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Cycling (CC licensed image by crabchick:Flickr)What’s keeping Brits off the bike? In a word: fear, says new study
A study of British adults’ attitudes to cycling has found that a large number want to cycle more for everyday short journeys but feel unable to do so because they find sharing the roads with cars, buses and lorries too scary.
The survey also shows that people now believe that cyclists should be taken seriously (68%), that they are doing their bit for the environment and that they are actually rather brave (50%).
Researchers at UWE-Bristol asked YouGov to help survey GB adults in both 2010 and 2013 to get their views on a range of issues linked to cycling in this country. They found that in 2010 33% of the GB sample agreed they were contemplating cycling for short journeys, and 18% agreed they’d actually made plans to take up cycling. However, as the 2013 data makes clear, these plans didn’t materialise, with cycling levels amongst the population remaining broadly flat.
Census data released recently also shows that despite a modest increase in cycling in some areas, especially in cities where provision has been made for cycling, the same proportion of people rode to work in 2011 as in 2001.
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A majority of those surveyed agreed cyclists should be taken seriously
(CC licensed image by Tristan Schmurr/Flickr)
One reason why people havent started cycling even thought they say they’d like to is lack of confidence. In the 2013 survey, 34% of GB adults agreed that, ‘I’m not confident enough to consider cycling’.
New cyclists want to be protected from motorised traffic, and this may be why as many as 65% of GB adults support an increase in funding to support more cycling for everyday journeys. Indeed, and contrary to the ‘road wars’ anti-cycling media hysteria of recent times, cycling is very warmly regarded by all but a few.
In the 2013 survey cycling was regarded as good for the environment by 72% (vs only 8% disagree) and a majority - 54% - agreed that Britain would be a better place if more people cycled (just 13% disagreed).
Even the hyperbolic idea that cycling is a great way of solving some of the world’s problems had 30% agreement. Only 10% thought cycling to work isn’t normal and 46% agreed that cycling is cool.
Media bias is increasingly recognised as such: a recent Top Gear piece making jokes at cycling’s expense should be set against the finding that 37% agreed (18% disagree) that TV motoring programmes are too negative about cycling, for example.
Professor Alan Tapp of UWE Bristol said: “Our data is clear that anti-cycling media rhetoric does not represent the views of the majority. A majority of adults in GB support cycling and want to see more money spent on it.
“Moreover, people recognise the environmental and congestion reducing potential of cycling, and many people would cycle more themselves – if only they felt more confident to do so.
“This is more evidence to back up the key recommendation of last year’s All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group: government must meet the urgent need for a safer cycling environment by investing in cycleways.
“At the moment enormous budgets are allocated to road building without any opposition, and yet much more modest recommendations for cycling are prevented from happening. This surely needs to change.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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72 comments
I evidently need to get out more then - ok, the occasional driver passing a little closer than I'd like, but generally I don't have significant issues with bad driving.
[[[[[ Well lucky you then, ALLEZ NEG. Are you a big geezer? I'm positive the size, weight and height, --and sex-- of a cyclist will affect the degree of road-space and respect given by a certain kind of driver. I'm just average height and weight, male, a very experienced ex-club rider, in SW London (and, as far as I know, not yet been killed) and still about 10% of vehicles around me get too close, at least three have knocked me off, and I assure you my riding style HAS to alternate between "defensive" and "assertive" for much of my time on two wheels.
So much for city cycling....hit the country lanes outside the centre and you're among boy-racers, and girl- racers, tearing round blind bends at 60mph or more and, b4 long, you just wanna get back to the relative safety of the Big Smoke! I could go on....or maybe I just did.
P.R.
In response to kie7077 you get all the rudeness etc on UK roads be you on a bike, motorbike or in a car.
Also he is not insinuating that the near misses are mostly the fault of cyclists just the some of them are and I do agree the behaviour of some cyclists is insane.
Remember at all times the rule of gross tonnage 100 kg of cyclist and bike against 1500kg of car in a collision who do you think is going to be worse off?
