FEATURE
For more than six out of 10 this happens at least once a month, according to the LCC Women’s Network report – What Stops Women Cycling in London? – published in January.
This survey of more than 1,000 women also found that 93% of respondents had experienced drivers using their vehicles to intimidate them.
WHAT STOPS WOMEN CYCLING IN LONDON?
Below are key results from the What Stops Women Cycling in London? report.
93% of women surveyed said drivers had used motor vehicles to intimidate them. 77% said they experienced this at least once a month.
Nine out of 10 said they had experienced abuse from other road users while cycling – 63% said it was at least once a month.
The abuse was often verbal but included sexual harassment, physical threats, and physical and sexual assaults, such as groping or slapping women on their bikes while stopped at traffic lights.
Most common verbal abuse was a variant of: “Get off the road.”
More than one in five women said they’d given up cycling, temporarily or permanently, as a result of these experiences.
Nine out of 10 said they would start to cycle or cycle more if they had safer cycle routes, for instance with protected cycle tracks, for their journeys.
More than half of women said they are forced to choose between cycling on busy roads without any safe space or through isolated, quiet or dark places for their journeys.
“Cycling is such a joyous, healthy and freeing mode of transport in London for so many women,” explained Eilidh Murray, coordinator of the LCC Women’s Network. “But it’s also far too frequently where women face gendered abuse and aggressive driving and they’re impacted by not only a lack of safe cycle routes but often a choice between hostile main roads or isolated parks and industrial estates for their cycle routes after dark and in winter. “Freeing women to cycle in London will mean making
big steps against misogyny and sexism in our capital and its transport networks.” The LCC Women’s Network is calling on the Mayor,
the Metropolitan Police and local councils to act now to address issues of physical safety, including lack of protected cycle routes, social safety, including the lack of police reporting on gendered abuse women face while cycling, and enabling cycling locally, where women undertake the majority of journeys.
www.bikebiz.com
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