HedgehogCycling.co.uk

Yorkshire cycling website

62% say it's too dangerous to cycle

3rd September 2018

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62% of adults in England agreed with the statement, 'it is too dangerous for me to cycle on the roads', in the latest walking and cycling statistics published by the DfT (for 2017).

The report shows an average 17 cycling trips per person in 2017, an average 23 minutes per trip, and an average 60 miles cycled in total.

There is a big difference between genders, with 9 trips/25 miles for women, and 24 trips/95 miles for men.

Cycling rates remain stubbornly low, with about 2% of all trips made by bike. In nearly all local authority areas, less than 20% of the adult population cycles at least once a week. On average, 14% of people cycle at least once a week. Cambridge has the highest rate of people cycling at least once a week, at 54%; Bradford is bottom, at 4.7%.

The number of trips is down by 8% on 2002, but the distance cycled up by 54%. The extra miles have been ridden by cyclists (people who rode a bike during the week they filled out their travel diary). Cyclists, defined in this way, made an average 332 trips per year (6 trips a week), and rode 1,144 miles, compared with 687 miles in 2002.

There was a roughly even split between cycling for commuting/business (37%), and cycling for leisure (36%).

In historical terms, cycling rates where high shortly after World War II, and declined in the 1950s and 1960s.

The figures in the DfT report come from two surveys - the National Travel Survey, and the Active Lives Survey.

Toyota Aygo ad for distracted driving

28th July 2018

Toyota are promoting their Aygo car on the basis of the text message conversations you can have when you're driving. Why are they building distracted driving into their designs, with, in effect, a mobile phone screen just above the gear stick? And is a video portraying distracted driving an acceptable advert?

Read about the Toyota Aygo ad for distracted driving.

Building Seville's bike network

31st July 2018

Official opening of new cycle & pedestrian passageway, Seville, February 2018, by Junta de Andalucia, Licence CC BY-SA 2.0

How bike lanes were built in Seville, Spain, is not a new story, but it's worth reading because of what it says about how quickly you can have a complete network of quality cycle infrastructure.

Read about building Seville's bike network.