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Cyclist in Edinburgh (licensed CC BY-2.0 by Mark Morgan on Flickr).jpg"Road safety remains the biggest barrier to more people cycling": Research suggests more than two thirds of Scots think not feeling safe is main barrier to cycling
Cycling Scotland has published its latest research into attitudes towards cycling and concluded that while "most people now recognise the benefits", road safety "remains the biggest barrier to more people cycling".
The research, published in The Herald, found that more than two thirds of people in Scotland consider not feeling safe on the roads the biggest barrier to making more cycle journeys, while 37 per cent said they would cycle more if they were more confident.
In terms of making roads safer for cyclists, 62 per cent said that they support re-allocating road space for cycling in their area, measures that could bring widely accepted benefits such as 88 per cent who believe cycling could improve health and wellbeing, a figure that has risen in comparison with 2022.
Denise Hamilton of Cycling Scotland said the survey from autumn 2023 shows that overall "most people now recognise the benefits of cycling, including health and happiness, saving money and it being a lot better for our environment than driving".
"However, road safety remains the biggest barrier to more people cycling and our new research focusing on people from minority ethnic backgrounds in Scotland shows significantly lower levels of access to bikes and confidence in riding a bike," she said.
"To make our roads safer, a network of dedicated cycling lanes, separated from traffic, is the biggest priority to enable anyone to cycle — and it's really encouraging that two thirds of people in Scotland support the reallocation of road space in their local area for cycling.
"We also need to continue to support more people to access bikes and cycle training. We encourage anyone with an interest in everyday cycling to read this research."
The 2023 figure for bike ownership was 37 per cent, representing a slight decline on 2017 and 2019 when 43 per cent was noted. Men and people from middle class backgrounds are still more likely to have access to a bike in Scotland than women or people from working class backgrounds, while the total proportion of people who would consider cycling has fallen again to 40 per cent, compared with 43 per cent in 2022 and 45 per cent in 2021.
> Scottish Government urged to spend more on public transport and less on cycling
The percentage of people cycling at least once a week remains fairly stable, 10 per cent saying they do in 2023, versus 12 per cent in 2021 and 2022.
When looking at replies from those in an ethnic minority background, Cycling Scotland found that less than one in five people from an ethnic minority background said they have access to an adult bike, a stat that compares with more than a third of the rest of the population.
Likewise, 49 per cent of respondents from an ethnic minority background said they would make more cycle journeys if they were more confident, a number that compares with 37 per cent of the wider population.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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46 comments
There's a perception amongst non-cyclists that cycling is dangerous, but it's not born out by reality. I've cycled for 50 years, commuted to work by bike for 42 years and the only time I've been knocked off by a car was whilst riding a time trial on the A1. people are actually lazy and don't want to get all sweaty on a bike, but wouldn't admit that in a survey.
A carrot and stick approach is needed. London has shown the way. Make driving slow, inconvenient and expensive. Build infra for cycling and some people will switch. Stevenage did the second bit but not the first.
Again objective vs subjective safety:
https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2008/09/three-types-of-safety.html...
Btw, that article is nearly 20 years old...
You've been knocked off once but how many times have you avoided a collision by anticipating the danger and or taking avoiding action.
It's the subjective view that puts people off, in many cases born out of experience of inconsiderate, even if not life threatening, driving. My wife who has cycled every where nearly all her life has recently been put off cycling on the road by just such driving to the extent that we used the cycle path for our last jaunt. It was a slower and longer journey but much more enjoyable due to the fact the we could relax and not worry about drivers.
Four recent submission to the police. Two were inconsiderate forcing me to brake and change direction, unspecified action taken. Two were close passes at around 60mph, no further action. I didn't get knocked off but I was bloody scared.
Quite, I haven't been knocked off my bike this century but every single day I ride in London I could, were I so inclined and had the time, get multiple drivers fined and pointed for careless/dangerous driving. I think experienced cyclists (including me) who have become accustomed to dangerous driving and also have learned how to anticipate it in a wide variety of different situations forget just how frightening heavy traffic can seem to those just starting out on the roads.
every single day I ride in
LondonLancashire I could, were I so inclinedand had the timeand if the b*****d police had not completely abandoned the concept of evidence and were not so hostile to cyclists and in sympathy with law-breaking drivers, get multiple drivers fined and pointed for careless/dangerous drivinghttps://upride.cc/incident/n10hut_bmw_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/dg07tmo_mbvito_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/rx17mxlpn66kna_2lorriestogether_closepass/
Absolutely, only on the roads for an hour today, and I could submit at least 10 close passes, if i thought it would make any difference, 3 of them were within no more than a few inches of hitting me.
