2 more women die in London

[jonny jeez]

Probably. I've been told it's possible to get hold of the "contributing factors" data in exchange for signing some agreements but I've not done so and anyway that's only the police report rather than something tested in court, plus once you start distinguishing the 9 London cyclist deaths a year still further, then that's probably doing case studies rather than statistics.

I feel the main alarming results found so far are the disproportionalities which @jefmcg and @User have highlighted: disproportionately many women cyclists in London being killed and disproportionately more men cyclists outside. If anyone can find data about why that might be, it could be interesting (but the non-London stuff might be better in a new thread).

We seem to have been taken around the block a bit in the last few post, perhaps correctly. Looking at nationwide numbers.

So,in summary stats show that more women than men are being killed in London whilst cycling, than any other group.

Do you agree?

 

[jonny jeez]

But only if they are more vulnerable universally, which they're not.

I sort of agree. Certainly women are not universally more vulnerable but could there be some combination of elements that makes them more vulnerable...in London.

 

[summerdays]

I was interested in something @jefmcg said about the nationality of many of the women who died, but then I'd also expect to see a higher number of non U.K. males in the statistics too if it's something to do with the road culture (respect of other road users) in this country.

 

[Spinney]

Although we should note that "For example, across the UK in 2015 there were 100 cyclist deaths, 21 were woman. Pretty close to proportional to the number of riders, I'd guess" was an incorrect guess - from the relative numbers of riders, we would expect 33 women, so it's actually disproportionate in the opposite way to London, as @User correctly noted.

The above implies that around 1/3 of cyclists are women. I have no idea whether or not this is correct (nor how the figure is arrived at).

However I'd like to throw another figure into the mix. I was recently gobsmacked to see on my Strava page that I was in the top 10 over a particular segment. On checking more closely, I had managed somehow to be looking at the leader board for women, rather than for all riders. Looking at several segments, and the numbers of men and women whose stats appeared there, most segments appeared to have a ratio of around 10:1 for men:women.
Now this is obviously vague, but even if the ratio was only 5:1, this is still a larger difference than the 2:1 implied in mjr's quote. So it seems that proportionately more men than women use Strava.

- In the case of Strava, with the (so I've heard) inclination of a few to take silly risks to beat their segment times, does this point to a possible reason for some of the disproportionate deaths among men rather than women in the UK in the quote above?
- Is the preponderance of men on Strava (in my extremely limited survey) an indication that in general men do more miles than women, which could explain some of the disproportionate deaths...?

 

[jonny jeez]

I was interested in something @jefmcg said about the nationality of many of the women who died, but then I'd also expect to see a higher number of non U.K. males in the statistics too if it's something to do with the road culture (respect of other road users) in this country.

it seems to be something to do with tipper trucks, almost specifically.

I dont have access to stats but can quote the below rom the ES

"Of those eight (deaths this year), six were women — all of whom died following a collision with a lorry. In fact, every woman who has died on a bike in the capital since August 2011 was hit by a truck — 16 in total.

Since January 2009, 84 cyclists over the age of 16 have been killed following crashes with vehicles in Greater London: 33 women and 51 men (three children have also died). According to Transport for London, women make only a quarter of our city’s bike journeys, yet they represent 39 per cent of adult cycling fatalities in the past six-and-a-half years.

Analysis by the Evening Standard reveals something more stark, though: a much higher proportion of female cyclists die in HGV crashes than male cyclists. Of the 33 female deaths, 27 — or 82 per cent — were hit by lorries. Only 22 of the 51 men collided with lorries; 17 with cars; four with buses; three with vans; two with coaches; and one each with a rollerblader, a parked car and an opening car door.

Yet overall, women are at a lower risk of being killed or seriously injured (KSI) riding on London’s roads. According to TfL there are around 710 KSIs for every billion km travelled by male cyclists, compared with 580 for females."

keep in mind proportionally more men cycle in london, so the chart above reflects a greater proportion of female deaths

 

[jonny jeez]

- In the case of Strava, with the (so I've heard) inclination of a few to take silly risks to beat their segment times, does this point to a possible reason for some of the disproportionate deaths among men rather than women in the UK in the quote above?
- Is the preponderance of men on Strava (in my extremely limited survey) an indication that in general men do more miles than women, which could explain some of the disproportionate deaths...?

nationally, or universally perhaps...but not in London.

 

[summerdays]

Do women make fewer but longer journeys?

I would have thought the reverse would be true, my experience (not London), is that women tend to do lots of little journeys rather than huge commutes. That could just be based on those I meet rather than actually what happens.

 

[srw]

Perhaps what we need is a statistician, to explain about noise and anomalies.
@srw?

Away for a couple of days!

Might be noise, not signal. I don't know.

 

[Milkfloat]

.......

