90% scared of cycling in UK cities — new research suggests fear of collisions, road rage and theft putting people off

I think the problem is in the last sentence e.g. it would be far less than "not popular" with traditional motorists in the form you've suggested.

As often recently I can only recommend listening to Chris Boardman on the reality and practical ways we can start to change our streets.  He actually doesn't mention cycling very much - quite sensible because most people aren't cycling in the UK and most currently don't consider it.  So just saying "you have to cycle / give up most of your roadspace right now" will just get you a "No" from most people and you'll fail.

The vision of "just remove all the cars" / "just make all the drivers perfect" is a tempting illusion, but just that.  There isn't a "single hop" path to there from here.

There is a way to start changing things though - but it's slower and messier and more complicated AND probably boring to most.  It involves multiple different changes (including addressing public transport and indeed where amenities are).  But it's the only way that has actually worked in practice (in several places, some which started "from nothing") - barring war, revolution (also tends to be bloody) or the fuel running out of course.  It's not just bikes - but unless you fix it for people to use bikes (where they just won't currently) the whole isn't achievable.

Actually, while I can't comment about base jumping - not gonna get me  doing anything relying on equipment that has a potential single point of failure - in my personal experience both diving with sharks & free climbing *feel* a great deal safer than anything involving motorised vehicles in a large city.

the little onion wrote:

The solutions are either:

-build high quality infrastructure,

-build infrastructure that is of high quality

-build infrastructure, and make sure the quality is high.

Out of curiosity, why do you believe this when all evidence is to the contrary?

Infrastructure construction has not yet once, in the history available to us, decreased the fatality rate of cyclists.  Each time it has been attempted, the municipality in question has watched it fail, at the unnecessary cost of time, money, and lives, and then been forced to pivot to the strategies that do work to improve cyclist safety -- specifically, reducing the volume and lawlessness of traffic, particularly motor vehicles.

We can see this most-obviously right now in the Netherlands, which has been investing in cycling infrastructure since approximately WWII, and yet has a shockingly-high rate of cyclist fatalities ( averaging 280 annually, from a quite-small population that cycles very slowly and over very short distances, per their official statistics ).  So, despite all that infrastructure, the Dutch are pivoting to the strategies I just mentioned, and implementing 20kph limits __for cyclists__ , never mind what they're forced to do with motor vehicles.

It profoundly does not matter how much concrete and paint you pour.  Without enforced traffic laws, roads will remain dangerous -- for everyone.  But the catch is, if you can enforce traffic laws, you don't need infrastructure dedicated to specific vehicle types -- which does not work, due largely to intersections, and doesn't scale at all, and is sufficiently environmentally-unfriendly as to undo any benefit resulting from a mode-share change.  So why not skip wasting time, money, lives, concrete, and paint and just enforce existing laws?  We already know this works, since Japan has done it.  Why not try the strategy that works, and skip the ones that we know don't?  It is already quite illegal to kill or injure  pedestrians and cyclists with a vehicle, but those laws remain effectively un-enforced and that is the entire problem.

I'm not sure you are correct. Pavements are specific infrastructure for a specific group. Would you suggest doing away with those? If you have contiguous, safe cycle routes that avoid busy roads then of course people will use them and feel safer doing so. The KSI rate in the Netherlands may be high but how many people, as a percentage of population and journeys, cycle in the Netherlands? Surely more  than the 2% in the UK

Some stats on who cycles in NL, when, how far and some crash and casualty data by eg. cause and age, in English (there's a ton of this available online).

https://english.kimnet.nl/publications/publications/2024/01/10/cycling-f...

Turns out that if you have tons of people cycling there are plenty of "no other vehicle involved" cycle crashes, and if lots of those people cycling are young or quite old those are the people you mostly see in A&E. Who'd have thought it!

chrisonabike wrote:

Turns out that if you have tons of people cycling there are plenty of "no other vehicle involved" cycle crashes

For extremely widely varying definitions of "tons". The number of cyclists in the United States is roughly 13 times the number of Dutch cyclists.

