bottombracket

The other half

A visit to the Department of Transport website has yielded some interesting information. Above is a graph which represents the amount of women who cycle vs men in Great Britain. It appears that only half the amount of women cycle compared to men; a subject addressed in a speech given by the former minister for transport Charlotte Atkins at the 2005 Lifecycle UK/GOSW Cycling & Social Inclusion Conference. Ms Atkins then said

“I know Life Cycle has pioneered work in this area and I was also pleased to see women and cycling feature strongly in today’s conference agenda.

But just 8% of women cycle regularly, compared to 18% of men. So what actions can we take to encourage more women to get on a bike?

It’s important to recognise that women’s cycling needs are different to those of men. Women are more concerned about safety in traffic, and personal safety out on the road.”

This statement had me interested and I wrote to Life Cycle in Bristol explaining that I was a Masters student in Bath Spa and was currently researching a topic for a module we had in ‘New Product Development’. I asked them if they would be able to put me in touch with any female cyclists or whether they could suggest an alternative methodology. I received a very short and polite email back from the Director, Peter Andrews explaining that they would love to help but they were not able to do so as they didn’t keep a mailing list and didn’t have a database of female cyclists (?). This left me slightly confused, it’s not really what I was after. No further information was given and I was left scratching my head but following this dead end, I had a bit of luck on google when I discoverd the ‘Women’s Design Service’ who

“works to ensure that the design and use of the built environment reflects the needs and aspirations of women.”

Not only that but they, it seems, as early as 2004 have already been addressing this very issue, detailed here. It made me wonder, does the left hand talk to the right hand? I wrote back to Life Cycle thanking them for their swift response and asked them if they were aware of the above project? In the meantime, my thinking is that this area presents a very interesting problem to tackle. In terms of there being an opportunity for ‘new’ (as we’ve been asked to do in our brief, I thought it to be more than suitable.

Interestingly, according to the WDS report, in other countries the amount of women cycling mostly reflects the demographic. So why aren’t there more women cycling on the roads of Britain? One other article I was able to find on this topic (however related it is I’m not quite sure) but Women, it seems, are more vulnerable on the roads than men due to an unfailing ability to obey traffic lights! If there are any women cyclists reading this Blog and would like to offer me any of their insights as to why they think less women are cycling on the roads of Britain, please comment.