Almost two thirds of people believe cyclists should be required to have third-party liability insurance, according to a new survey.
Unsurprisingly, the sentiment is much stronger among motorists, 68 per cent of whom told YouGov that they support the idea, than it is among commuting cyclists, just 33 per cent of whom agreed, reports the local news website, swlondoner.co.uk.
Across the sample as a whole, 64 per cent said that cover should be compulsory, while occasional cyclists – those who ride at least once a month – were split down the middle, with 42 per cent in favour and 41 per cent opposed.
Tim Lennon, borough co-ordinator at the Richmond Cycling Campaign, told the website: “It would just be another barrier to people getting on a bike, and since cycling is really no more dangerous than walking, it would simply be a way to discourage cycling.”
Among motorists, only 18 per cent thought that it was a bad idea to make insurance mandatory for cyclists, versus 50 per cent of cycle commuters.
Leaving aside the issue that users of mechanically-propelled vehicles are required to take out third party insurance by law because of their propensity to do harm to others, the survey reflects the widely-held fallacy that cyclists are not covered for their potential legal liability to third parties.
Most bike riders, of course, are insured for that risk – whether through bespoke cycle insurance, their membership of British Cycling or affiliated clubs or organisations such as Cycling UK, or through their own household insurance.
And users of hire schemes such as London’s Santander Cycles are also automatically covered when they take one of their bikes.
The perception, however, that we are not will doubtless remain another stick for many motorists to beat us with.
47 thoughts on “Two thirds of people believe cyclists should be made to have insurance”
We are talking about the same
We are talking about the same group of people who believe they still pay a “Road tax” abolished 83 years ago in an attempt to stop drivers feeling that they “Owned the road” . . you know that thing they accuse cyclists of believing because we’d like them to share it in a less dangerous manner….
It’s a freebie on your home
It’s a freebie on your home contents Insurance, with at least £2 million cover.
i bet there are fewer uninsured cyclists than there are motorists. The current estimate for uninsured motorists in 1.5 million.
i see this line used a lot,
i see this line used a lot, but it can’t be universally true, otherwise why did Robert Hazledean have a problem. There is no reason for cyclists not to get insured, the damage we can do to property is generally managable, but the costs of personell injury can be significant. Not worth the risk for £25 a year
wycombewheeler wrote:
Robert Hazeldean had a problem because he didn’t get legal representation in time and thought he’d do it himself.
hawkinspeter wrote:
But did he or did he not have 3rd party liability insurance? Because the reports say if he had, costs would have been limited to £7000.
If he had cover, then the insurance would have organised the legal team in the beginning, or possibly just paid out as it was cheaper
Leaving aside the issue that it is absurd for 60,000 to be spent in legal fees over a compensation payment of less than a tenth of that.
Or he had cover but didn’t
Or he had cover but didn’t realise to use it. However because he never “countersued” his costs went up and then because he never got legal council, he probabaly wasn’t covered under his insurance then.
I don’t think there are
I don’t think there are enough barriers to cycling.
Without a registration scheme it is pointless (well, pointless anyway) and who is going to pay the £Bns for that ?
Here’s an idea – focus on people like this
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/man-wrote-rental-bmw-worth-4458550
Without a registration scheme
Without a registration scheme it is pointless
Very good point. The sentencing for your Bristol crazed driver seemed reasonable, until it came to the insufficient driving ban.
It would be interesting to
It would be interesting to know from the Boris Bikes scheme insurance how often claims are paid out, and how much is just profit to the insurance industry.
The 68% like the idea, as a
The 68% like the idea, as a way of punishing people who ride bikes.
Sort out the uninsured
Sort out the uninsured drivers first. Years ago my car was hit by an uninsured driver and it cost me loads. Once you’ve sorted the uninsured drivers, then sort the untaxed, then the ones with no MOT, then the ones with no licence. Only then think of insurance for cyclists
I wonder what the YouGov survey asked about uninsured drivers and what percentage of people wanted that sorted………
There will be more uninsured
There will be more uninsured motorists on the road at any time than total numbers of cyclists.
The same will be true for those without VED, perhaps current MOT.
Maybe even cloned plates.
But cyclists…
They really do hate our freedom, don’t they.
I reckon there are probably more insured cyclists, as a proportion (even including those who don’t even know) than there would be of motorists if it were not a legal requirement for driving.
But cyclists…
This would be the first step
This would be the first step on the path to having to pay an insurance company for permission to leave your front door. That may sound like taking it the extreme, but there are probably already countless lawsuits filed in the US by people claiming someone gave them Covid.
