Oh, it was only a tap. I probably should have started off at the lights more quickly. These were the first words my shaken housemate told me on Sunday after being knocked from her bike by a careless driver in Brixton. There in the hallway, we shared our week’s scare stories from the capital’s cycle lanes (or lack of) – mine, a frightening near-collision with a speeding black cab driver who didn’t see me as he was turning into a side street off a poorly-lit main road.
In those slow-motion seconds waiting to be hit, my life really did flash before my eyes, as a new study last week confirmed it can. But the more frightening fact is that I was one of the lucky ones. My cycling scare came just days after a friend told me to take particular care cycling over Battersea Bridge after her poor friend had to have her leg amputated in a bike accident there last month. Last week, former lawyer Shatha Ali became the eighth cyclist to be killed in Holborn since 2008 – just months after children’s doctor Marta Krawiec fell victim to the same ‘lethal’ gyratory. The common thread between the victims in each of these stories? They’re all female.
Sustrans’ 2019 Bike Life survey found that 36 per cent of women who do not cycle would like to start - but most are put off by safety issues. It’s no wonder: studies have found female cyclists in the UK are at greater risk from lorry deaths than male cyclists and twice as likely to face “near misses” or driver harassment. Meanwhile, drivers are reportedly 3.8 times more likely to pass female cyclists too closely than they would male cyclists in what feels like an extension of wider misogynistic behaviours against women on London’s streets.
This week, on International Women’s Day, the London Cycling Campaign addressed this problem, tweeting that “women want safe, protected cycle infrastructure”. Underneath, a stream of replies confirmed this gender gap in cycle safety. “I’ve found the difference quite shocking,” said one (male) rider of how much closer drivers pass female riders than males. Another said she experienced “much less hassle, dangerous behaviour and close passing from drivers” when riding with men.
Theories for what’s behind this are wide-ranging, but the majority point to women’s tendency to cycle less aggressively. According to researchers, our increased likelihood of following the rules actually makes us more vulnerable, not less. “Women may be over-represented in (collisions with goods vehicles) because they are less likely than men to disobey red lights,” concluded one study. In other words, those who jump red lights are less likely to be caught in a driver’s blind spot and be caught alongside a column of angry traffic.
Thankfully, riding more assertively in the middle of the lane – as many men I know have done for years – was written into the new Highway Code in January. But we also need more tangible measures like they have in Paris and Lisbon, where investment in protected bike lanes and other measures has significantly boosted numbers of female cyclists. One such lane was installed outside my office in Kensington in 2020 as part of an “experiment”, before being promptly ripped down before data had even come back on its success. Of the lanes that have remained erected around London, the fact that so many of their strong metal posts have been damaged is proof enough of how desperately we need them to keep us safe.
As with all issues facing women today, this problem requires a shift in men’s behaviour, too. I regularly see male cyclists overtake me at junctions more than they do other men, assuming I’ll be slow off the mark when the lights turn green. And it’s all very well for safety campaigners to suggest cyclists should make eye contact with drivers, but for many women there is still that fear of being cat-called or harassed the moment we draw attention to ourselves.
Women’s cycle safety won’t ever be truly solved until society’s wider misogynies are, but solving cycle safety might wider repercussions for women beyond cycling. If more women felt safe to cycle, fewer of us would be left to make potentially unsafe trips on foot down poorly-lit streets. If Sadiq Khan is serious about the campaign he launched last month to end violence against women and girls, he should start by looking at those crossing the capital on two wheels. He might just find it solves a whole lot of other problems, too.