And yet, the Netherlands racks up about 1/3rd of the cycling fatalities that the US sees.

dh700 wrote:

For extremely widely varying definitions of "tons". The number of cyclists in the United States is roughly 13 times the number of Dutch cyclists. And yet, the Netherlands racks up about 1/3rd of the cycling fatalities that the US sees.

Note for those who have missed our American cousin's interpretation of statistics previously: he works off data which includes anyone in the USA who has cycled a bike once in the past 12 months as a cyclist.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Note for those who have missed our American cousin's interpretation of statistics previously: he works off data which includes anyone in the USA who has cycled a bike once in the past 12 months as a cyclist.

Fine -- cut the number to regular cyclists. The rate is still lower than the Netherlands', and by a significant margin. And that's without counting most of the "invisible cyclists" ( cf https://www.bicycling.com/news/a20049826/how-low-income-cyclists-go-unno... )

And, just for the record, what magic prevents occasional cyclists from being killed?

How many regular cyclists are you claiming for the USA? With a data source please: here's mine, 54 million cyclists even if you include people who only take a bike ride once a year. You claim that the USA has "roughly 13 times the number of cyclists than the Netherlands", which would mean about 200 million cyclists in the USA. Do you have the data to match your assertions?

Rendel Harris wrote:

How many regular cyclists are you claiming for the USA? With a data source please: here's mine, 54 million cyclists even if you include people who only take a bike ride once a year.

Fairly sure we've been over this -- you are quoting adult cyclists. There are an additional 80M or so children, and the enormous majority of them bike ( or scooter, these days, but that's an irrelevant distinction from a road safety standpoint).

Rendel Harris wrote:

You claim that the USA has "roughly 13 times the number of cyclists than the Netherlands", which would mean about 200 million cyclists in the USA. Do you have the data to match your assertions?

You are using an erroneously high count -- about 15M -- for the Netherlands. There are barely even that many Dutch. The actual number is around 10M.

Meanwhile, every study done in the US -- from well before the Pandemic bike boom or the advent of most micro mobility sharing systems -- found that around 1 in 3 Americans bikes at least annually.

"Within the preceding 30 days, 21% of the 4170 adult respondents reported riding a bicycle. Of the 863 adult bicycle riders, 5% rode a bicycle every day, 25% rode several times per week, 15% rode once a week, 27% rode a few times per month, and 27% rode once per month."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5189688/

"Nearly three-fourths of those age 16 or older (72.1%) never rode a bicycle or had
not done so during a 30-day period over the summer of 2002."
https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/browse-statistical-prod...

So yeah, as a matter of fact, I do have the data.

As an aside, the US scores very poorly for road safety in comparison to other developed nations. It has about 4x the number of road related fatalities/head of population that the UK has and about 3x that of the Netherlands. And some states in the US perform particularly poorly for road deaths and serious injuries. Texas has the worst record for DUI although Florida is bad too and the rule of thumb is that southern states are worse than those in the north. There were more road deaths in NC in 2021 than in the whole of the UK.

OldRidgeback wrote:

As an aside, the US scores very poorly for road safety in comparison to other developed nations. It has about 4x the number of road related fatalities/head of population that the UK has and about 3x that of the Netherlands.

Really Bob Woodward? That's some investigation right there.

Now compare the geography of those countries, and miles-traveled. It turns out that no country in the world has a road system that compares to the US' for a variety of very good reasons. Should US roads be safer than they are? Absolutely -- but that is entirely the fault of our indolent entity that we euphemistically call "law enforcement".

dh700 wrote:

OldRidgeback wrote:

As an aside, the US scores very poorly for road safety in comparison to other developed nations. It has about 4x the number of road related fatalities/head of population that the UK has and about 3x that of the Netherlands.

Really Bob Woodward? That's some investigation right there. Now compare the geography of those countries, and miles-traveled. It turns out that no country in the world has a road system that compares to the US' for a variety of very good reasons. Should US roads be safer than they are? Absolutely -- but that is entirely the fault of our indolent entity that we euphemistically call "law enforcement".