Yet another 'report'. Ask every regular voting cyclist what makes cycling difficult and they'll say the same things again and again and again.
We don't need any more reports or surveys. We need councillors, politicians, police, highway planners and Daily Mail wielding gammons to cease being utterly stupid and addicted to car culture. It's a huge cultural problem similar to the obesogenic issues it partly causes.
People who only drive and do little exercise have short healthspans even if their lifespans are long. This healthcare burden isn't just financial, ask any family with dementia care.
Cycling isn't a panacea, but it's damn close.
We need joined up government between
to change attitudes and behaviour to support the Hierarchy of Responsibility and make cycling a protected characteristic so that mainstream media cannot continue it's othering of cyclists.
More than a cyclist being a worked example that attitude drives behaviour to better safety and inclusion.
Obviously the equality issue already exists in that women are especially disabled from cycling by the road danger and perception of it.
Unfortunately you can easily stop being a "cyclist" by not cycling. So unlike the other characteristics I don't see this happening in any way. (Avoiding any other debate about the rights and wrongs of the concept in general, that's waaay beyond a cycling forum).
I'm not even sure some specific law to stop people abusing cyclists because cycling is a helpful thing to achieve more cycling. As far as I can see no such thing is in place where there is actual mass cycling.
I know - chicken and egg again. Where everyone cycles few people are going to shout "but cyclists!"
It's my right to identify as a cyclist whenever I want to, which is all the time. It's not reasonable for protected characteristics to be applied inconsistently. What's right for one is for all..
The law against discrimination to protected characteristics already exists so only inclusion of cyclists is required. Characteristics are protected due to the evidence of harm, which already exists (KSI).
The number of people citing road safety as the reason for not cycling far exceeds the number of people who actually would cycle if roads were safer. (they are not THAT dangerous, cyclist life expectancy is above the norm so the health benefits outweigh the safety risk.)
What it comes down to is convenience, driving routes are often more direct, quicker easier and sometimes bike parking is further from the required destination.
Cycle security is likely as big a factor, some people will start down the cycling journey, and the the bike or wheels will be stolen and that will be the end.
Also most people equate the cost of the journey only with the cost of fuel. If a journey costs only 10-15p per mile those 3 mile journeys don't even register in someones budget. They already have a car, so they will use it. They do not equate the full cost of car ownership / miles driven as the cost per mile because owning a car is just something people do by default.
I spoke to someone the other week and they do less than a 1000 miles a year (possibly nearer 500). They still put convenience above costs.
Agree with your reasons. I think also people genuinely don't like being around traffic outside of a motor vehicle - even less being in traffic (or they would if they even tried...). It's not a statistical judgement - people go with their gut feeling.
Plus as you say people just get cars. Then they're there - so they get used. The cost of having one versus not doesn't come into the calculation.
I'd agree with your reasons, especially the fear of having one's bike stolen, or more simply nowhere convenient and suitable to park. However that only manifests once you've got over the initial fear of "traffic".
I often work in schools. It's never an issue if I drive, "visitor" parking is a given. I tried cycling once. I asked where I could leave the bike - just lean it up against the fence I was told. Er' no thanks. In the end I tracked down the site manager and found a tool shed full of broken desks and new Apple Computers where I could leave it.
"they are not THAT dangerous"
That's objective safety. What people mean when they say safety is subjective safety. Roads shared with motor traffic dont feel safe.
I don't agree with everything in your post but your point about the utterly trivial marginal cost of driving is the key thing. Once you've shelled out tens of thousands for the car itself, then the other fixed costs of insurance, MoT & VED, you're basically determined to use the wretched thing as much as possible.
When I had a company car, I used it to drive to work. A 10-minute journey by bike. Fucking madness.
Unfortunately we are such a car-centric society that at this point the only way people will change en-masse is if driving is made prohibitively expensive or massively inconvenient. Driving is faster, more comfortable and the average person is fantastically lazy, unfit and often quite overweight.
People aren't gagging to cycle everywhere and the infrastructure is holding them back. Well, for a small number of people that is true but it would take probably a decade of massive change before we would see widescale change in peoples habits. The constant negative attitude towards cyclists is also hugely damaging.
In one sense, yes - we have baked in a lot of car dependency, and it's been generations now. There's a strong feedback loop keeping the politicians and the media fighting against the "war on the motorist".
