Why are so many of the cyclists killed in London women?

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Pale Rider

Legendary Member
Four of the five cyclists killed in London so far this year have been women.

Statistical blip?

Doesn't look like it, as far as I can research, 32 male cyclists have been killed in London in HGV crashes since 2006, as against 35 women cyclists killed in similar circumstances.

Both figures are way too high, given that women account for about 20 per cent of cyclists on London's roads there should be far fewer women killed than men.

Why is the female death rate so high?
 
Less likely to take assertive road position is my guess.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Due to the typical upbringing females were inherently less spatially aware. With modern boys playing with video games rather than Lego and mecanno, or climbing trees etc, I wonder if that'll even out in a generation or two and we'll see these figures start to become more proportionate?
 
Due to the typical upbringing females were inherently less spatially aware. With modern boys playing with video games rather than Lego and mecanno, or climbing trees etc, I wonder if that'll even out in a generation or two and we'll see these figures start to become more proportionate?
If that were the case why is women's car insurance less (until that became illegal)?
 

KneesUp

Guru
Due to the typical upbringing females were inherently less spatially aware. With modern boys playing with video games rather than Lego and mecanno, or climbing trees etc, I wonder if that'll even out in a generation or two and we'll see these figures start to become more proportionate?
I'm not sure you can describe a phenomena you ascribe to "upbringing" as also being inherent.
 
If that were the case why is women's car insurance less (until that became illegal)?

I believe statistically woman do not take excessive risk with their vehicles such as speeding, returning from the pub, race with mates, less of a petrol head etc. Insurance comapnies do extensive empirical studies that are statistically driven. Hard to fault it.
 

vickster

Legendary Member
If that were the case why is women's car insurance less (until that became illegal)?
Because women tend to have more slow speed, low cost to repair collisions, carpark scrapes etc, which are less likely to cause fatalities, less personal injury causing. Blokes, and especially young males are more likely to have big high speed crashes causing lots of expensive damage and more serious personal injuries. Lots of young drivers especially male around here don't seem to understand the law about seatbelts either so are presumably at risk of putting themselves through the windscreen
 
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KneesUp

Guru
On a linked point, hard acceleration by male cyclists from traffic lights, or even a bit of red light jumping, may get them out of the way of the HGV before it turns left.
I think more aggressiveness might be part of it - wasn't there research that showed that motorists are more wary of cyclists who are - or who look like they might be - less predictable in their actions? If one set of riders follows all the rules and stays near the kerb and so on, and the other sometimes breaks the rules and will also move out to avoid potholes/rubbish etc I expect the second set will be given more room on average.
 
Maybe male drivers see women as easier to shove out of the way.
I'm pretty certain a value judgement system has evolved e.g. That vehicle/cyclist is smaller than mine so it's going to be slower, so I'll pull out ahead of it as my journey is so important.
 

KneesUp

Guru
I believe statistically woman do not take excessive risk with their vehicles such as speeding, returning from the pub, race with mates, less of a petrol head etc. Insurance comapnies do extensive empirical studies that are statistically driven. Hard to fault it.
Statistics are often unhelpful though - my insurance company seemed to place more emphasis on 'he's a young(ish) man' than 'he's been driving 12 years and never had an accident'
 

KneesUp

Guru
Maybe male drivers see women as easier to shove out of the way.
I'm pretty certain a value judgement system has evolved e.g. That vehicle/cyclist is smaller than mine so it's going to be slower, so I'll pull out ahead of it as my journey is so important.
Can you tell the gender of a cyclist from behind when you're driving? I doubt anyone is driving over a tonne of metal and thinks "Ah, I can't bully that 90kg of metal and person because it's got broader shoulders and weighs 5kg more than that one" Are they?
 

vickster

Legendary Member
Because other youngish men don't have the same driving history. I think age and postcode, followed by the car are the main drivers of premium. It's about empirical, risk assessment as above
 

steveindenmark

Legendary Member
Most of our fatalities in Denmark are caused by vehicles turning right, as we drive on the right. Most fatalities are women.

One of the theories in Denmark is that when guys realise the danger situation they are more able and willing to throw themselves off the bike or manhandle the bike up the kerb onto the pavement.

It is only a theory.
 

KneesUp

Guru
Because other youngish men don't have the same driving history. I think age and postcode, followed by the car are the main drivers of premium. It's about empirical, risk assessment as above
My point was they had data regarding a set of people with similar characteristics in terms of age, gender and so on. But they also had a set of data about me specifically, which said I was either very lucky or a half-decent driver.

It was ridiculous (to me) that my insurance was so high given my history. I even looked at getting one of those tracker things to demonstrate that I drive very smoothly and don't have a habit of parking at pubs and driving home at 11:30 or anything like that -but bizarrely that made it even more expensive. But I fear we are off-topic. My point is that it's easy to forget that statistics describe a population, not an individual.
 
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