What is it with women cyclists?

snailracer

snailracer wrote:

A thread somewhere claimed that women cyclists are given more room by overtaking vehicles. Perhaps lorries allow more room while overtaking them, which unfortunately tempts the women to squeeze into the wider gap left between lorry and kerb at the next set of lights.

Indeed, I am suggesting the opposite.

rhext

I think we're over-complicating it here.

Everyone knows that all lorry drivers hate all other human beings, and go out of their way to kill them at every opportunity.

Women are simply softer than men, and therefore come off worse in collisions.

Discuss :twisted:

dilemna

Porgy wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

Dear oh dear. :roll:

As I understand it, these incidents largely occur when a lorry driver does not see the cyclist who is to their left, on the inside at a junction. The lorry driver then turns left and hits the cyclist.

To argue that misogyny is involved implies that in fact the lorry driver DID see the cyclist, noted she was a women, and then deliberately turned in order to knock her over and harm her. In some cases this would then result in death.

In my view that is an utterly ridiculous assertion.

Dear oh dear - keep misunderstanding what i tried to say and then come back to start the argument again.

Argumentative, troublemaking, sanctimonious, smug tw@t is what you are.

and thick too by the looks of it.

I'm going on holiday now and won't be back for a while.

Taking your bucket and spade so you can continue........ digging .
Sorry I shouldn't tease a troll .
Seriously have a nice holiday and come back relaxed. Hopefully you and Mrs P get to enjoy cycling some safe truck free roads.

I post again my belief of why lady cyclists seem to get caught out around HGVs:

Am I right in guessing that fewer ladies cycle than men, yet in these types of fatalities, it is highly likely that a lady cyclist will be involved thus making it an urgent issue for female cycllists to be made aware through education and awareness training? Women tend to seek to avoid confrontation so when a driver cannot see them and the vehicle continues in it's path toward them then the results are predictable and terrible.

Also prior to an HGV/bus/van turning, especially a 40ft artic, it will swing wide so it's rear wheels can follow without mounting the nearside kerb. If lady cyclists are seeing this space opening up on the nearside between the kerb and the lorry/bus/large van as an opportunity to nip by / undertake then this might be where they are going wrong as the cab will turn more sharply than the trailer brining the nearside of the vehicle rapidly into the space it has just created. DO NOT GO THERE. If you have a GF or wifey take 10 minutes to explain to her in detail the importance of not undertaking a large vehicle such as an HGV/bus particularly bendy bus and long van because of this if there is any indication it might be turning or until you are certain which direction the vehicle is going. If in doubt keep out the way of them.

And finally I have found many HGV drivers to be the most courteous on the road. The ones that have caused me alarm are the tipper/aggragates trucks and 7.5 tonne parcel courier trucks - all tossers (generalisation I know but IMHO true). But your average HGV class 1 who drives a Sainsburys, Asda or Norbert lorry is very considerate. They have a lot to lose.

benno68

Let's simplify it further, everyone hates cyclists, some even hate each other judging by some earlier stuff on here.

I'm an average guy, not hard but not soft, but I still don't fancy my chances with an HGV.

Are women cyclists too "nice" on the whole, in that they do not want to be an inconvenience or hold up any motorists and in doing so decide to tuck into the kerbside, out of sight out of mind is a phrase that springs to mind.

Men on the other hand I believe are more assertive/aggressive and make themselves more visible by road positioning, all be it to the invonvenience of the motorists who think they own the road.

Disclaimer, not all women cyclists are too nice..., neither are all men more assertive or agressive and not all motorists think they own the road - ok ok, forget the last bit.

rhext

Benno68 wrote:

I'm an average guy, not hard but not soft, but I still don't fancy my chances with an HGV.

Call yourself a cyclist? MTFU![/b]

benno68

rhext wrote:

Benno68 wrote:

I'm an average guy, not hard but not soft, but I still don't fancy my chances with an HGV.

