‘I’m terrified.’
As I cycle down a street in north London, those are the words written on the back of my hi-vis jacket – and once upon a time, they were completely true. These days, the fear still bubbles up occasionally, but it’s no longer a constant companion.
Even after being on my bike for five years now, I’m still worried about what can happen on the road, especially as there are no safe cycle paths to help me get to where I’m going.
Unlike my husband, who has ample separated cycleways between our front door and his office in the City of London, for the types of trips I make, there is often zero infrastructure in place.
That means that every time I zip up and down the streets during school drop off and pick up, or to the local amenities, I run the risk of getting knocked off my bike with my daughters in tow.
Prior to the pandemic, I used to drive the mile and a half to school, but just after the lockdown lifted, and school children were asked to come in at staggered times, I decided to give cycling a try.
I loved being outside, feeling the weather, and how easy it was to pop my two daughters on the back, jump on and go. In fact, in many ways, cycling has been a game-changer.
I can now juggle a million tiny errands and things like the school run, shopping and appointments are all made easier as there’s no stress about parking.
But there are certainly many new, scarier challenges I face daily.
I’ve never felt much misogyny or been verbally harassed by strangers in the street while on foot, but, from the early days of riding my bike, I’ve felt an enormous amount of hostility from other road users.
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One time, while taking my daughter to a birthday party, a truck kept speeding very close to us between traffic lights. The two men inside had the windows rolled down and music blaring, and eventually I smiled and politely asked why they kept doing that.
Their response? To scream obscenities, swear and call me sexist names, while my five-year-old daughter was in the child seat and most definitely within earshot.
At first, I was mostly puzzled by their response and at a loss for words for how to explain that to my daughter.
I was too shaken to risk cycling my daughter back from the party – though thankfully a couple of friends offered my daughter a lift home in the car.
I’m thicker-skinned now – I don’t let a bit of name calling, or parental judgement affect me. But I don’t think it matters how experienced you are as a cyclist; a close pass always leaves me shaken.
It’s difficult to know whether aggression is gendered, but while my husband also sometimes gets cut up by drivers, he’s never come home saying someone shouted verbal abuse at him, and I think that speaks volumes.
Now that one of my daughters is old enough to cycle independently, drivers often lower their windows to offer their unsolicited opinions – usually to question my parenting, or to ask me exactly what kind of mother lets her child ride a bike.
Spoiler: It’s never meant as a compliment.
According to YouGov research commissioned by the charity Cycling UK, intimidating behaviour from drivers is among one of the chief reasons that women in the UK are deterred from cycling.
As well as this, 58% believe their cycle journeys are limited by safety concerns and a lack of suitable infrastructure.
Certainly, when I talk to fellow mothers at the school gates, the perceived danger of cycling in London is the number one reason the non-cyclists are reluctant to try. That’s why I always wore my hi-vis jacket.
While it started as an experiment to try and humanise myself while cycling – I wanted something like an L-plate to alert drivers to my nerves and the hi-vis I found online allowed me to personalise it – it quickly had a huge impact on how I was treated on the roads.
Cycling UK
Read more about Cycling UK’s campaign ‘My Ride. Our Right’, by visiting www.cyclinguk.org/my-ride-our-right
Not only do I think it made drivers think of me more as a person, but I found people were generally respectful and gave me much more space, so I wore it religiously for the first year, until I got more confident.
Of course, people should be mindful of cyclists regardless of what they wear, but the reality is not all drivers are. That’s why I sometimes have a camera attached to my bike.
I bought it to capture the joy of cycling with my family but it has also acted as a deterrent for verbal abuse, which is a win-win.
I also have a helmet with flashing lights that I can programme to display words. I type in silly things, like ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Urgh, rain!’. It has made a big difference to how I’m treated on the road because, once again, drivers see me as a human and not an obstruction to their drive.
I know that I’m not the only one who’s experienced challenges on the road so I started the Camden Bike Bus so my kids can cycle to school safely and joyfully.
Every week, a group of us – including children as young as five and, recently, two mums who have not cycled for years due to past scares – ride together in a rolling disco of music, laughter, and hi-vis.
It creates a kind of pop-up safety zone, a stand-in for the protected and consistent infrastructure we all wish existed.
It’s crazy to think that while some of the most vulnerable people are children, the mothers taking them to school don’t feel like they have adequate protection from other road users. We must change that, for the good of our planet and for the safety of our roads.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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