But this doesn't absolve many motorists from their lousy driving or their insane behaviour behind the wheel to save 30 seconds off a trip. Maybe they should just leave 30 seconds earlier.
In response to kie7077 you get all the rudeness etc on UK roads be you on a bike, motorbike or in a car.
Also he is not insinuating that the near misses are mostly the fault of cyclists just the some of them are and I do agree the behaviour of some cyclists is insane.
Remember at all times the rule of gross tonnage 100 kg of cyclist and bike against 1500kg of car in a collision who do you think is going to be worse off?
But this doesn't absolve many motorists from their lousy driving or their insane behaviour behind the wheel to save 30 seconds off a trip. Maybe they should just leave 30 seconds earlier.
In response to kie7077 you get all the rudeness etc on UK roads be you on a bike, motorbike or in a car.
Also he is not insinuating that the near misses are mostly the fault of cyclists just the some of them are and I do agree the behaviour of some cyclists is insane.
Remember at all times the rule of gross tonnage 100 kg of cyclist and bike against 1500kg of car in a collision who do you think is going to be worse off?
But this doesn't absolve many motorists from their lousy driving or their insane behaviour behind the wheel to save 30 seconds off a trip. Maybe they should just leave 30 seconds earlier.
In response to kie7077 you get all the rudeness etc on UK roads be you on a bike, motorbike or in a car.
Also he is not insinuating that the near misses are mostly the fault of cyclists just the some of them are and I do agree the behaviour of some cyclists is insane.
Remember at all times the rule of gross tonnage 100 kg of cyclist and bike against 1500kg of car in a collision who do you think is going to be worse off?
But this doesn't absolve many motorists from their lousy driving or their insane behaviour behind the wheel to save 30 seconds off a trip. Maybe they should just leave 30 seconds earlier.
Ride the back lanes, they're much nicer all round.
Transport history can perhaps inform us why cycling has never been given government backing in Britain. With very few exceptions, successive governments over the last two centuries have failed to create integrated transport systems, from the canal age to Britain's early railways, both of which relied on private investment, including the development of the London Underground.
And investors were attracted to back such projects because they saw money to be made. Cycling offers no such incentive.
With the exception of projects such as Concorde and the Channel Tunnel, and now HS2, British governments have repeatedly under-invested in transport.
As to why they cannot learn from the Continent, well,
Britain is an insular nation which takes no notice of what they do over there.
I have a car, a (fast, noisy) motorcycle, and several bicycles.
Maybe I ought to get some kind of multiple personality thing going on so I can hate and fear myself properly.
Let's make no bones about it - riding on the UK's roads is very scary!!! Even for very experienced riders, it pushes you to the limits - just to try to stay alive!!! Every ride I've had in the past 5 years or so has involved at least one near madness encounter. Sometimes more. You have to keep your wits about you - at all times - and expect that the driver behind you - or coming at you - will do something stupid. Frequently - they do!
I don't know how you overcome that - even with "quiet" and isolated roads, or dedicated cycle paths - cos there's always a nutter on a bike there whose primary aim seems to be to scare the shit out of everyone else!
My wife won't ride now. She is simply too scared. I mean jittery, unpleasantly scared. A danger to herself and to others too. It's a crying shame, but the roads have done that to her and to many others too.
If the drivers don't care - and many don't - and the politicians do nothing to help - what chance has anyone got???
Stay strong, keep safe, ride smart!!! And remember the arse behind you is likely to be just that!! A total arse.
I live in rural France which is the total opposite of your post, in the 4 years I have been riding over here (4 or 5 times a week) in that time I have had two incidents.
One with an English driver! But he could have misunderstood the insane priority to the right rule over here not realising (forgot, didn't care) I actually had right of way from the minor road to his right (maybe).
The other was with a BIG lorry passing me and the driver pulled right over to give me room it was just the suction caused by this humongous truck. Pulled me all over the place.
Further I have just come back from a 3 day visit to the South East of England and the traffic is just bloody awful no way would I ride there.
