In my experience, women tend to be more worried about a lack of peer support than men. This is of course not meant to stereotype, hence the vague 'tend to'. We did a survey in London Fields a few years ago, and unfortunately I never got round to evaluating the forms properly, but the greatest worry about safety came from men. Having said that, the women who currently cycle are more self-selecting than men owing to the 'male-only' nimbus around cycling that's felt by many.