http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719015.stm
Chain reaction
By Tom Geoghegan
BBC News Magazine
Cycling is undergoing a surge of interest since the London bombings, as
commuters decide to head to work under their own steam. Could they be
avoiding the threat of terror only to face a more everyday danger on
the roads?
Two hours after the bombings on 7 July, a man walked into a bike shop
in London Bridge.
"He said 'I'm never going on the Tube again. Sell me a bike,'" recalls
Travis Lindhe, manager of On Your Bike, where sales have increased from
three bikes a day to 15 ever since.
A cyclists' organisation, the London Cycling Network, reports a 10 to
30% increase in use of bike stands at three points in central London,
although it says this news is hardly a cause for celebration, given the
circumstances.
Fear has driven primary school teacher Stephen Thorpe, 45, on to the
saddle of his new bike for his journey from Bow, east London, to
Kennington.
"You wake up in the morning and think 'I've got to get on the Tube and
I'm taking a risk,'" says Mr Thorpe, who used to cycle part-time. "I
was half an hour behind the Liverpool Street bomb, which was a very
frightening experience.
"But when I ride to work I don't have to worry about being a potential
bomb victim."
Traffic hazards are not such an issue because his route is on towpaths
and quiet streets, he says.
Nationally, there has been a small but steady fall in cycling over the
past 20 years, with the capital bucking this trend. But the bomb
attacks momentarily changed this. Birmingham City Cycles reported a
surge in sales on 7 July, when it was also beset by transport and
security problems.
Obesity debate
Not everyone is reacting through anxiety. Some of London's new breed of
two-wheeled commuters say it's just to avoid the delays and disruption
on public transport.
Bike stands take the strain
Cycling was already enjoying a boom in the capital and this has
accelerated that trend, says Barry Mason, of Southwark Cyclists. "The
congestion charge increase, the obesity debate and then the long dry
summer meant there were more and more cyclists on the road. Sadly the
bombs have given it another kick."
It's fast, healthy and no longer considered nerdy or for the super-fit,
he says, so the novices should be welcomed.
"There are fewer men in Lycra looking like Olympians and more people
cycling in ordinary clothes, so people see them and say 'I can do
that.'"
The environmental benefits of this trend are diminished because it does
not seem that motorists are switching from their cars to bikes. But for
those new cyclists, there is an uncomfortable fact that they are far
more likely to involved in an accident than in a bombing.
But cycling is still very safe, says Mr Mason, because on average you
would have to cycle non-stop for 96 years before you were killed. And
the extra risk is offset by the health benefits.
Yet this mismatch between perception and reality is significant and one
of the main reasons for it is control, says Professor John Maule, an
expert on risk and director of the Centre for Decision Research at
Leeds University.
"When people get on the Tube, they have no control of what's happening
but when they're on their bike they feel more in control of their
behaviour, so the perceived risks are reduced."
Without the availability of statistics for us to work out the exact
likelihood of being involved in an explosion, people do their own
"mental short-cuts", he says.
Terrorist events which leave very dramatic images in people's minds
are much more retrievable then their frequency of occurrence means they
should be
One factor is the availability of images in our mind, which dictates
how soon the event could happen again. Pictures of the blast aftermath
are so powerful and so omnipresent they stick in the memory, so people
overestimate the likelihood of these events happening again.
"How readily can you bring to mind the image of a cyclist being knocked
down?" he says. "Not easily, because the media isn't interested and
that's the lens through which we learn about the world."
This principle applies to other areas such as child abductions, he
says, which happen at the same rate as in 1945 but which are perceived
to be more frequent nowadays, perhaps due to media coverage.
Experiences which make you feel frightened increase your perception of
risk, he adds, so getting on the Tube - and the associated anxiety -
makes people think it to be more dangerous than it is.
'Dead hero'
But it is perception that is the driving force behind people's
decisions, and without official figures, anecdotal evidence suggests
it's not just bikes which are in demand from ex-Tube travellers.
Lorraine Duncan, 45, from Hayes in Middlesex, avoids the Tube on her
daily commute to central London in favour of a bus from Paddington
railway station.
She accepts buses are now targets from terrorists but she feels safer
above ground.
"I'd rather be a live commuter than a dead hero. If I'm going to be a
little inconvenienced, at least I'm alive."