Strange thing is except for that one incident with the UK vehicle I have had no problems with other UK cars and the continental drivers always give plenty of room some have sat behind me on narrow roads for the best end of half a mile possibly more before overtaking when it was safe to do so, and no revving of engines, shouted obscenities or any of that other crap.
But even with the situation over here I still ride defensively cause as you say the arse behind could be just that a total arse!!
I cant agree enough.....I would say that easily 80/90% of my rides have some incident and I am a very very defensive rider as I value my legs.
Generally I would say these incidents fall into the non malicious kind, people just not thinking (caring) but I have had occasions when people have pulled alongside to shout abuse or driven behind blowing the horn. Its is just beyond words.
My sympathies, but in the last five years, and riding almost every day, I haven't experienced any "near madness encounter".
Admittedly I'm extra cautious, often riding a quieter (but less direct) route, slowing right down when in town, only putting the hammer down when I'm well away from people and traffic, wearing a hi-viz, using cycle paths if they're half decent, staggering my ride times to avoid the rush hour, and often walking across a complex junction rather than cycling through it. I can honestly say that I haven't come across anything remotely close to a near miss.
However, and this isn't aimed at you because I obviously don't know what riding you do, but I do see a depressingly large number of cyclists riding in a manner, or at a particular time and location, that give me the distinct impression that their day to day survival is purely a matter of luck.
You seem to be insinuating that the near misses are mostly the fault of cyclists. Perhaps all cyclists should avoid rush-hour, wouldn't want to get in the way of traffic now would we.
You say you haven't experienced a near miss, what about close passes, tail-gating, speeding, ASL hogging and all of the other rudeness that is typical on the roads.
I agree more with comm88. I'm not sure about 'near miss' exactly, but every single ride I encounter some kind of arrogant, law-breaking, and plain annoying behaviour by drivers. There's a never-ending burden on _me_ to watch out for _them_ which is far more tiring than the physical exertion involved. Not to mention getting annoyed is also exhausting!
And your final paragraph just seems to point to its own flaw - if so many cyclists ride like that, how do they, statistically, all manage to be so lucky all the time? "Luck" evens out across a large sample. Such bad riding would be self-limiting for, crudely, Darwinian reasons.
(A big exception would be the pavement-jockeys. They of course put pedestrians at risk rather than themselves.)
And riding a 'quieter' route isn't always possible. Quiet roads have masses of parking with cars coming at you fast and head-on down the very narrow remaining part of empty roadspace. Its particularly impractical if you don't know the route, as personally I usually get lost on those quiet routes and end up on the busy one anyway.
Strict liability is a tough sell to your average tabloid reader. It's also widely misunderstood to mean strict criminal liability. It's nothing of the sort, and only kicks in when deciding what (if any) civil damages to award to the victim of a traffic accident.
Something similar already exists for accidents involving rear-end shunts, does that mean that roads are full of people carefully observing the Highway Code's recommended stopping distances?
Personally I'd like to see it introduced nonetheless. But it's not a catalyst for mass cycling. Make cycling normal, make it safe, and then worry about the obscure details of insurance law.
Find yer local backroads and stick to them if you're worried about traffic. I ride near Bedford - in the busy centre of the country - and can ride for hours, only seeing cars very occasionally. I have no interest in riding in towns or cities.
Might work in Bedford, but not possible in large chunks of London, back roads = rat runs. Some councils stop the rat runs, some don't (Westminster does nothing about them).
Most people in the UK are too fat and too lazy to cycle. End of.
Laziest. Comment. Ever.
Also... steady on. I'm a bit of a podger and as lazy as they come, yet I manage fine.
You can't be that lazy if you cycle regularly. I'll take your word for it with regard to your waistline.
I think a lot of people are actually scared of change, as much as they are of the roads. The fact is that the UK road network is actually a good deal safer than it was in the bad old days of the 70s and 80s. But so many scare stories about the dangers of cycling have put people off. Yes there are aggressive and careless drivers out there but the level of drink driving is a fraction of what it was and that was the real killer back in the day.
But what about the sheer volume of motorised traffic? That's something that has grown markedly since the 70s and 80s.