I'm not sure why you chose to be sarcastic. Yes, I'm a journalist. Yes, my job involves reporting on road safety and I've spoken with a lot of experts in the field over the years. I see a lot of road crash data from the likes of the DfT here in the UK and the FHWA in the US. 

In most developed nations (and most developing nations too), the rate of road fatalities dropped during the COVID 19 pandemic when travel restrictions were imposed. The US bucked this trend, with an increase in road deaths. According to the FHWA, speeding and DUI offences became significantly more common.

The US has a serious problem with road safety and as I pointed out, some states are particularly bad. I travel to the US very regularly (i've been to 27 states, more than most US citizens probably) and have done for years. I often drive there, as well as cycling and motorcycling.

There are solvable road safety problems in the US and other nations have shown the way. France has halved its annual rate of road deaths over the last 10 years by getting tough on speeding and drink driving offences and ensuring that drivers can't wriggle out of charges. Yes, the French could teach the Americans some pretty simple lessons on how to cut road deaths.

Driving education and standards aren't good in many US states and I've heard that directly from US police officers as well as from officials at the FHWA. Only a few states allow police officers to use breath testing equipment to detect DUI for example, despite this having been proven over many decades elsewhere around the world. The same applies to drug testing kits, also proven elsewhere in the world.

OldRidgeback wrote:

There are solvable road safety problems in the US and other nations have shown the way. France has halved its annual rate of road deaths over the last 10 years by getting tough on speeding and drink driving offences and ensuring that drivers can't wriggle out of charges. Yes, the French could teach the Americans [and we Blighters] some pretty simple lessons on how to cut road deaths.

Isn't this a glaringly obvious answer to carmageddon? If a pack of mad dogs were running loose and biting all & sundry, sometimes to death, we'd remove that pack toot-sweet, would we not? Just because its mad humans doesn't, at bottom, change that obvious solution, even if the removal process would be dialled down from "shoot the mad blighters" to "take them from their cars".

I confess that it annoys me - cyclists bleating for a seprate infrastructure with its vast costs & environmental damage (paving over yet more of the paradise the same cyclists claim to value riding their bikes in). They'd be happy to ignore the continuing carmageddon if riding with an inadeqaute protection strip "protecting" them from the roaring car-dogs. As long as they have their own very expensive strips of protected road they're content to see the carnage amongst others continue - perhaps whilst running down a ped-in-my-way on the laughably-named "shared" infrastructure sections.

We humans invented laws for a reason. The reason was to prevent a war of all against all by stopping of acts damaging others, making such acts punishable to do so. We already have traffic laws that in theory extract and prevent mad car-dogs from murdering & maiming. All a society has to do, really, is apply the already extant laws. ........

Although I'd make traffic laws even tougher, myself, with punishments making miscreants pay-back a recompence rather than putting them into very expensive gaols wherein they become even more anti-social as they drain the tax coffers.

The infrastructuraists will add another bleat agin' this apply-the-law solution to carmageddon.  "The cost". But effective policing and subsequent punishments can pay for themselves, not just from the fines and car-confiscations but from vast savings in other effects, from less NHS expense in mending the maimed to the many good effects of a greater well-being amongst the millions affected over a lifetime by the murder or maiming of their loved ones.

PS And don't forget the vast savings of not having to build hugely expensive cycling infrastructure.

The problem is - the dogs here vote. (Or rather dog-owners - in fact in this land it's mostly dogs and dog-fanciers). The mad dogs (or those with irresponsible owners) look the same as the well-trained ones; the former are rather rare and the latter sometimes also bite and kill unpredictably - "but they couldn't do anything to prevent it - it was a tragic accident" / "he is just terrified of cyclists".

There is little interest in dog-safety in this land, because deaths are not that frequent and we all accept that some will die from being bitten because obviously we need dogs. Most can't imagine how they'd cope without their own useful, well-behaved dog.

It is a mark of adulthood to own a dog. People try to make themselves look more consequential with expensive pedigree pooches. Parents take big dogs on the school run "to protect the children".