Call yourself a cyclist? MTFU![/b][/quote

Good call! Rhext - I'll take um on every time from now on

lost_in_thought

OK, usually when a thread has gone all narky I try to stay out... but I'm actually really interested in this because the original issue bothers me.

So...

First and foremost, I sincerely doubt that any of the HGV drivers in question actually intended to kill anyone. Whether or not I'm being naive, I don't know, but I really don't think anyone's out to get me because I'm on a bike, or am a woman, or any combination of the two.

I agree with Sewinman, these incidents seem from the reporting to occur when HGV drivers simply don't see cyclists. However, this doesn't really answer the question of why it's such a disproportionate level of women. Even just 6, that's 6 out of 7. And of any seven riders, I bet you six are men, rather than the opposite. It's odd.

And I can't work out why.

I agree with whoever said they'd like to see a panorama/dispatches on this.

dilemna

lost_in_thought wrote:

I agree with whoever said they'd like to see a panorama/dispatches on this.

T'was meeeee......
It would be good. Dispatches would really delve deep into the statistics, the beaurocracy, government policy on cycling and safety, road haulage association and families affected by losing loved ones. Jane Moore from Dispatches would be brilliant.

Si78

Hi all,

Very interesting topic.

Has anyone actually driven or sat in an artic?

I've sat in one, and I can tell you that it would be very hard to see a cyclist next to your near-side trailer wheels, while negotiating a tight left turn.

So I don't think hgv drivers are deliberately running over cyclists.

As for reasons why proportionately more lady cyclists are killed than men....I've not got the foggiest.

Maybe, as someone else posted earlier, men are just more arrogant and decisive riders.

Maybe testosterone takes over and allows us to get away with doing stupid things, or lets us escape from dangerous situations?

Also, cafewanda says she is 4'11" (how cute must you be by the way ).
Maybe some women are just not as visible as bigger blokes?

Or maybe it's just a horrible coincidence.

Stay safe people! Wear the brightest clothing you have and ride 'BIG'. Aggressive/defensive riding is the key!

Si

p.s. cafewanda, I don't mean to sound patronising! I've just got a thing for smaller women lol

Cafewanda

Si78 wrote:

Also, cafewanda says she is 4'11" (how cute must you be by the way ).
Maybe some women are just not as visible as bigger blokes

p.s. cafewanda, I don't mean to sound patronising! I've just got a thing for smaller women lol

A very nice man!

Si78

Cafewanda wrote:

Si78 wrote:

Also, cafewanda says she is 4'11" (how cute must you be by the way ).
Maybe some women are just not as visible as bigger blokes

p.s. cafewanda, I don't mean to sound patronising! I've just got a thing for smaller women lol

A very nice man!

I have my moments

Cafewanda

The women I saw were much taller than me (a 2yo is taller than me :roll: ), but still took unnecessary risks.

I ain't that brave/stupid/suicidal either!

Si78

Cafewanda wrote:

The women I saw were much taller than me (a 2yo is taller than me :roll: ), but still took unnecessary risks.

I ain't that brave/stupid/suicidal either!

Lol.
There goes my theory about smaller/less visible women...

I don't reckon a 2yo is taller than you. A 3yo, maybe...

ellieb

If you rule out a: HGV drivers targeting women and you accept that b: it is not a statistical anomaly then you are left with something that women riders are or are not doing. Trouble is that is when you start sounding sexist.

I just wonder if the aggression thing is significant in the sense that it makes men more decisive. I rarely go on the left of an HGv at a junction but if I do I make sure it isn't going to move. i.e. I make certain I know what the state of the traffic lights is and whether they are about to change. Having gone up the inside, I make sure I have a bail out option and I don't hang around. Maybe woman are more timid doing this and end up stopping inside the HGV when it is about to move.
As I say, it sounds sexist but as I said at first. If you rule out the alternatives then the fatalities must be something about the way women cycle in traffic.

Cafewanda

ellieb, you might have something there.

