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Cyclist with headphones (cc licensed by Adrian Midgley on Flickr)Nine in ten people back headphone ban for cyclists, says BBC survey
Nine in ten people want wearing headphones while riding a bike banned, according to a BBC poll which also found that one in six cyclists had admitted doing so.
The findings of the survey were reported this morning on BBC Breakfast, which is running a series of reports on cycling this week.
One cyclist wearing earbuds told BBC News transport correspondent Richard Wescott that he wasn’t actually listening to music, and only used them to be alerted to an incoming phone call. “I can hear you perfectly well with these,” he said.
Another acknowledged, “It’s not the safest thing you can do when you’re cycling,” but added, “it gets very boring if you’re commuting a long way in the morning and then again the afternoon, so you’ve got to live with it.”
Westcott underwent tests at Brunel University in West London in which he rode a static bike, sometimes to the accompaniment of music, at other times without it, to assess the effect on him.
Sports psychologist Costas Karageorghis, an expert on the use of music by athletes who has said that some consider it “to be a legal drug with no unwanted side effects” told the reporter that listening to it did affect levels of concentration.
“It reduces the amount of attention that’s available to deal with whatever’s going on on the road by about 10 per cent. So you’re less aware and it places you at risk,” he said.
“It’s about an immersion and it’s a combination of being lost in the music and also not having sufficient capacity to deal with what’s going on around you.”
The 89 per cent of respondents to the BBC poll is identical to the finding of a Sunday Times survey on the same issue we reported on last November after Mayor of London Boris Johnson said he wanted to ban the city’s cyclists from using headphones.
Mr Johnson made his remarks after six cyclists lost their lives on the capital’s roads during a two-week period, although as far as we are aware none were reported to have been wearing headphones.
In an interview with BBC Radio London’s Vanessa Feltz, he said: "I'm very alarmed about cyclists wearing headphones. I would not be against a prohibition or ban on cyclists wearing headphones.
“Call me illiberal but it makes me absolutely terrified to see them bowling along unable to hear the traffic."
A government source subsequently said that there were no plans to introduce legislation to make the use of headphones while cycling illegal, pointing out it would mean deaf people should not cycle either, and that the Highway Code already advised cyclists and motorists to avoid distractions.
In a magazine article published today on the BBC News website, John Franklin, author of the book Cyclecraft, told the BBC that the use of hearing to be aware of what was happening around you, such as the sound of a motorist accelerating, was more important for cyclists than for other road users.
"In order to ride safely on the road, you need to be aware all the time of what's happening all around you - not just in front of you," he said.
"To be distracted in any way through headphones is a big mistake," he added.
Unlike issues such as cycle helmets, which saw Chris Boardman come under criticism for not wearing one in a film for BBC Breakfast earlier this week, there has not been much research into the effect of headphones on the safety of cyclists is lacking.
"It's probably so obvious that it's a silly thing to do that no-one will get research funding," said Dr Ian Garrard of Brunel University, who has published research on how much space drivers gave him while cycling depending on the clothing he was wearing.
However, a study published in 2011 in the journal Transportation Research by researchers from the University of Groningen said that "listening to music resulted in reduced visual and auditory perception and reduced speed" and could also affect the stability of the cyclist.
It added: "Negative effects are very large when in-earbuds are used. Negative effects of high volume and fast tempo on auditory perception were found,” although “no negative effects were found when listening to music using only one earbud."
The BBC Breakfast report concluded with Westcott taking a spin on a tandem with Roger Geffen, campaigns and policy director at national cyclists’ charity CTC, who said he was against banning headphones.
“It’s probably going to make a bit of a difference particularly if you wear completely enclosed headphones and/or you play music at very high volumes.
“But you can probably say exactly the same for pedestrians and there’s no evidence to suggest that it’s a bigger deal for cycle safety than for pedestrian safety,” he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Probably a friend of Herbie, or Christine.
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Although she was deputy Mayor of London for Transport, she is now MP for Swindon South.
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59 comments
I agree, it is stupid and oppressive
What am I supposed to do when I hear a car behind me?
Get out of the way, bloody cyclists.
9 out of 10 DRIVERS think headphones should be banned.
Do as I say, don't do as I do.
9 out of 10 headphone wearers think drivers should be banned.
There.
9/10 people who don't have the first idea what they're talking about evidently.
I wear headphones when riding and listen to loud music through them, but guess what, I'm still the first one out of the way when a siren is coming, I also don't wander around in the road in front of people without looking, unlike so many pedestrians I have to avoid each day.
I don't tell people how to do their jobs, I'd like them to stop telling me how to do mine.