Analysis by the Evening Standard reveals something more stark, though: a much higher proportion of female cyclists die in HGV crashes than male cyclists. Of the 33 female deaths, 27 — or 82 per cent — were hit by lorries. Only 22 of the 51 men collided with lorries; 17 with cars; four with buses; three with vans; two with coaches; and one each with a rollerblader, a parked car and an opening car door.

Without trying to derail the thread - I suspect unsuccessfully.

I love the language used - females 'were hit by', whilst men 'collided with' the lorries.

 

[Milkfloat]

Introducing tipper trucks into the debate only really brings it back to 'is it women's behaviour that kills them?', since presumably trucks are equally capable of killing men, and often do.

I don't think that at the moment we have established that 'women's behaviour' is or is not a contributing factor. Certainly I think that there is a correlation between female deaths and tipper trucks for one reason or another.

 

[jonny jeez]

How does this

Sit with this?

Do women make fewer but longer journeys?

I see that as the difference between London focus of stats and national. The former quote is from tfl the latter is derived from national stats...which plays to @User 's comment upstream about higher national averages of male deaths.

Although I may have read that wrong...I'm between tube stops without much time.

 

[Spinney]

On the supposition that there might (or might not) be some correlation between driver behaviour towards male and female cyclists - how easy is it to tell whether a cyclist you are approaching is male or female? No doubt there will be some riders in skirts with long hair etc*, but for the average lycra clad cyclist, how obvious is the difference? Yes, there are usually body-shape differences, but if you are in a moving car and register 'a cyclist' it is not always easy to tell. When driving I tend to register 'cyclist' not 'female cyclist' or 'male cyclist'.

(*this could also include blokes in kilts with long hair, but let's not nit-pick too much here)

 

[Milkfloat]

You're right, we haven't established anything at all.

How strong is that correlation really though? It seems strong, in the way this is reported. Does it mean anything significant for women's behaviour around tipper trucks, and tipper truck drivers' behaviour around female cyclists? Or is it really just a not-meaningful statistical blip?

I am not sure we will find out - perhaps we need a lot more deaths before we can find a correlation

I have my own personal theories - that seem to match some of the others, but equally they are probably completely rubbish.

The victims tend to be young, foreign women whom I, rightly or wrong, judge to be inexperienced.
The majority of accidents (surprise, surprise) occur at junctions, usually with the victim on the nearside.
I don't believe that the tipper truck drivers behave any differently towards female cyclists compared to male - in the reports of accidents that I have seen they claim not to have seen the cyclist in all the cases.

I tend to believe that although everyone should have the right to go on a journey and not die that something the victim is doing is a significant factor. I don't think it is as simple as saying only young, foreign women sit on the inside of tipper trucks at junctions as we have all seen plenty of cyclists of all ages, sex and nationality do exactly the same, despite me cringing every time they do it. Perhaps the nuance is that other cyclists know to hang back or surge forward at just the right moment to avoid being squashed.

Then again - it could just all be bad luck.

 

[Blue Hills]

On the supposition that there might (or might not) be some correlation between driver behaviour towards male and female cyclists - how easy is it to tell whether a cyclist you are approaching is male or female?

Not very at all - which is why an earlier suggestion that men in cars were cruising the streets to hit/kill women was so barmy and said more about the poster.

By the same token, pedalling around London, it will come as no surprise to folks that I do have the odd run in with a driver. Although I generally ride with what I like to think of as calm assertive politeness (and I do thank many drivers, including ones in white vans and commercial vehicles) I must admit to giving the odd driver a mouthful after something spectacularly bad (yes I know I shouldn't) and it isn't usually until I pull alongside after the offending incident that I have any idea whether they are male/female/transgender, let alone what their sexual preference might be/which football team they favour/what they are planning to have for tea.

 

[Pale Rider]

Well, in the newspaper report that triggered this thread, one of the victims was indeed young and foreign (Hungarian, but had lived here for some years). She was killed by a car which failed to stop, near her home, in Enfield. The other victim wasn't named or described beyond her being a woman. The article says ten cyclists were killed 'in London' last year, so what was the definition of 'London'? People here seem to be talking about a small part of central London, not Enfield. Perhaps this is sparked by the circular area defined in the link in post 2, which is described in the accompanying article as arbitrary, and adjacent to a distinct cluster of solely male deaths, about which there seems to be less speculation.

So I think I am more inclined to go with your last suggestion - but only for the issue of women being killed. The issue of too many cyclists, whatever their sex or gender, being killed is the one we should be focusing on, in my opinion. This searching for some reason why women in particular die seems to be a bit of a damaging distraction and leads almost inevitably to more unfortunate and possibly unintended victim blaming.

The damaging distraction is squealing 'sexist' at any attempt to consider gender as part of the problem.

The next damaging distraction is squealing 'victim blaming' at any suggestion a cyclist has to take responsibility for his/her safety.