Spatial Modality and Abuse: Why Women Cyclists Die in London (Pt. 3/5)

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?

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While timidity is a word common to both Young’s (2005, p. 34) discussion of women’s sporting behavior and the Evening Standard’s (2013) description of women’s urban cycling behavior, in the next section I will argue that far from being “timid,” London female cyclists are in fact less likely to decide to physically separate themselves from the conflict points that cause road danger to cyclists from long vehicles. Due to learned habits of personal safety, women reject the options to avoid this road danger, which includes cycling at night, and also the act of taking quieter roads, parks, and alleys during the day. This behavior is in direct contrast to ways male cyclists navigate such urban spaces, as they are more likely to travel on “non-built-up-area roads with their different reported casualty and fatality rates,” avoiding points of high conflict. (Davis 1993, p. 24). Women’s reluctance to travel alone in dark or unpopulated areas due to fear of harassment, abuse, or assault, then, can be considered a vital component of their very real road threat, leaving women traversing heavily trafficked road routes as part of a negotiation that weighs the threat to their bodies as women against the threat to their bodies as cyclists.

Visibility in this situation is certainly a different type of visibility to that recommended by the London Cycling Campaign to reduce the threat from turning trucks. This is, paradoxically, at once a desire to both be seen and be invisible: first in the issue of personal safety as a woman to place oneself in a public space where any infractions on one’s body are visible and can thus be prevented, and secondly in the desire to not draw attention to oneself lest such abuse be inflicted on one.

That these habits of self-preservation carry over into feminine cycling behavior is not simply common sense: by interpreting Beecham and Wood‘s (2014) analysis of the gendered usage of the public London Cycle Hire Scheme (LCHS), we are able to see how this behavior manifests on London’s streets. However, before we proceed it is important to understand the limits of this study. While their analysis, based on over a million bicycle journeys tracked from usage behaviors of registered members of the LCHS, expands the boundaries of bicycle commute reporting, it nevertheless remains an incomplete portrait due to the nature of the data reporting methods, and is ultimately reliant on interpretation, especially with regards to the routes cyclists use. (The LCHS only tracks a cyclist’s departure and arrival stations, and not where the bicycle travels between these stationary points.) Nevertheless, there are two key data points within their analysis that point to the fact that the habits instilled in women to avoid danger of abuse, harassment, and assault remain in place as a direct influence on feminine cycling behavior.

First, Beecham and Wood find that women are far more likely to use the scheme in Central London than in the “semi-rural communities” [sic] of the outer boroughs (Beecham & Wood 2014, p. 10). Naturally, one must approach this information with some hesitancy: first because the outer boroughs of Greater London require longer journey distances point-to-point than the more tightly-packed areas of Central London (and cycling in these areas is therefore less practical), and secondly because the density of LCHS stations is much greater within Central London. Nevertheless, there remains a discrepancy with male identified riders, who exhibit far less of a predilection to be discouraged by these apparent impracticalities. Most importantly, the fact that this data demonstrates that the quieter roads of Greater London are not a bustling haven of female cyclists, and are in fact significantly less used by women than the busy streets of Central London, indicates that the issue is not feminine trepidation toward interacting with traffic.

Second, Beecham and Wood highlight with some bemusement that women are vastly more likely to make their cycled commutes in the morning than at night (Ibid, pp. 16-17). Again, we must be cautious, because this phenomenon can naturally only occur within the bicycle sharing LCHS, rather than commuters as a whole: without such a service, and despite the proliferation of folding bicycles, it would seem a terribly inconvenient habit to cycle to work only to make alternative arrangements to return home each day. However, this statistic, and others centered around busy and quiet times, highlight that men are actually more likely to ride outside of peak commuting times (Ibid, p. 22). Women appear to avoid traveling at times when it is dark or when roads are less busy. We may consider that not riding at night is a choice to avoid road danger, yet the apparent lack of female cyclists on quieter, less populated roads suggests that the issue is not an assessment of the potential danger to the female cyclist’s body as a cyclist, but instead a conscious avoidance of the potential danger that threatens her body as a woman.

Given that women are statistically less likely to ride at quieter (or darker) times and in less busy locations, it therefore seems prudent to question the narrative perpetuated by the media and by TfL that the female cyclist is timid rather than a participant in a gendered habit of bodily comportment who is in fact more, not less, likely to choose to travel in busy areas at busy times. This conclusion is in conflict with the interpretations of Beecham and Wood, who argue rather unconvincingly—using the test rides around parks made by prospective members the scheme wasn’t able to retain, which skew the women’s figures more than the men’s—that men in general may be more likely to take major thoroughfares. Adjusting for geographic proximity to LCHS locations (i.e. London residents) and heavy usage (i.e. commuters), the gender divide in apparent route choice diminishes to the point of becoming functionally indistinguishable.

Bearing this behavior in mind allows us to consider its influence on the disproportionate number of female casualties at the wheels of long vehicles in London. Quite simply, because of gendered habits to avoid external threats, which have continued on into women’s urban cycling behavior, women are more likely to ride their bicycles at the times when, and in the places where, long vehicles operate. While feminine spatial modality is often crudely interpreted as timidity while navigating the cycled road, and a lack of the bravery to do the actions required to avoid road danger, the truth is that far from being “timid,” London’s female cyclists are in fact less likely than men to decide to physically separate themselves from such conflict points.

More parts next month.

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