Spatial Modality and Abuse: Why Women Cyclists Die in London (Pt. 5/5)

How do culturally constructed female roles and external threats in public space play a part in the disproportionate number of female cyclist deaths from large vehicles in London from 1999 to 2014?

Challenges

It is important to note that by necessity this is an analysis of environments and the interactions they foster. While extensive data has been utilized to support and develop the argument, it is very difficult to gather accurate data about urban bicycling behavior and habits. This is equally true of nuanced information about the specificity of individual decisions leading to the causation or avoidance of particular road conflicts. As such, certain presumptions must be made. This is, undoubtedly, the greatest obstacle in tackling this complicated issue, and it will remain insurmountable until large-scale data gathering undergoes a significant sea change overhaul. The greatest quantity of my data does allow for a lot of depth in analysis, but it is also borne of a very particular usage scenario: the millions of journeys assessed only include those involving London’s Cycle Hire Scheme, effectively focusing analysis around a number of hubs within the city, and as such over-representing certain routes and usages. The total lack of bicycle owners in this group (who may behave differently) implies a huge number of journeys that are entirely unaccounted for. Unfortunately, the majority of such road casualties occur to people operating personal bicycles, occupying this comparatively unmeasured group.

Further, applying theoretical frameworks to material phenomena can often lead to a conclusion that lacks the material change required to alter the conditions it describes. This fact, sadly, is true of this paper, though I hope it will contribute another layer of understanding to a complex issue, especially when considering the discourses that simultaneously drive awareness of this epidemic of female deaths while making little attempt to change them.

Finally, this paper relies on a traditionally binary understanding of gender, and presumes a relatively normative expectation of gender expressions: I have explored how feminine spatial modality produces the conditions that cause the urban cycled road to present a gendered danger in the specific road conflicts involving women and long vehicles, but the bounds of normative gender performance are narrow, and the assumption that all victims of this particular road danger conform in identical ways is convenient but not quantifiable in any meaningful way. An additional point is that, given the participation statistics, one may already consider the act of urban cycling to be a non-normative expression of gender. This is a basis for much more study within this arena, but one that sadly falls outside the scope of this particular paper.

Conclusion

To conclude, this paper has addressed why feminine spatial modality makes specific usage conflicts on London’s roads especially dangerous to women, why women persist in using them despite awareness of this threat, and finally how discussions around this phenomenon have removed the impetus to create meaningful change within this urban environment.

That London’s streets foment a gendered risk is an unavoidable truth, and knowing the way in which female cyclists use these spaces is a vital stage of changing the urban environment to remove this danger. This paper has discussed in detail the three overlapping phenomena of gendered habits that have left the urban street manifested as a gendered space, intending to provide a useful insight into the complex ways gender performance has a crucial influence across a wide range of unexpected arenas within the bounds of lived experience, yet it is important to understand that explaining why this gendered road danger from long vehicles exists is not a solution to the problem in and of itself. It is important sometimes to step outside the narrow bounds of focused study: the simple truth is that no such comparable phenomenon exists in countries that have constructed the separated infrastructure that minimizes the threat of road danger to all vulnerable road users (Yang et al., 2010). It may be that in this case, gender-specific solutions are not required at all.

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Challenges

Conclusion

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