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I don't have as much experience as Paul, but to his list of factors (the relative ease, convenience and enjoyability of car use) I'd add a few that people are sometimes less willing to admit to: - The perceived low status of cyclists - The image of cyclists as odd/nonconformist/difficult - Physical laziness Matthew Matthew Page -----Original Message----- From: Cycling and Society Research Group discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Rosen Sent: 09 September 2011 11:40 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Please ignore cyclists, especially when they are telling you to ignore cyclists... I started writing this first thing this morning, and it's been interesting watching the debate develop since I began to work out what I wanted to say. John M, I think your comments on different types of users/non-users and owners/non-owners of bicycles are very pertinent to the question of how to change things. I interviewed c100 bike owners 10+ years ago about their travel choices - most of them driving to work for much of the time, though we skewed the sample a bit towards workplaces where cycling was supported institutionally and culturally. We deliberately only spoke with people who owned a bike so as to overcome the problem that starting to cycle would be a bigger step change for those who would have to consciously make that purchase decision first. Aside from that aspect, what isn't commented on in the new research report/debate is the degree to which you can treat non-cyclists' reasons for not cycling at face value, and assume that removal of the barriers they claim prevent them from cycling would straightforwardly solve the problem and lead them to immediately start cycling. I was persuaded by the way people responded in my research that the majority of explanations for why they didn't cycle were simply rationalisations of the fact that it was easier, more convenient, even more enjoyable to use other means (mainly car), compounded by various other factors such as journey distance, complexity of trips involving other family members, etc. When people claimed that helmet hair, messy clothing, sweatiness and lack of showers at work, poor parking facilities etc were the reason for not cycling, I saw no evidence that if you overcame each if these barriers one by one it would result in behaviour change. Rather, a new barrier would be likely to then pop up to explain their lack of cycling. Ease, convenience and enjoyability were the same benefits that explained the behaviour of those who mainly cycled to work, too, which led me to see social marketing as the model that cycling promotion needs to adopt, rather than planning and environmentalism - i.e. it's necessary to sell the benefits of cycling to those who currently only see those benefits in driving. There may be things about the experience of cycling that are needed to change in order to demonstrate and reinforce those benefits - which is where the arguments then kick in about what those things are. To test this, it would be useful I think to do research that engages critically and practically with the things non-regular users say, e.g. take a cohort of non-bicycle users through a process of becoming confident on a bike, in traffic, so they lost their fear of traffic, as a start. Would they then start to cycle everywhere? I'm not entirely convinced they would! Paul