It is depressing, but not surprising, that so many people clearly answered this question without thinking about the implications. Fortunately, majorities on single issues do not mattter unless a small group, which is close to power but not actually at its centre, adopts it and uses the millions of morons who believe in it as a lever to supplant those in their way. And cyclist hatred in this country is a convenient distraction, not something seen as important enough to use in this manner.
handlebarcam wrote:
Like another opinion poll back in 2016
I wonder if Yougov gave them
I wonder if Yougov gave them the facts about cycling and the risk of causing harm before asking whether cyclists should have insurance, or were they just relying on years of anti-cycling media portraying them as lycra louts, killing everything in their path?
So 2/3’s of people are really
So 2/3’s of people are really stupid? Seems about right.
I don’t know anyone who is a
I don’t know anyone who is a member of British Cycling or Cycling UK and didn’t know house insurance might provide cover, so a useful article.
It’s aslo provided to members
It’s also provided to members of the London Cycling Campaign (in case other readers residing in the capital are reading this)
SirruslyFast wrote:
Are you sure about that?
I have been a member of British Cycling for about 8 years, but I doubt many, if any of my friends know that. My wife probably doesn’t even remember.
Third-party liability
Third-party liability insurance is attached to all sorts of insurance cover that most people have. As mentioned in the article, it’s almost certainly part of your house insurance, but it may be in your car insurance too. Some bank accounts include it as a perk, and there’s all sorts of other routes to it. Knowing you have it is another matter!
Two thirds of people are as
Two thirds of people are as thick as mince then.
Perhaps one of these polling
Perhaps one of these polling/survey companies should do a little bit of research and publish figures about how many cyclists actually already have insurance, might be a better use of their time by actually changing the perception that they’ve helped fuel.
There are 22.6M homes and
There are 22.6M homes and over 19M have contents insurance which would nearly always give third party liability. So over 80%
https://www.finder.com/uk/home-insurance-statistics#:~:text=The%20latest%20report%20shows%20that,insurance%20has%20trended%20over%20time.
Let’s play a little game.
Let’s play a little game.
First question – how many cars are there in the UK? Answer at the end.
Secondly, we have some traffic lights with an ASL. Everyone has stopped for a red light, which, I’m told, is very usual because cyclists habitually jump red lights.
Six cyclists in the ASL get away when the lights change to green. 8 cars follow (plus one on red, but we’ll ignore that one as an aberation because motorists are the knights of the road).
How many cylists are likely to be uninsured and how many of the motorists?
Frankly, I’ve no idea about the cyclists. But one of the cars is likely to be uninsured because 13% of active cars have no insurance, which is about 1 in 8. 1.6% of them won’t have paid VED either, which makes 640,000 untaxed vehicles on the road in the UK. There are 38.3 million cars in the UK – and people think bicycles are the problem.
i pay 3 quid a month to
i pay 3 quid a month to insure my bike. Lexham I think it is. If i get hit by a car I get at least 20 grand pay out.
For my motorbikes, 2019 sv650 worth 5 grand, my er500 worth 600 quid, fully comp, 12 years no claims[ or 9 max] 7000 miles yearly mileage, 419 quid. I think I’ve paid quite enough already to cover myself.
Rather than the whataboutery
Rather than the whataboutery argument of uninsured drivers, important thought that issue is, we should be asking the basic question “What is the problem that you are trying to solve for which the answer is mandatory 3rd party insurance for cyclists?”
Apart from the extremely rare and therefore high profile cases involving cyclists and pedestrians, where are the stats that demonstrate cycling is overall anything other than a low risk activity for which most people are already covered via their home insurance or other general 3rd party policy?
If mandatory cover is required, what would be the associated costs; to the individual, to society, to any agency charged with enforcing compliance? Why not extend any such requirement to all people wishing to step outside their front door into a public place? Being on a bicycle gives you no particular exclusivity on accidentaly damaging someone elses property or person.
I strongly suspect that anyone who argues for such a measure is more wrapped up in the misconception and perceived unfairness of cyclists “using the roads for free” than any genuine interest in road safety.
Obviously, insurance is
Obviously, insurance is unnecessary, and a requirement would decrease the number of people who use this pollution-decreasing, traffic-decreasing, road-death-decreasing form of transportation.
But if the majority of a democratic society really think it is necessary, then just add a small tax to new-bike purchases and provide universal liability coverage.
