Sometimes it is just too much!!!

The Danger of Stereotyping Cyclists

Posted 4 Feb 2007

I guess many cyclists will have shared my anger at the anti-cycling pieces in the Sunday Times, 4th February. In the In-Gear (formerly Motoring) section of the paper, actor Nigel Havers has had another of his regular pops at cyclists, whilst the letters column of the same section features an anti-cycling diatribe for the second week running.It feels personal, it's annoying and it's highly frustrating. But above all that, if you sit back and think about it, it's a stance which is pretty dumb. Yet it's one we hear and see a lot more often than we should in the supposedly intelligent end of the national media. Nigel Havers has been on this soapbox more often than our small screens of late, so it's not even original on any level, yet he's at it again and editors seem content to keep paying him to do so.But, do you know, it's not the accuracy of these pieces which gets to me. I'm realistic enough to accept that cyclists are not all angels. Some cyclists jump red lights (a recurring theme in the letters columns of papers nation-wide). Some cyclists ride on the pavement. And, sad to say, some of us look pretty ridiculous in the garb we wear for cycling - the practicality which is usually lost on non-cyclists.No, it's the underlying thought processes which disturb me. There are some 2 to 3 million bikes sold in the UK every year. Cycling is the third or fourth most popular form of exercise, depending on your source. And yet, the kind of rubbish these articles contain is built on the generalising of cyclists into one big group. The term for this process is stereotyping. The authors take their personal, negative experience of one or two cyclists and extrapolate from that and ascribe the same characteristics to all cyclists.It goes like this: "I saw a cyclist jump a red light today - therefore all cyclists are red-light jumping law breakers". Or, "I nearly got run over by a cyclist on the pavement today in a congested London street - therefore all cyclists are pavement users and a threat to personal safety throughout the land."A bit thick, isn't it? Nigel, if you're reading this (I'm not holding my breath on that one) it's a bit like watching and disliking one of your sitcoms and deciding not to watch anymore TV on that basis - or reading a poor article and deciding to boycott a newspaper as a result.

And the really thick bit is trying to stereotype the country's several million cyclists. We are all prone to stereotyping, it's a human trait (I've just done it myself, in saying that). We like to organise and pigeonhole information and people. It can be fun, but it's rarely fair and when we discriminate on the grounds of race, gender or disability, the underlying stereotyping, which usually drives the prejudice, is actually illegal.Of course, stereotyping is common amongst Road users - we all know what the stereotypical white van man is like, or the taxi driver or the BMW/Volvo/Range Rover etc driver. And, in the majority of cases, stereotyping by vehicle, or indeed any other criteria is totally unfair and inaccurate.Sadly, however, I think the stereotyping of cyclists is altogether more damaging. It not only tries to marginalise and ridicule the largest and most vulnerable minority on the roads (I exclude pedestrians as non-road users). It also undermines the credibility and even the legality of the one form of transport which could genuinely make a contribution to reducing the ecological impact of road use - the one form of transport which we ought to be actively encouraging and making easier and more socially acceptable. White van driving doesn't need promoting - it's a practical necessity of the way we distribute goods these days - and BMW, Volvo and Range Rover driving is not actually something which you would want to promote for anything other than commercial reasons. But, at a time when it should be as fashionable as it is practical, cycling is actually in danger from the ill-considered output of an ignorant few.And I hope the editors who commission anti-cycling pieces will wake up at some time in the near future and realise that lumping together several million cyclists is not just thick, it almost criminal in today's fragile world.To conclude, I'm going to generalise about cycling and about cars, without straying anywhere near stereotyping.: - Cyclists very, very rarely kill people they collide with - Motor vehicles kill thousands on our roads every year - Cycling does not contribute to global warming - Motor vehicles are a major contributor to global warmingAnd next time you see a car driver doing something foolish, consider just how ridiculous it would be to condemn all motorists on the evidence of that incident alone.