Why are some people so triggered by cycling?

Why are so many people triggered by cycling? After all, it's almost entirely benign.

The angry men of Twitter aside, many people view cycling as a good thing, but at the same time remain reluctant to get on their bikes. Reasons given range from the lack of good cycling infrastructure to hills, rain and the cold. But what about emotional barriers to cycling?

Sociologist Dave Horton has written an absolutely fascinating insight into the fear of cycling.

He starts by setting fear of cycling in a wider context; we live in fearful societies and it is possible to fear cycling for many reasons beyond the fear of having an accident on which I concentrate, at least to begin with. I move on to critically examine some measures which are apparently designed to improve cycling’s safety; road safety education, cycle helmet promotion, and the separation of cyclists from motorised traffic.

Later in the paper I broaden my interest in fear, and attempt to make connections between the constantly produced fear of cycling and common media representations of ‘the cyclist’ as a figure to be feared. If the first half of the paper tends to prioritise people’s fears of the accident and physical injury via cycling, I here switch to consideration of people’s existential fears, of having to negotiate with (their representations of) cyclists and with the possibility of themselves becoming a cyclist. I contend that fear of the accident and fear of being pushed towards cycling (and thus towards adopting a cycling identity, becoming ‘a cyclist’) are related, and together constitute contemporary fear of cycling.

Fear of cycling...and becoming 'strange'

It really is worth a read. We are particularly interested in Horton's exploration of the fear connected to issues of identity including the fear of ridicule, of losing status, of riding a gendered, classed, raced and stigmatised vehicle, of undermining one’s existing sense of identity; fear, in other words, of becoming ‘strange’.

https://thinkingaboutcycling.wordpress.com/article-fear-of-cycling/

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