Playing devils advocate here,
Playing devils advocate here, whats the big problem in having insurance as a cyclist? I have an anual policy that covers my best bike in case of theft, damage in case of crashes, and also for 3rd part liability and legal cover. Regardless of how you insure the bike part, the 3rd party is about 10 quid a year, or 2 craft ales/3 pints of whetherspoons finest. It would also cover my legal fee’s if I get hit by someone else and wanted to claim.
I insure my house-contents(including my other bikes) and my car, all fairly standard. I also buy travel insurance for holidays, including cover for off piste skiing and climbing/mountaineering. We insure nearly everything else in our lives, so what’s the problem with £10 a year for cycling? As suggested above, just add it on to the cost of a bike.
I don’t think it would put people off that much. Those who were serious about cycling would get it. Hell, it’s probably cheaper than insuring a fancy mobile phone. Those who don’t like the idea wouldn’t and would continue to ride uninsured regardless of the law. Those same people are likely to be the ones who would drive uninsured too.
Much of the arguments seem to stem from ‘I don’t drive a hateful car so I’m above being insured’. Bet all of you insure your house contents and your holidays.
Should all the kids riding
Should all the kids riding bikes to school need insurance?
Ok wow, i found that oddly
Ok wow, i found that oddly offensive, not sure why…lol. I’ve seen no one stating that ‘I don’t drive a car, so I’m above insurance’… why did you feel the need to add that little gem in there?
For me, your argument sits in exactly the same camp as the call for mandatory helmet legislation. Yes, wearing a helmet makes a lot of sense in a lot of situations, and again is hardly a hardship… however, there is ultimately no fundamental need to wear one. There is no recognised problem with cyclists dying of avoidable head injuries. Yes, cyclists do die from head injuries, some of those could indeed be avoided by wearing a helmet, but the numbers are far too small to warrant legislation.
Same with insurance. It makes absolute sense to have insurance on the bike. I have it provided both through home contents and also my BC membership. However, there is no recognised problem with cyclists having accidents and causing damages that are beyond their financial means to compensate against. i.e. the number of people left significantly out of pocket due to the uninsured actions of cyclists is negligble. Therefore there is no need to legislate for mandatory insurance.
This lack of fundamental need is demonstrated in the size of the insurance premium… You offer so much risk, that an insurer is willing to insure your cycling for £10 a year.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
I was going to post something similar. My (inherited from my dad) 03 Berlingo is probably worth £250 quid to replace, yet my full insurance on 25 years of no claims is about £500 including liability, NCP and all the other extra gubbins and £250 excess. My house (also inherited) worth £190k is about £250 for building and contents cover with again £250 excess. The reason for the discrepency, apart from it being mandatory, is because a claim against the car is alot higher probablilty then a claim against my house.
My bike liability insurance is thrown in for “free” by BC membership of £40 per year. But if I insured mine and my mrs bikes (hers is an ebike) for £3.5k worth, it will cost £200 or so. Again the reason for the discrepency is because the odds on it being stolen and claimed against is probably more then the odds of me being in an accident where it is my fault.
So I suppose it is really what do the people who state we need mandatory insurance think it entails? If the former then 90% of people are probably covered somehow anyway. If the latter, then the extra costs will disuade people to take on cycling.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
Apologies – certainly wasn’t aiming to be offensive, and as I stated, I was more playing devils advocate rather than supporting one side or the other. That quip came partly from the, IMHO, very anti-car sentiment I find on road.cc. Lots of us love cycling, but don’t live in a place where relying on public transport or cycling is feasible and thus occasionally need to use a car to go about our daily lives. I really get irked by the cyclist vs. motorist flame wars (on both sides) as I feel it’s counterproductive and just leads to greater tension and divisions. But as you say, it was probably unneccessary. Retracted!
I guess the point I was trying to make was, in a world where the ‘there must always be someone at fault’ and no win no fee claim culture is sadly becoming more and more commonplace, is it really so outlandish to suggest we, as people using a form of moving transport on the roads, may need to be insured against someone suing us for scratching their wing mirror after close passing us etc. I appreciate I’m mixing up different types of insurance, especially the difference between covering loss to me and 3rd party liability. I was more pointing out that we cover ourselves against so many different risks in life, both big and small, covering ourselves while riding a bike isn’t such a giant leap.
I’m not a fan of blanket mandates either, the helmet example you give I completely understand. I generally always wear one, but it’s nice not to be breaking the law when riding the bike around the block after making adjustments etc without one.