Another example: this morning I'm on a 8 mile run. There is a bus at the lights practically touching the kerb, but a female cyclist squeezes her way through to the front. Sunday morning traffic is light to non-existent, so she could have waited behind the bus or overtaken on the right. She didn't have a fast start either as the bus had to wait for her to sort herself out then move :roll:

Maybe some females assume drivers can see them no matter what? Maybe she needed to pee, I dunno :?

Si78

Hi again.

To be honest, I see shockingly bad and dangerous riding from both men and women at times lol

But I do think that when we (men) decide we are going to do something, then that is our single-minded goal. We will succeed at all costs. lol

Be it diving down the inside of or avoiding a hgv or bus, or having a drinking competition.

Maybe that irrational decisiveness is what is different between men and women?

Hope it doesnt come across as sexist.

It's well known we cant multi-task, and fixate purely on one thing at a time. Maybe the fixation when riding on busy roads is 'self preservation'?

jedster

And finally I have found many HGV drivers to be the most courteous on the road. The ones that have caused me alarm are the tipper/aggragates trucks and 7.5 tonne parcel courier trucks - all tossers (generalisation I know but IMHO true). But your average HGV class 1 who drives a Sainsburys, Asda or Norbert lorry is very considerate. They have a lot to lose.

+1

jedster

If you rule out a: HGV drivers targeting women and you accept that b: it is not a statistical anomaly then you are left with something that women riders are or are not doing. Trouble is that is when you start sounding sexist.

Well yes. But there are some differences between the sexes both physiological and pschological that stem from 10000s years of evolution. Note that these differences apply to averages - e.g., on average men are stronger than women but there will be a lot of women who are stronger than some men.

I'd argue that risk appetite is an area where men and women differ ON AVERAGE. Pretty obvious why this should be from an evolutionary point of view - men needed to take risks to hunt or fight for resources, women needed to avoid risks to protect vulnerable children.

Hence my thinking on women TENDING (ON AVERAGE) to be seduced by the false securiy of the kerb/being reluctant to take the real (but scary) security of the middle of the lane/road.

To make this crashingly obvious, there will be plenty of women who are more assertive/decisive and even risk seeking than the average man.

J

tarquin_foxglove

dilemna wrote:

I post again my belief of why lady cyclists seem to get caught out around HGVs:

Women tend to seek to avoid confrontation.

Do you actually know any women?

Getting back on topic, I think Roger Merriman has got it right, 6 out of 7 is an unfortunate statistical anomaly not an indication of a wider trend of bad risk averse female cyclists, good risk taking male cyclists or homicidal drivers.

7 avoidable deaths is 7 too many though.

dilemna

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

dilemna wrote:

I post again my belief of why lady cyclists seem to get caught out around HGVs:

Women tend to seek to avoid confrontation.

Do you actually know any women?

No doubt more than you given that you have a chopper as your bike, little boy :roll: . I'm sure in 6 years time when you are 18 yrs old you'll begin to realise girls exist .
My wifey certainly feels much less confident than myself cycling in heavy traffic and especially around large vehicles but then again I would prefer not to have to do it either. I am ultra cautious around HGVs.

Paulie W

If I toss a coin 7 times I may well get six tails and one head and no-one would be that surprised. If I tossed it a thousand times and the ratio was still 6:1 then I would start to wonder whether the coin was biased to tails.

Does anyone know what the longer term statistics for the gender of cyclist killed on the roads?

7 people killed in the same manner seems the significant (in all senses) statistic to me. That 6 of them were women does not suggest of itself that women cyclists are more prone to this kind of accident.

DonDaddyD

First and foremost, I sincerely doubt that any of the HGV drivers in question actually intended to kill anyone. Whether or not I'm being naive, I don't know, but I really don't think anyone's out to get me because I'm on a bike, or am a woman, or any combination of the two.

I agree with Sewinman, these incidents seem from the reporting to occur when HGV drivers simply don't see cyclists. However, this doesn't really answer the question of why it's such a disproportionate level of women. Even just 6, that's 6 out of 7. And of any seven riders, I bet you six are men, rather than the opposite. It's odd.

