7/31/2019 Bicyclists

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Bicyclists

Basford, Reid, Lester, Thomson, and Tolmie (2002) appear to be the first group to have seriously

considered the idea that bicyclists might be viewed somehow as other by the majority of road users,

discussing driverebicyclist interactions in terms of the in-group and out-group effects well-known in social

psychology. Gatersleben and Haddad (2010) probed into these grouping effects using a factor- analyticapproach to search for consistent patterns in peoples concepts of bicyclists. Specifically, a group of bicyclists

and a group of nonbicyclists were presented with short descriptions of bicyclists, each of which mentioned a

behavioral, a motivational, or a visual characteristic (e.g., They wear tight clothing or They bicycle to

work). By assessing how often descriptions were selected together, the authors could identify groups of

characteristics that seemed to fit together in peoples minds. They found, among other things, that the typical

driver perceives only a very limited range of bicyclist stereotypes, including the die-hard bicyclist (who rides

as fast as possible, helmeted, on an expensive bicycle) and the necessity bicyclist (who rides for functional

transport and does not enjoy it). These perceptions appeared in many cases to act as a barrier to the uptake of

bicycling, with nonbicyclists apparently finding it difficult to view themselves bicycling because they did not

share the identities and motives they perceived among existing bicyclists.

Interestingly, a slightly earlier study of mine suggested that such stereotypes might cause measurable

behavioral changes in drivers that could affect riders safety (Walker,

2007). Using an instrumented bicycle, which kept accurate records of how close vehicles passed to it, I was able

to log more than 2200 instances of vehicles overtaking me on city streets, all the time keeping my riding

behavior as constant as possible while manipulating two key variables: my position on the road and

whether or not I wore a helmet. All other things being equal, donning a helmet was, on average, associated

with a significant reduction in the space left by overtaking drivers. Why should simply putting a helmet on my

head have led to drivers overtaking more closely, and why should hiding the helmet have led to them leaving

more space? Both Basford et al. (2002) and Gatersleben and Haddad (2010) found that bicycle helmets were

seen, by many nonbicyclists, as an index of experience and skill. As described previously, Gatersleben and

Haddad found the helmet to be associated with the die-hard type of bicyclist for many nonriders.

Similarly, Basford et al. found that pictures of cyclists wearing helmets were generally considered to be more

serious and sensible on the road than those without (p. 9) and often it was felt that people who had arranged

appropriate and/or specialist cycling equipment and clothing were more likely to have also the experience

and/or training to employ correct cycling behavior (p. 9). I am saying nothing here about the efficacy ofbicycle helmets, merely that many nonbicyclists seem to have a certain schema invoked by seeing one,

which apparently leads to measurable changes in their behavior that might endanger bicyclists. It is clear that

more research on these issues, as well as the more general issue of how out-group status might influence the

way bicyclists are treated, would be highly valuable.

I once, in an exploratory study with no particular hypothesis, took a series of photographs showing

street scenes and asked participants to describe, in their own words, what they saw in the pictures (Walker,

2005b,2005c). When the descriptions were analyzed, a surpris- ingly clear story emerged. Whenever a

picture showed a motor vehicle such as a car, the language people used to describe it was always inhuman: The

words chosen were car,vehicle, and so on. So viewers would say A car is turning left or A car is waiting

for pedestrians to cross, not A driver is waiting for pedestrians to cross, which would of course be more

logical. In contrast, when a picture showed a bicycle and its rider, the words used were human: A cyclist is .,

A man is ., and never A bicycle is

.

. This effect remained even when the driver of a car was

clearly visible: Even when the driver could easily be seen, the words people chose referred to the car and not the

driver, perhaps suggesting that the most salient component of the scene, for the viewer, was the machine and not

the person controlling it. However, in the case of the bicycle, the words suggested that the salient component

was the person, not the machine the person was piloting. Might this matter? Might bicyclists be treated in a

qualitatively different way on the road, as they are in peoples descrip- tions, simply because they are so

clearly human to other road users?