In a perfect world, I’d love to see everyone free to ride bikes, without restrictions or requiring insurance and generally going about a healthier lifestyle. Everyone should have the opportunity to do so, and it would solve many issues with our cities and society. But as the culture changes in the society we live in, it’s something I can see happening.
People approach risk in many
People approach risk in many ways. They may decide to use insurance to exchange who accepts the risk or decide to accept the risk themselves or a combination (or as appears common, not even understand the risk). Alternatively, they may desist from the activity to avoid the risk altogether or undertake the activity in a controlled environment.
There’s no problem with
There’s no problem with cyclists getting 3rd party insurance and as you say, it’s pretty cheap. The big problem is the costs of administering it if it were to be made compulsory and I think it would act as a barrier to occasional cyclists (especially cycle hire schemes). More of an issue is that it doesn’t solve any significant problem.
MoutonDeMontagne wrote:
It’s largely the ‘as a cyclist’ bit that’s problematic. As things stand, you don’t have to ‘be a cyclist’ to cycle. Once you put an administrative barrier in the way, so that people have to opt in to ‘becoming a cyclist’ by signing up to and paying for insurance, a chunk of people, particularly those who cycle occasionally, are likely to just think ‘well I can’t be bothered then’.
You might insure everything else, but there are plenty of people out there on marginal incomes who don’t. It might only be £10 a year, but if that comes round at a time when you’re trying to decide between putting off paying the electric bill or the council tax, you’re still not going to think this is a priority.
This is a more reasonable approach, in that it reduces the barrier effect by making the levy more invisible. It could also be more progressive, particularly if done as a % of the price, since it would mostly fall on those buying bikes new, and particularly buying more than one bike or more expensive bikes.
But it’s still not clear why cycling, as a low-risk activity, would be singled out. Would you also charge the levy on, say, skateboards or running shoes? (Or mobile phones, since they seen to pose a high risk factor for traffic collisions.)
A fairer proposal would be the one floated a few days back – of a generalised public liability insurance funded from the general tax pot.
But people shouldn’t have to be ‘serious’ about cycling in order to cycle.
This is a bit beside the point, since it’s conflating insuring against a direct risk of loss to you resulting from external circumstances, with insuring against the risk of harm or loss to others from your actions. You can mitigate the latter through your behaviour, but you can’t do much about the former other than weigh up whether you feel the risk warrants the cost of insurance.
You are mixing up a lot of
You are mixing up a lot of different types of insurance there which are used for different purposes and to insure rather different risks.
Your argument really boils down to everyone having compulsory third party liability solely due to being an adult.
There is a broadly similar scheme in NZ which also prevents you taking legal action against the offending party.
I would not oppose such a global scheme but I object to targeted schemes where there is little evidence of risk or adverse outcome where the risk results in an accident.
There are essentially 2
There are essentially 2 things to consider here.
At what level of risk to others should insurance be compulsory?
Would mandatory insurance deter enough cyclists that any benefit was negated?
For the first question it’s vital to consider relative risk rather than absolute risk.
Stating that cyclists cause a very small.number of injuries is meaningless unless you also consider the modal share of cycling.
Three wheeled cars cause a low absolute number of injuries yet nobody is suggesting that they should be allowed in the roads uninsured.
I worked out (very roughly) the relative risk numbers for bicycles and pedestrian fatalities and surprisingly the risk was not as low as I would have thought.
I also found a paper that looked at something similar and again while bicycles are overall safer for other road users than motorised vehicles that was not true on all road types.
https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2020/03/09/injuryprev-2019-043534
If bicycles do represent a comparable relative risk to motorised vehicles on certain roads it doesn’t stand to reason that they should be excluded from compulsory insurance.
As for the second question, it’s very hard to know. I’ve read that upwards of 85% of cyclists are already insured and that bike hire schemes include insurance in their fee so the deterrent effect would likely be small.
Personally I think the best approach would be to make third party personal injury insurance compulsory on all home insurance and to make car insurance include bicycles in their 3rd party ‘other vehicle’ cover.
This would probably reduce the proportion of uninsured cyclists without deterring anyone. The additional costs to the insurance policies would likely be minimal.
Hmm – that study seems..
Hmm – that study seems.. problematic. They recognise that there are limitations with confounding factors and quality / availability of data, but also
So if a speeding driver takes out someone on a bike, and kills themselves in the process, their death is effectively counted as a ‘death by bicycle’.
