Two-thirds of adults in England think cycling is dangerous!

[Drago]

Two thirds or adults are simply wrong.

It's an inherently safe activity, mile for mile roughly 10 percent less likely to bring about your demise than walking.

Sadly, the Gruinard have failed to fully make that point.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Quite a few things that are dangerous are a lot of fun.

Too true.

 

[Ian H]

Two third of adults are quite possibly dangerous on a bike.

Cyclists: dividing and conquering ourselves since 1884!

I should have added 'to themselves'.

 

[icowden]

2694 responses (so too small to break down geographically) of a subset drawn from the National Travel Survey. Within its limitations, it's one of the better surveys IMO. Better than the Mintel, CUK, Sustrans and AA surveys and far better than most insurance company silly-season SLOP surveys.

Wow. Seriously? 2694 responses represent the views of 66 million people. Incredible.

 

[Chris S]

Only two thirds? I had two near misses this morning. A car pulled out in front of me at a junction. I swerved but still left a scratch on it's bumper from my pannier rack. On the way home a car driver turned left in front of me and then slammed on the brakes when they noticed somebody on a mobility scooter on the dropped kerb.

 

[mjr]

Wow. Seriously? 2694 responses represent the views of 66 million people. Incredible.

Why incredible? This is how surveys work. Pre election surveys (commonly called opinion polls) often have half that number of responses yet are fairly accurate, and they're trying to capture which of many distinct parties people will vote for, whereas most of these travel attitude questions are yes/no, Likert or quantitative, which are easier to handle, as well as I suspect less likely to be answered insincerely.

 

[Drago]

Unfortunately, over the last decade election surveys have failed to correctly predict the result of any general election or national referendum. Despite their dreadful track record in recent times people still seem to attach credence to their results, which seems bizarre.

 

[HMS_Dave]

Coming in as a former 27 stone pillock i thought i was A. Too fat to cycle. B. Was probably too lazy and C. Thought i'd die immediately on the roads...

None of those things turned out to be true...

 

[Ming the Merciless]

A little imprecise for my money.

Two thirds of adults (66%) who don't cycle agreed with the statement that "it is too dangerous for me to cycle on the roads". 57% of adults who do cycle also agreed with this statement even though they cycled. Overall therefore 61% agreed with the statement.

That is not how percentages work. Your statement above would only be true if the number who cycled was exactly 50% of the total respondents.

 

[Cycleops]

Two thirds or adults are simply wrong.

It's an inherently safe activity, mile for mile roughly 10 percent less likely to bring about your demise than walking.

Sadly, the Gruinard have failed to fully make that point.

And you all thought the DM was bad

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Also if you do cycle and you do cycle on roads how on earth can you agree it’s too dangerous? It clearly not too dangerous as you are cycling on them! It’s almost saying 57% of cyclists hardly ever cycle on the roads. Which is patent nonsense.

 

[BoldonLad]

I would normally skip over any "Survey Thread", since IMHO, they are b*ll*cks.

But, it is raining, and, I am bored.

Perhaps, the more relevant question is: "How dangerous is NOT cycling", thinking lack of fitness and obesity and their associated health problems.

 

[Archie_tect]

Polls, surveys and statistics... unreliable and open to manipulation.

 

[pawl]

Probably these are the people who think it’s safe to crowd the beaches and pubs with no idea of social distancing.

I feel safer on my bike than any of the above.

 

[the snail]

Wow. Seriously? 2694 responses represent the views of 66 million people. Incredible.

Do you really think the result would be different if they asked the other 66 million people? I don't - even if the accident stats don't support the view of cycling as particularly dangerous, no doubt it's a widely held view, and it does reflect the reality of UK where the car is king. If even 25% believe the roads are too dangerous, then something is badly wrong imo.