And I can't work out why.

I agree with whoever said they'd like to see a panorama/dispatches on this.

The logical path to conclusion.

Example first: If someone tells you they've put a cat in a box and you didn't see them do it then the cat is neither in the box or not in the box, it is neither dead or alive until you open the box or you or the cat does something for you to become aware that a cat is either in on not in the box.

Some would argue that until the moment of realisation the cat is all of the above i.e. in the box and not in the box it is both dead and alive. - Adapated from Schrödinger's cat. Quantum Theory.

For me the above applies to the discussion in that

We don't know whether the HGV driver did or did not target the cyclist, we don't know whether they did or did not see the cyclist, we don't know if the driver was or wasn't reacting because it was a women and we don't know whether it was or wasn't because of the cyclists endangered themselves (namely the supposed female tendency to ride up the left hand side).

So until a clear and definitive reason can be given as to why accidents of this nature always seem to happen to women, we have to speculate that its a combination of all possible and reasonable outcomes and therefore advise, recommend best practice and act accordingly taking all accounts into consideration.

roger_merriman

Paulie W wrote:

If I toss a coin 7 times I may well get six tails and one head and no-one would be that surprised. If I tossed it a thousand times and the ratio was still 6:1 then I would start to wonder whether the coin was biased to tails.

Does anyone know what the longer term statistics for the gender of cyclist killed on the roads?

7 people killed in the same manner seems the significant (in all senses) statistic to me. That 6 of them were women does not suggest of itself that women cyclists are more prone to this kind of accident.

stats are meanless at that levels even on total deaths per year which is 100 something it's far too low, which means that stats simply have no hope of showing any real trends.

this said like others the fact that lorry turning women cyclist does crop up on ones radar, what i don't know is why.

ellieb

Found this on another site:
'For London, from 1999 - May 2004:

87 deaths of cyclists of which 21 were female, 66 male.

Of those 21 females an astonishing 18 (85%) were killed by HGV drivers.

Another 28 of the males (around 50%) were also killed by HGVs.'

That would seeem to me to indicate a trend. I make the proprtion of male cyclists killed by HGvs at 28/66 = 42%

lost_in_thought

Interesting statistic.

biondino

Ah yes, but you could also assume that a lot of men die in reckless accidents (perhaps in part due to the same assertive/aggressive/decisiveness that it has been suggested keeps them out of HGV danger) which women for the most part avoid. So it's possible that there is a baseline figure for accidents that are NOT reckless whereby the number of men vs women killed is effectively the same (albeit with some - acceptable? - deviation).

I mean, if men as a gender routinely played russian roulette and women didn't, there'd be a lot more male gunshot deaths but that wouldn't say anything about whether they were more likely to be shot by third parties than women.

Si78

http://www.pushbikes.org.uk/ wrote:

•Lorries: HGVs typically account for 20-25 percent of cycling deaths each year, and over 50 percent in London. CTC says driver awareness of cycling issues and the design of lorries (in particular the fitting of mirrors) needs attention.

Stil can't work out why, when 3 times as many male cyclists are killed than female cyclists, half as many men are killed by HGVs than women.

biondino

Did you read my post?

edit: also more men were killed by HGVs than women! 28 to 21!

Jay dubbleU

ellieb wrote:

Found this on another site:
'For London, from 1999 - May 2004:

87 deaths of cyclists of which 21 were female, 66 male.

Of those 21 females an astonishing 18 (85%) were killed by HGV drivers.

Another 28 of the males (around 50%) were also killed by HGVs.'

That would seeem to me to indicate a trend. I make the proprtion of male cyclists killed by HGvs at 28/66 = 42%

Would be interesting to check this based on proportion of men cyclists to women - based on this the assumption is that male cyclists outnumber women 3/1

Si78

biondino wrote:

Did you read my post?

edit: also more men were killed by HGVs than women! 28 to 21!

Didnt read your post before posting mine...Got a bit distracted so was a delay in me posting it.

I was talking in % terms about the numbers killed.

nit-picker