CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Sabotage and hatred: what have people got against cyclists?
(26 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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Boardman always sensible.
The researchers contradict each other. Ian walker has data on wider passes when he wears a big wig (felt to make him resemble a woman?) whereas the more recent Westminster Uni research suggests drivers more impatient with slower women cyclists??
Of course walker has his POLITE data which also showed respectable passing. So maybe the wig just made him look so odd people gave him a wide berth?
Tacks and wire very bad.hopefully very isolated as Norman points out. Slight feeling that the article which starts sensationally, then becomes re sensible also stoking this issue?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Dreadful research that close pass stuff. Bloke in a wig looks like a bloke in a wig. Human males are very good at identifying human females from the slightest cue of form, posture or movement.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Differences in data -
Walker data is empirical - distance between vehicle and cyclist.
Aldred data more subjective - based in how people described their experiences. And not just about close passes, but about other kinds of incidents as well.
Posted 8 years ago # -
the POLITE jacket didn't get respectful passing in the second Walker study (if anything the opposite) - only actual POLICE did (and even then there were a few drivers who just buzzed by far too close).
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Human males..."
Humans in general I would have thought, unless all the close passes were male drivers, and all the wide passes female... Always wondered about that research, and agree with you that it's not particular insightful - suspect people were passing more widely in a 'what on earth is going on there' sort of way.
Posted 8 years ago # -
A bit of delightfully unprovable "research" on passing distances. Apologies if it has been posted before.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I don't think people are so great at identifying male from female on the road. My partner is often assumed to be male because she's 6ft tall and has short hair. (I don't believe this is an uncommon experience for tall women, on or off bike.) She's had several incidents where driver abuse and aggression seems to quickly disappear when she faces the driver. We can only assume this change of attitude comes from re-evaluation of her gender.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I've also had incidents of being thought to be male on first glance.
Posted 8 years ago # -
You don't even have to be tall; I used to wear my hair very short - add in flat shoes, jeans, and no obvious boobs and you will be frequently mistaken for male - right down to being frisked by the male security guard in Belfast airport back when the frisking was *very* thorough... The most telling moment was having a station employee address me as 'Can I help you sir, sorry, I meant Can I help you love?'
Posted 8 years ago # -
It seems a bit uncharitable to describe a controlled study where the same section of road was used repeatedly (with ultrasound sensors measuring exact passing distances) as merely "riding around your home town in a wig".
It doesn't seem contradictory to me that women are disproportionately likely to be killed yet enjoy wider passing space. When I pull out to overtake someone in a car, I saw them, so it's pretty easy to believe that some visual cue causes me to vary my passing distance. However, when people are crushed at junctions we imagine it's because they weren't seen - so nothing about them can be influencing the driver?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Good point Dave.
Posted 8 years ago # -
'Can I help you sir, sorry, I meant Can I help you love?'
That's like one of those "how many squares in this image" things where you try and unpick all the bits that are potentially insulting/patronising...
Potentially I'm swimming in an evolutionary backwater here, but I'm awful at determining the gender of someone on a bike from behind, and long hair would definitely swing me over towards female.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't put on some makeup. Mind you the beard might still be a giveaway
Posted 8 years ago # -
Given the thread on cross dressing, perhaps a CCE crowdsourced experiment would settle this question for once and for all. While unsettling everyone else ...
I suppose I could try tucking my plait under my cap to see if it makes a difference...
Posted 8 years ago # -
I seem to recall reading (somewhere on the internet) a story of a car driver shouting sexually suggestive things at a cyclist with long hair and stopping rather rapidly when he turned out to have a nice beard as well...
Posted 8 years ago # -
Walker's research seems to go through a process, maybe drivers in bath read his stuff? Traffic in bath is shocking.
Anyway, first he wears a wig (I saw pictures of it as long and blonde but the article said brunette). This got him wide passes. (I say because drivers thought, who is that man wearing a wig)
Next time this variable (man in wig) got no more wider passes In Terms of statistical significance. Indeed the only thing that did get wider passes was POLITE
Now I hear in a third iteration POLITE was no good either, it had to be POLICE.
Those drivers are evolving like the monsters in alien or the dinosaurs in JUrassic world?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago #
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@iwrats
I see your "ever been mistaken for a man"
With my
"Where you from boy?, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma" from an Officaer and a Gentleman.
For reasons of propriety I cannot post the whole clip but as you may know, only two things come out of Oklahoma and I don't see no horns
Posted 8 years ago # -
Follow up, and not very serious, quiz:
Posted 8 years ago # -
This new Graudian article suggests that animosity towards cyclists has a long history
"Scorchers v cycle haters: how Victorian cyclists were also vilified in the press
You might think the discussion of cycling in an era before cars were on the roads would be less judgmental – history shows us that is not the case."
Posted 8 years ago # -
I loved the poster advertising the bike "King of Scorchers 30 lbs". It appeared to have only one brake operating directly onto the front tyre by a rod mechanism. Probably fixed gear though, so could apply some 'braking' through the pedals.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Is it time now to rejuvenate the word "scorcher"?
- scorcher
- scorcher turnipPosted 8 years ago # -
Yes, "scorcher" should immediately be applied to those who cycle furiously.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I doubt anyone could seriously be a scorcher on a dreich Scottish autumnal day like today. More like a damp flannel.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Please excuse the thread necromancy
Posted 2 years ago #
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