When the car is sat in the driveway or parked on the road/pavement outside the house then the easy option will always win for most people. They'll whine about the queues, the cost, the weather, the bad driving... and then get back in the car again to go shopping or pop round to someone's house.
As for drink-driving, I wouldn't be so sure it's been confined to history. Arrests are on the increase where I live:
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/03/04/shropshire-drink-drive-arr...
The article indicates arrests are up by 45% but doesn't give the number of drivers stopped compared to previous years. If police resources are stretched further and further, as we are told, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that there are fewer police on the roads, leading to fewer drivers being stopped (so more getting away with it).
The fatality rate from drink driving for 2013 was 1/6th of what it was in 1979 according to DfT figures. Road deaths in the UK peaked in the late 70s and early 80s. The fatality rate on the UK's roads is now at much the same level as it was in the late 1940s. This is of note, given the massive increase in vehicle numbers and total distance travelled since then.
The perceived danger of cycling on the road today is something quite different from the actual risk, which was significantly higher in the 70s and 80s and when road deaths simply weren't reported in anything like the detail they are now.
Actually Malta doesn't - Romania, Malta, Bulgaria and Ireland are the 4 European countries without strict liability.
Malta is bloody lethal. For such a tiny island, (and not even an especially hilly one either) there is virtually no cycling and certainty no cycling provision. The roads are either beautifully surfaced but dual carriageway or little more than cart tracks. And everyone drives everywhere, its just insane.
Like London but higher speeds and because there are far fewer cyclists, far less awareness of them from motorists. Which comes back to the point made so well earlier. Everyone would ride if it wasn't for the pesky motorists...but "everyone" is the problem because they're the ones choosing to drive and making it dangerous!
Italy has a well deserved reputation for mental driving and a love of fast cars too but the difference is that Italy has a rich cycling heritage and culture so its appreciated out there.
I remember Malta being mentioned in relation to the UK's embarrassing obesity rates. Weren't they one of the tiny number of countries we could point to as being worse than us?
here we go...
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110501/local/Maltese-are-amo...
I think they are pretty much level-pegging with the UK, though.
Malta does have strict liability, according to this briefing from Roadpeace: http://www.roadpeace.org/resources/RoadPeace_Strict_liability_discussion...
Point is, loads of countries already have strict liability laws. But not all of them have high rates of everyday cycling.
By the time someone's knocked you off your bike and you're arguing over who pays the medical bills, it's a bit late, isn't it?
I agree that the evidence is that strict liability doesn't do much, if anything, on its own. Personally I like the idea for simple moral reasons, it seems morally right to me that the onus should be on the one who creates the danger by wielding a dangerous weapon. It might help get back to the idea that driving is a _choice_ and a privilege, not an essential right.
But as a practical measure it probably won't change anything, plus I don't think many people in this country agree with me about the morality of it either, so I think its not the best place to expend political effort.
I cannot understand our government and local authorities.. we have a country not that far away that has implemented a cycle scheme that has been tried and tested and they paid all the money to make sure that its works and even better they would not charge us if we started to use it ourselves, but in hindsight we have decided to spend loads of money and try and do it our way because we always not best …
Also if we all jumped onto bikes tomorrow and spent less on fuel in cars, bus and trains were would the government get enough money to give themselves a 11% pay rise .. good to know we are all in it together
My office recently moved out of Nottingham city center - my 3 mile commute became a 6 mile one. The new route proved to be so dangerous that I've had to add another 3 miles on to it to reduce risks / stress levels to something I can live with. Only alternative is buy a car and become part of the problem...
Apart from the obvious fear factor, there's a couple of other things that prevent huge numbers from getting on their bikes.
Firstly, many new homes, and especially flats, are being built without bicycle storage in mind.
And secondly, there may be millions of people, often whole families, who already own bikes, and perhaps want to cycle just occasionally, but who are confronted by an obtuse industry doing everything it possibly can to change the perception of a bike from a machine capable of lasting 50 years or more, to that of one to be treated almost as a disposable item.
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