For all I agree with much of the above, you just can't compare the effect of wearing headphones and listening to a car stereo. A radio on the bike or clipped to clothing would be a better comparison. It's not so much the blocking out of sound that bothers me about headphone use on the road (no matter what your mode of transport is). It's that that feeling you get as though you are in a tiny, self-contained bubble.
A self contained bubble? or did you mean a car? What's the difference?
9/10 people can be made outraged about nearly anything if the questions are leading enough.
I haven't watched any of these features on BBC Breakfast, I'm more a Radio 4 man in the morning. But for anyone that has, have they at any point covered useful safety advice, such as good positioning?
And by covered, I don't mean mentioned. I mean actually covered it by showing someone on a bike where they should be riding in specific situations out in traffic.
It seems a lot of people want to paint cyclists as engineers of their own demise.
When we're not RLJing, daring to ride without a helmet or positioning ourselves anywhere that's not in the gutter we are surely committing some other crime against humanity that means we 'deserve' to die at the hands of a texting, speeding or myopic driver who innocently was going about their business.
This article makes me want to wear headphones while riding, just to piss off 89% of the population. I won't listen to music or anything else, just be seen wearing them.
Although I don't use headphones, I agree with all you just said.
I think we should ban being on the road in a sound-proofed box with a loud stereo inside!
But I'm silly obviously. Car drivers never hurt anybody.
My car has double-glazed windows for better sound attenuation; better ban those too.
First of all, stop parents driving kids to school, because they can be an even worse distraction.
I take it the deaf not drive or ride bikes!
Better tell my 75yr mother with 14% hearing to stop riding.
As for the loss of concentration from cd/radios, sat nav and mobiles. Next they'll be calling for the banning of computers as they distract you. Oh why stop there ban potholes so that we can concentrate on them moving metal boxes and walkers.
On the rare occasions when i do cycle with headphones i will make up for the lack of hearing by checking over my shoulder at more regular intervals. But i get not everyone will do this and I can how some drivers might be nervous about approaching some cyclists wearing a heavy duty set of dre beats.
But what is it with all of these polls? Seems these days there are a million polls discussing what cyclists should or shouldn't do from a non-cyclist point of view.
Maybe Road.cc should conduct its own polls on what cyclists think car/lorry/bus drivers should or shouldn't be doing.
and sometimes i day dream whilst cycling and forget where i am, should we ban day dreams?
Feltz said: "I would not be against a prohibition or ban on cyclists wearing headphones. Call me illiberal but it makes me absolutely terrified to see them bowling along unable to hear the traffic."
So how does she know that none of them could still hear the traffic? Did she stop and ask them all? Or is she just making this up as usual? Is she terrified by the deaf cycling too?
That was Boris, not Feltz. Easily confused, mind.
Oops, missed that; thanks for the correction.
Is the BBC planning to spend the whole week barking up the wrong trees with regard to cycle safety?
Is the BBC planning to spend the whole week barking up the wrong trees with regard to cycle safety?
Probably! And they don't allow comments either, which is pretty lame.
As for the topic, I'd happily see headphones banned - as long as they were for all road users, along with any other source of distraction such as, er, car radios! It was interesting in that piece that the researchers suggested that a cyclist with headphones on (presumably at a less-than-hard-rock volume) could hear more around them than a car occupant with the windows closed and the radio off!
I don't and won't use headphones, because I want all my senses fully available. But banning headphones has really sinister ramifications for, say, deaf riders - not to mention that if anyone took this seriously, they might actually extend this to include pedestrians and car radios!
Ah, if it moves, ban it...
I have no problem with this, as long as it is extended to pedestrians and joggers in particular, and of course car radios
What balmybaldwin said! x2! Hands up if you have had trouble passing pedestrians on shared use paths lately, now that everyone and their granny is plugged into a "portable music player" all the f-ing time!
this is why I also have a 146 dB electronic horn for use on dozy fools who ignore or can't hear my frenzied bell ringing...
If music reduces concentration per se (and by ten per cent eh? that's a suspiciously round number for something that's not generically measurable as a number) then why are medical surgeons who use it found to perform better?
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/26/music-for-surgery
The science is weak, the opinion is strong: If one was particularly cynical one might almost suspect the BBC is taking its cycling agenda from UKIP's transport manifesto. But, at best, it certainly doesn't seem to be rigorous.
I would contend that even the Groningen study by de Waard is pretty flawed; more importantly, that it's almost universally misinterpreted:
http://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/the-sounds-of-scienc
Should definitely ban car stereos. Very distracting.
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