Poor behaviour on the road is a barrier to cycling
[Excerpts from Getting Australia Moving]
“We…have created an environment that
makes it very convenient for people to
be inactive, and subsequently develop
unhealthy behaviours. The only way to
combat this is to make it equally
convenient for people to become active,
and moreover, easier for them to inherit
a better quality of life”.
Libby Darlison,
Chair, Premiers Council on Active Living, NSW.
SOME KEY POINTS:
- The more cyclists there are, the safer it becomes.
- Motorists behaviour largely controls the likelihood of collisions with people walking and cycling.
- Comparison of pedestrian and cyclist collision frequencies between communities and over time periods need to reflect the amount of walking and bicycling.
- Efforts to enhance pedestrian and cyclist safety, including traffic engineering and legal policies, need to be examined for their ability to modify motorist behavior.
- Policies that increase walking and cycling appear to be an effective route to improving road safety.
A Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into violence associated with motor vehicle use received a large number of submissions from the cycling community reporting instances of road violence. Several submissions suggested that the presence of cyclists on the road was a trigger for road violence against cyclists (Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, 2005). Driver knowledge of the road rules as they relate to people on bicycles has been found to be generally poor. Only one in five (19%) of drivers knew that it was legal for cyclists to ride two abreast, 44% that cyclists were allowed to ride along a clearway, and 63% that cyclists were allowed to occupy a whole lane (Rissel et al, 2002). Importantly, this lack of knowledge regarding vital aspects of the road rules has been found to be associated with a negative attitude amongst motorists towards people on bicycles (Rissel et al, 2002). The hostile reception reported by bicyclists from motorists is a consistent theme when surveying people who ride bicycles. Daley et al (2007) found that many occasional and regular riders perceived the average Sydney driver as impatient and intolerant. Some thought drivers were more likely to respect cyclist’s safety and rights if bicycles were more frequently encountered on the roads and this is supported by Robinson (2005) who found that the more cyclists there are, the safer it becomes. Riders described altercations where motorists took out frustrations on them, often triggered by the motorist’s view that their journey was delayed by the rider. Riders felt there was a skewed driver perception that a cyclist held up traffic, rather than seeing them as a legitimate part of the traffic system. It is this lack of acknowledgement towards people on bicycles that has been found by Greig (2001) to be a significant deterrent towards regular cycling.
http://www.cyclingpromotion.com.au/images/stories/downloads/CPFHlthRpr08V3prf1.pdf
More quotes:
Yet the perception of risk from cycle accidents is often disproportionate to the actual risk. For instance, the hospitalisation rate from cycling is seven times lower than that of football, per 100,000 participants. Moreover, the evidence clearly points to the fact that the more cyclists there are, the safer it becomes.
Approximately half of all Australian adults are not meeting even the modest current national recommendations that:
“every adult should accumulate half an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity on at least 5 days per week”
(Commonwealth Health National PA guidelines, 1999; United States Surgeon General, 1996; Haskell et al, 2007).
Research has shown that the more often you cycle, the safer it is. In fact, by riding twice a week instead of once a week, the chance of an accident halves, due to training and increased awareness of cars (Transport Western Australia, 1996).
Safety concerns were found to be amplified by aggressive motorist behaviour. Motor vehicle speed is both a perceived and actual safety hazard for vulnerable road users such as cyclists. An accident at 64km/h puts cyclists at 17 times the risk of a fatality than if the vehicle was travelling at 32km/h.
Frank et al (2004) have shown that each additional hour in a motor vehicle increases the chance of being obese by 6% - adjusting for socio-economic status.
There is increasing evidence that higher levels of motor vehicle use increase the risk of road trauma. Strategies that provide non-motorised transport options are increasingly recognised as an effective road safety strategy (Litman & Fitzroy, 2005). In fact, policies aimed at reducing car use typically result in around a 10% reduction in vehicle kilometres travelled and this could cut road trauma costs by between $850 million and $1.7 billion per year (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2007).
Moreover, 66% of respondents in the 2005 survey of 2403 cyclists in Victoria reported experiencing intentional harassment from motor vehicle occupants in the previous 12 months (Garrard et al, 2006). The rate of cyclist harassment was an average of 24 incidents every 12 months (approx once a fortnight). These disturbing results are supported by a smaller survey of cyclists in South Australia (Brisco, 2006).