As an aside, this is an odd leap, too:
[…]
we suggest that authorities should consider measures to reduce motorcycling
Why not first of all look at how motorcycling (and other more dangerous modes) can be made less dangerous? I would imagine that efforts to discourage or reduce motorcycling would be more likely to thin out those who currently use them more safely, with the perverse result that it becomes more dangerous on average.
I thought that was slightly
I thought that was slightly strange too but I think it is so rare for a motorist to be killed in a collision with a cyclist that it is unlikely to affect the results greatly.
As to the motorcycle point, it actually does make sense to persuade people to move from a high risk to a low risk form of transport, the relative risk of motorcyclists might increase but the overall absolute risk would decrease.
But maybe it’s only as high
But maybe it’s only as high-risk as it is because it has an image that tends to attract people who take a lot of risks, or a culture that increases risk-taking. If your persuasion just results in people who generally ride carefully, and so don’t pose much risk, giving it up, you haven’t really achieved much. It might even enhance the view of it as an ‘edgy, exciting’ pursuit, and attract more risk-takers.
People speed in cars, but the answer to that is not to discourage people from using cars*, it’s to discourage speeding. Or to take another tack, if you fell down the stairs while trying to walk down them in the dark, you wouldn’t think that the answer was to discourage stair use – you’d probably first try turning the lights on next time.
In order to support a recommendation for discouraging motorcycling, you’d first need to demonstrate that the motorcycling in and of itself carried a higher risk, regardless of the behaviour of those doing it and the environment they’re in.
[*even if you have other good reasons for doing that.]
I think that’s a matter for
I think that’s a matter for debate.
Any person who is persuaded to move from a high risk form of transport to a lower risk form will lead to a reduction in the overall risk.
A safe and cautious motorcyclist is likely to be a safe and cautious cyclist but they now have less ability to kill someone by accident.
The answers aren’t mutually exclusive however. We can encourage shifts from lorries to vans and from vans to cargo bikes whilst simultaneously making the remaining lorries and vans safer.
If motorbikes cause a disproportionate amount of harm as the statistics appear to suggest then measures to reduce their use can exist alongside measures to make their use safer.
Rich_cb wrote:
But that’s the thing – they don’t. They suggest that the current use of motorbikes poses higher risk, but they can’t make any determination whether it’s something inherent in motorbikes per se that results in that risk, or whether it’s something to do with way they’re currently being used or the environment they’re being used in. At most their prescription ought to be for further studies to determine what causes that level of risk, so that those factors can be tackled.
Essentially you’re asking for
Essentially you’re asking for a nearly impossible level of proof within the context of transport research.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the motorbike or the rider that creates the danger or, the far more likely scenario, a combination of both.
Discouraging use of motorbikes and making their use safer will create a net benefit regardless.
Rich_cb wrote:
I’m really not, though. I’m just suggesting that some investigation could be done into more specific risk factors, to allow more targeted measures to be taken (maybe better enforcement against speeding and other traffic offences, tighter limitations on the specifications of bikes permitted on the roads, improved training and licensing regimes, public information campaigns targeting particularly risky behaviours…), rather than jumping straight to “OMGZ we must get these Killer Machines off our roads!!1!”
The report also identifies being male as being associated with a significantly higher risk to others, but it doesn’t then suggest that ‘authorities should take measures to discourage males from using the roads’.
Would need to know the
Would need to know the question asked. Surveys usually produce the result they were designed to get. Should all road users be insured is a different line to what is the greatest risk to road users and how is it mitigated, insurance being mitigation to the cost on individuals of accidents.
What do you think compulsory insurance for cyclists achieves would be a good survey question, or retort.
Orbeaman wrote:
“Should cyclists be required to have insurance against accidents?”
The General feeling of the
The General feeling of the other bloggers seems to say that legislating for cyclist insurasnce is over the top, and is more about restrictive punishment than safetey or fairness. Also most cyclists already have insurance either through membership of a cycling body or on their household policy.
This is just another of the punitive restrictions which are proposed on a regular basis, Cyclists Must, Pay Road Tax, Be registered and wear Numbered Gilets (Mr Loophole), Wear Helmets, Pass a Test, Wear Hi Viz, Always use cycle lanes, ……
The question never addressed is “how will these restrictions be implemented?” and enforced.
Will chidren also need third party insurance before they are allowed to ride their bikes on the road? If so this will change our society and the future of cycling. Children probably cause a disproportionate number of the “swerve to avoid” type accidents that could result in insurance claims. No more bikes for Christmas, riding over to see your mates, riding to school, doing wheelies in the precinct, growing up to be a proper cyclist.