I think the picture is complex. Think about NL - in fact they used to be near the top of the European cars per capita league fairly recently (apparently they're now off the pace - but not far off). While driving isn't super cheap there and the driving test may be a bit harder actually it's still pretty convenient to drive there - and indeed they still do a LOT of driving by distance.
And yet somehow...
BUT ... places have changed (more cycling). Why is that? I think in Seville they genuinely weren't cycling; then lots of infra was added, and now people do. Same may go for parts of Scandinavia. And even the UK - cycling rates vary considerably by location - why? (Yes, sometimes it's demographics e.g. Cambridge).
Other things being equal - which they're not, because humans - we just pick the most suitable / convenient mode. Those other things though are "what does everyone else do" and "will it enhance my status?"
Infra isn't sufficient - but I think necessary. There may be other "requirements" also - lower traffic volumes (chicken and egg), better public transport (ditto)...
Well - yes. That's probably about the right time factor - or maybe a generation for the UK?
But - if you don't seriously start (like most of the UK hasn't) then you definitely don't get any change (more than a quarter century since the National Cycling Strategy). And because we're talking bikes it's actually possible and reasonable to tackle small areas at a time. Though some measures like speed limit changes / better road crime policing / driver training / active travel funding tend to need some national-level action.
The car bias goes back a century to the Planning strategy and laws.
If you plan different zones where people live, work, shop and play then cars are required...
Amen!
Yes. How about, now, after the umpteenth study coming to this same conclusion, actually doing something about it?
Police Scotland do something about road safety? Now that would be a thing. It'd probably end up with cyclists being stopped for not wearing hi viz or helmets I expect.
I was thinking about more effective measures like speeds limited by design, significant reductions in motorised traffic, car free areas, bike infrastructure etc., and at the end of all that a police able to really have an impact.
To be honest, the poor state of many of the roads in Edinburgh limits speed quite effectively. But yes, car-free areas and better cycling infrastructure would be a plus.
FTFY - I find that many of those who noticably speed seem to have a lower appreciation for what it might do to their stolen vehicle / unlicenced scrambler bike...
I find my internal auto-pilot increasingly guides me to the car-free or very low traffic routes. I certainly wouldn't mind if there were less bomb craters (or worse - slots that grab your wheel) in the roads of course. However I think we should first reduce the width of the roads and (ideally) take up the slack to make "cycle only space" (if only) before we patch up all the potholes. Otherwise we're just creating a larger area which will need fixing again. Because within a year or so those heavy vehicles plus weather plus utilities works will bring back the holes.
It is true, without segretated infra, close to me, I would probably never have started cycling. Surprisingly though, it remains almost empty of commuters, while there are some congestion and parking problems for cars.
Now the biggest turn offs for cycling are hills returning home and poor air quality at a few spots next to cars.
Necessary, but not sufficient.
This is the "Milton Keynes" / "Stevenage" argument * - "we built it, but they didn't come". People may have particular reasons for choosing choose different modes of transport (e.g. journeys of 5 miles and up are far less likely to be walked). However for many journeys people just want to get from A to B. So there is a "transport market" or competition.
You don't even get into the competition if you don't meet the "entry requirements"**. But even if you do cycling is competing with driving on convenience (total journey time, pleasantness etc).
So as Carlton Reid pointed out - where driving is easy Brits drive. But further than that - driving is the default because it's the dominant mode. By the time they're working adults most people have learned that "journeys are driven" and many already have access to a car. When you've got a car sitting outside, most journeys are going to get driven, even ones with some inconvenience. Doing something different takes mental energy / determination.
* In fact at least in the case of Milton Keynes the cycle infra isn't "the best" - it has several failings and is certainly second class relative to the driving infra. Milton Keynes is primarily designed around driving.
** Convenience - overall it must be convenient to use:
Directness - the infra must go where people want to go, fairly directly
Connectivity - there must be a network of infra
Safety - the infra must be and feel safe (in several ways)
Sociability - humans often travel in groups, side-by-side
Door to door / destinations - the infra must take you as close as possible to destinations (or make multi-modal travel very easy) and if you've your own transport there must be a secure place to store it which is convenient to access.
Pleasantness / Appeal / Cleaness / relaxing - of course people don't favour things which are obviously broken / dirty / smelly / noisy etc.
Cyclists are TRAFFIC (just not in boxes)!
Stevenage has 'motorway' class cycle tracks, but once off them, motorists often behave aggressively towards cyclists, as they don't care/know that there is no cycle track alternative at that point.
Segregated infrastructure will never be 100%, so driver behaviour needs to be addressed!
"Separated infrastructure" - the word "segregated" carries some baggage with it
Ooops; indeed.
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