Oh and the incredibly wealthy dog breeders and dog-food manufacturers have turned the politicians and police into poodles. (And obviously *they* are all dog-owners!)

In this context feel free to bring forward your bill for shooting dogs (or restricting where they can be walked, or removing some kennel-spaces)...

chrisonabike wrote:

The problem is - the dogs here vote. (Or rather dog-owners - in fact in this land it's mostly dogs and dog-fanciers). The mad dogs (or those with irresponsible owners) look the same as the well-trained ones; the former are rather rare and the latter sometimes also bite and kill unpredictably - "but they couldn't do anything to prevent it - it was a tragic accident" / "he is just terrified of cyclists". There is little interest in dog-safety in this land, because deaths are not that frequent and we all accept that some will die from being bitten because obviously we need dogs. Most can't imagine how they'd cope without their own useful, well-behaved dog. It is a mark of adulthood to own a dog. People try to make themselves look more consequential with expensive pedigree pooches. Parents take big dogs on the school run "to protect the children". Oh and the incredibly wealthy dog breeders and dog-food manufacturers have turned the politicians and police into poodles. (And obviously *they* are all dog-owners!) In this context feel free to bring forward your bill for shooting dogs (or restricting where they can be walked, or removing some kennel-spaces)...

You've taken (that analogy) too far!

Whislt its true that loudmouth anti-LTNers and similar will rant loudly about their rights to risk murdering and maiming others by vrooming, they are in fact a very small minority. Endless surveys reveal that a large majority don't want to be run over by a car loon. And were such surveys ever really needed to know this?

A serious policing of motorists according to the already extant law is going to offend no one other than the car loons who are caught and denied further access to their "weapon of choice". Well, no one other than the gutter press and various proto-fascists who need something-anything to employ as a means to recruit others of their ilk to their paradoxically unpopular populist cause.

*******

How much longer must we peasants cater to the unholy wants of the various tiny but powerful (or just loud, courtesy of that gutter press) elements demanding that they be allowed to do what they want no matter how damaging?

And lets not have that false dichotomy that brands every one who wants or needs to drive as identical to the murdering & maiming carloons or the seriously incompetant. As any cyclist who uses the roads rather than running down peds on a footpath knows, the great majority of British drivers in most places are considerate, with no desire to murder or maim. They too would like rid of the car loons.  After all, they're probably in more danger from vroomers than even we cyclists.

Well I hope it was ridiculous... still haven't found a good source to gauge the ratio of the relative damage done by a few "murdering and maiming carloons" to that caused by "once in a lifetime tragic accidents" by careful and considerate drivers.

Going back to the article though - people are saying "we won't cycle (so we'll probably end up driving more short trips) because of car-fear". Now I'm sure that is not the only reason (indeed I wonder just how important it is) BUT that is what period consistently say.

I just don't believe nicking done drivers then pointing to the same busy road (you appear to suggest the bad drivers are a small minority - I'd generally agree) with cars, buses and lorries going at 30mph or more and saying "send your kids out in complete safety now! " is going to make anyone cycle who doesn't do so already.

Whereas in the places that have moved from total motor dominance and no cycling to mass cycling (even at just 10% of trips, say) like those in Europe as far as I'm aware they still have bad and careless drivers (though they may have a slightly more observant average driver). They've just reduced the number of places where vulnerable road users have to interact with lots of fast motor vehicles, and reduced speeds and volumes of motor traffic where people do mix (eg. residential areas - by blocking through-traffic) . (In fact they've even reduced the places where *drivers* interact with other drivers going in a different direction - see their "turbo-roundabouts" and the national ban on overtaking on some single lane roads! )

chrisonabike wrote:

I just don't believe nicking done drivers then pointing to the same busy road (you appear to suggest the bad drivers are a small minority - I'd generally agree) with cars, buses and lorries going at 30mph or more and saying "send your kids out in complete safety now! " is going to make anyone cycle who doesn't do so already.

