Here is a good example of bloggers showing greater maturity and better grasp of the facts than traditional media.

When the Times wrote yesterday that a report commissioned by Transport for London (and never released) seemed to come to the conclusion that male riders are less likely to be killed by Heavy Goods Vehicles because they are more prone to run red lights (and thus less likely to be standing at drivers’ blind spots) we were contacted by the BBC and other radio stations to comment.

We felt that the journalists wanted to sensationalise the story, rather than actually looking at the figures. We felt that the report’s conclusions were based on opinion and not facts. And we pointed out that the real scandal is the latest ‘Share the Road’ campaign by TfL, which implies shared responsibility when a left-turning vehicle crushes a cyclist, rather than focusing on the inadequacy of driver and vehicle.

Let me point to three pieces of excellent analysis of the facts:

Bill Chidley has been campaigning for years to limit the number of cyclists killed by HGVs. In this article he gives the background of the latest report and hones in on the key issues.

Ralph Smyth has an excellent critique of the Share the Road campaign.

And in a mail-group, Marianne Promberger shows the statistical ignorance of the media. I post her analysis in full below.

Thanks to all three for raising the level of the debate.

Image by Kelly

P.S. As an example of the dangerous climate sponsored by TfL, see here the results of neglecting the inconsiderate driving by bus drivers.

Appendix – Analysis by Marianne Promberger

Our first response should be to help people understand the
stats, and not draw unwarranted conclusions.

Let me explain:

Quoting the “thisislondon.co.uk” article (but this has
appeared all over the media):

> According to the study, 86 per cent of women cyclists killed in London
> between 1999 and 2004 were in collision with a lorry. This compares
> with 47 per cent for men.

Fine. Now read this very carefully. All it says is that (a)
women cyclists *who get killed* get killed more often by a
lorry (86 percent) than male cyclists *who get killed* get
killed by a lorry (47 percent), and (b) women cyclists *who
get killed* get killed much more often by a lorry than by
another vehicle (86 vs 14 percent) and men cyclists *who get
killed* get killed about equally often by a lorry as by
another vehicle (47 vs 53). The first question here should
be: So what? (you can’t imagine how often when people throw
around statistics this should be the first question). Why
should we care? I’m a female cyclist, and if one day a
vehicle kills me, I don’t give two hoots whether it’s a
lorry or a car than has run me down. Dead is dead.

Of course, people take the above stats to mean something
completely different, namely:

> “Women cyclists are more likely to be killed by lorries
> than men [...]”

This *cannot* be concluded at all from the above stats,
so to make this statement without any additional data is
wrong.

Equally wrong is the other conclusion made by many
headlines:

– Male cyclists … ‘are safer’ (thisislondon.co.uk)
– Women cyclists ‘risk death’ [implied: more than men
cylcists] … (times online)

Why are they wrong?

(1) “Women are more likely to be run over by a lorry than
men”

We need more data to make that statement. Why? It could be
that men and women are equally likely to be killed by a
lorry, but that male cyclists are more likely to be killed
by other types of vehicles than women. This could lead to
the same 86 vs 47 percent discrepancy that is so widely
cited.

Let’s have a look:
Moving Target cites TfL:

“from 1999 – May 2004:
87 deaths of cyclists of which 21 were female, 66 male
Of those 21 females an astonishing 18 (85%) were killed by
HGV drivers.
Another 28 of the males (around 50%) were also killed by
HGVs.”

So, many more dead men than women, and more dead men killed
by lorries (28) than women killed by lorries (21). Of
course, to conclude anything from that alone is wrong again,
because we need to know the proportion of male vs female
cyclists in traffic, and see if the above ratio differs from
that.

The Independent had the best article about the issue that
I’ve read, available here:

This says about the male:female cyclist ratio that “[w]hile
it was about 73:27 at the start of the decade, statistics
from TfL show that it had moved to about 60:40 by 2005.”

So compare the numbers (m:f):
Killed by lorry: 28:21 = 1.3
Proportion of cyclists: between 70:30 = 2.3 and 60:40 = 1.5

So it _does seem that women are slightly more likely to
be killed by a lorry than men, but this difference is small
(1.3 vs anything between 1.5-2.3), maybe not even
statistically significant, if you compare 1.3 to 1.5. The
statistics about male vs female cyclist proportion is
probably not very accurate, and the numbers of killed
cyclists are (fortunately!) quite small for statistical
standards, both of which mean that the difference could well
be by chance. In any case, the difference is much smaller
than the almost twofold diffence suggested by the “86 vs 47″
comparison.

(2) “Men are safer cyclists”:

(m:f):
Killed: 66:21 = 3.14
Proportion of cyclists: between 70:30 = 2.3 and 60:40 = 1.5

So men are really more likely to be killed than women.
Again, the difference is not huge, and the sample size is
small, so this is not too meaningful, but the difference
here is greater and the sample size is greater than for the
“killed by lorry” data, so if you believe from the data
above that women are more likely to be killed by a lorry you
should definitely believe that men are more likely to be
killed in the first place.

So whatever you want to do as a woman, you do not want to
unequivocally “ride like a man”, as the velorution blog
had in its title.

*** Conclusions ***

Of course, taken together, the data above do say something
we should care about. Here’s what I would say we can
conclude from them, and what LCC should do about it:

(1) Lorries are dangerous. They are overrepresented as a
cause of cyclist death both for women and for men (since
they make up nowhere near even 50 percent of the traffic).
This is no secret. LCC already do stress this point, and we
should continue to stress this point. Fitting extra mirrors
and pushing cyclist training are the way to go, as is the
rethinking of ASLs and especially lefthand feeder lanes.
Also, emphasize that the classic left hook with lorries
would most likely not diminish with the presence of
segregated cycle lanes, on the contrary. Emphasize that this
means that cycle training and driver education are much more
helpful than putting in cycle lanes, segregated or not.

(2) The safety record for men and women cyclists is quite
similar, but it is slightly better for women. So if
anything, men should ride more like women, but I would not
say the data warrant making that recommendation. Besides,
there are many differences between the riding styles of men
and women, and we need extra information about which aspects
of each style are worthy to emulate (we have some such
information, and cycle training incorporates the insights,
but it is not in the data above).

(3) While the overall safety record of men and women is
similar, there could to be a slight difference in what types
of vehicles kill them. This difference is nowhere near as
big as 2:1, which is how many people read the 84:47 numbers.
Under the assumption that this difference is real at all, it
would make sense to target advice that prevents
cyclist-lorry collisions more heavily at women *and* to
target advice to prevent other types of collisions more
heavily at men. Note the *and*. However, we don’t know
whether the difference is real, and since it is very likely
that the difference isn’t real, we should not waste valuable
resources on ensuring that men and women are targeted
differently.

(4) We cannot conclude that jumping red lights makes you
safer. Even the basic assumption doesn’t hold (men safer
than women). Jumping red lights might conceivably get you
out of the path of the bus into the path of a different
vehicle crossing at speed. I am not arguing that it does,
but the data would match this pattern. However, one good
thing about the media bollocks in my view is that it spreads
the notion that at least some red light jumping cyclists are
motivated by safety concerns rather than by aggressiveness.