 

How do novices come to take up anything that has a potential for injury? If the attraction is large enough, they consider the actual injuries suffered by those already doing it then decide if they'll take the risk. 

But perhaps what they mostly do is listen to or read the scuttlebutt put about concerning the activity. Personally I think this scuttlebutt is the main inhibitor arround safety fears and cycling, not the actual injury rate. The scuttlebutt is part of the gutter press campaign agin' cycling. And part of the schtick here to get clicks.

So, two factors that need improving; injury rates to cyclists from cars (persecute the carloons and prevent the incompetant from driving); quality of info concerning the injury rates.

The latter is the hard part, as it would need some serious limitations on the freedumbs of the gutter press to LIE AND LIE AND LIE. But this website could do a better job too, eh?

chrisonabike wrote:

Whereas in the places that have moved from total motor dominance and no cycling to mass cycling (even at just 10% of trips, say) like those in Europe as far as I'm aware they still have bad and careless drivers (though they may have a slightly more observant average driver). They've just reduced the number of places where vulnerable road users have to interact with lots of fast motor vehicles, and reduced speeds and volumes of motor traffic where people do mix.

If we extend your argument for a seprated cycling infrastructure to all other matters in which dangerous and aggresive loons murder and maim others, we'll need to restrict or canalise all sort of activities and the folk doing them. An oft-quoted example concerns women and rape. Should we have a seprate infrastructure dedicated to women going about that's closed off to men? Or should we deal with those certain types of men?

DItto endless other groups who are highly predated upon, such as children; and LGBTQIA+ folk; and Muslims in areas frequented by the islamophobic; and ..... All, according to your argument when generalised, must have their own separate infrastructure for their exclusive goings-about, banned to other in case those others are incompetant humans filled with a violent intolerance or lust.

***********

I'm not suggesting its easy to deal with carloons, incompetant drivers, rapists or the lustful and violent. But I am suggesting that its necessary to attempt to do so if we're to claim we live in a civilised society.

Or are you going to give me another, "It's just the way the world works" excuse for building more barriers between us all?

Well Gandhi - sometimes it's just better to keep the bull in a field with a fence round, not in the playground. I'm all for barriers round the race course (horse, motorbike or F1). I am not at all troubled by barriers separating me from people in high speed trains, or on motorways. (Although if they've built a motorway *though* the city I'll know the reason why, and it better not impede people crossing that direction - but that is old-style motornormativity!)

And it's probably an idea - sadly - to keep the road further from the school to reduce the chance of parents with their SUVs from driving them into the school because occasionally one has a "moment of madness" or "medical episode", as has happened).

I'm just interested in how eg. we practically give the kids a way to cycle to school that doesn't involve sharing with cars doing 30 (plus). Making it so parents let them cycle to school doesn't stop us having police and arresting the (thankfully rare) nutcases doing 60 through there (and it's not a one-and-done - seems the UK is quite capable of generating a stream of people who'll drive while high, or won't give a stuff about careful driving because they're already a gangster etc.)

So it's really simple - let's fix it so more of the next generation of kids can cycle to school, or old people get about without always needing a car. There's a way to do it (using multiple tools including but not limited to "separate cycle infra") which has worked in multiple places. It's cost-efficient - nay excellent value for money and relatively cheap and opens up tons of other benefits. Why wouldn't anyone want to do that?

I don't think the press is helpful but (apart from a recent "culture war", some poor rags as you mention and the BBC for some reason) they tend to reflect the prevailing mood (plus of course their sometimes bonkers proprietors). Nobody apart from a few current self-identifying cyclists is influenced by what appears on road.cc

Finally (for some reason I feel I should add) the Netherlands (and indeed Belgium) is still rather noted for tough, fearless cyclists. Safer cycling isn't stopping those who want to push it. Just making it safer and more convenient for them AND everyone else.

Tbf most quoted & published UK cycling stats about trips and miles, use the same metric. So it's consistent.

stonojnr wrote:

Tbf most quoted & published UK cycling stats about trips and miles, use the same metric. So it's consistent.

That's as maybe, the point is that he is claiming that the US has 13 times the cyclists of the Netherlands, which would mean about 200 million minimum; as per the statistics I've illustrated below, only 54 million Americans cycle even once per year.

Rendel Harris wrote:

That's as maybe, the point is that he is claiming that the US has 13 times the cyclists of the Netherlands, which would mean about 200 million minimum; as per the statistics I've illustrated below, only 54 million Americans cycle even once per year.

So you're going to leave this up, even after I corrected you?

Well the "widely varying definitions" aren't mine... Could the US population be larger than that of NL?  Let's have a look - the internet says:

345,426,571 vs. 18,228,742

I reckon that's about 19 times bigger?  So that alone would supply an answer to your query, but wait, there's more!

I'm not sure where you're getting your US cycling stats but another case of comparing apples and oranges most likely.

In NL most people - of all ages = cycle at some point for any journey type (shopping, commuting, going to school, going to leisure activities - and some "just cycling").  In the UK and the US most people don't.

Those that do in the UK tend to be cycling in specific circumstances (food delivery cyclists which is a very recent development and its own somewhat depressing rabbit hole, "sports cyclists" and small amounts of "because we can't afford a car / got banned" and recreation (often "drive to the ride" or at a holiday park)).  The demographic doesn't reflect wider society either (by age, gender etc.)  The exceptions with greater numbers are places which have already reduced motor traffic and ... places with motor-vehicle free cycle infra.

Returning to the original story - on "fear" I think the picture that Chris Boardman put up at one of his recent talks conveys where we should be aiming (and how to actually achieve change - after all why not do something that's been shown in practice to address exactly that concern, in many places [1] [2] [3] [4] ...?).

chrisonabike wrote:

Well the "widely varying definitions" aren't mine... Could the US population be larger than that of NL?  Let's have a look - the internet says:

If you had to look that up, you're probably beyond your depth here.

chrisonabike wrote:

I reckon that's about 19 times bigger?  So that alone would supply an answer to your query, but wait, there's more!

I didn't have a query, I explained the relevant statistics.

chrisonabike wrote:

In NL most people - of all ages = cycle at some point for any journey type (shopping, commuting, going to school, going to leisure activities - and some "just cycling").  In the UK and the US most people don't.

The former is far less true than you think -- a reference to which has already been posted here. Basically, the Dutch ride down the block, but beyond that, they drive. ( Cf https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/best-kept-secret-dutch-biking-dutch-... once again)

And you will find in all those examples you cited, it was not construction that was effective, it was the decimation of traffic and increase in enforcement -- as I previously explained.

Well hello again.  Hope you're still enjoying the ride.  What's got you excited again after all this time?

I thought you also previously explained that you were above personal sniping and only posted on stuff you knew etc?

I'm surprised you're using the US as an example.  You could point to Antarctica - zero cycling fatalities and they needed no infra at all!

Seems as last time you see a triumph of theory over practice (or reality).  Or maybe you actually got to visit some of these places and are here to tell us it's a lie (turned out wrong since the last time e.g. I visited) - all the videos were filmed in a lot in Los Angeles?

You're quite right that reducing the speed and volume of motor traffic definitely helped in NL but "decimation" is an odd word to use - particularly when motor traffic distance driven has increased (at a greater rate than population increase from e.g. 2022-2017).  Some of that is "through traffic" no doubt.  What has been reduced is local traffic.  But how on earth could that happen?  Could those bikes (and of course improvements in public transport and the growth of local amenties - that people don't need to drive to) have had something to do with it?  I wonder why more people chose to ride rather than drive - perhaps it was made easier and more pleasant in some way?

No idea on the policing assertion (I would hope it was a bit better also) but I'm sure you'll have the numbers...?

chrisonabike wrote:

Well hello again.  Hope you're still enjoying the ride.  What's got you excited again after all this time?

I'm wondering if his Mrs ran off with a Dutch cyclist? There must be some explanation for this monomaniacal desire desperately to try to prove the utterly risible assertion that the USA is actually more of a cycling nation than the Netherlands.