{"id":668404,"date":"2026-05-14T07:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668404\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:08:08","slug":"aggressive-car-culture-puts-women-off-cycling-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668404\/","title":{"rendered":"Aggressive car culture puts women off cycling \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aggressive driver behaviour, speeding, poor cycling<\/a> infrastructure and the increased size of vehicles are deterring women from getting on their bikes, research by Transport Infrastructure Ireland<\/a> (TII) has found.<\/p>\n

Most women in Ireland can cycle and have access to a bike, but are only half as likely as men to choose cycling as a mode of travel, according to the Empowering Women to Cycle report.<\/p>\n

The research involved a survey of more than 1,000 women from urban, suburban and rural areas, as well workshops, interviews and \u201ctravel diaries\u201d. The report is the first commissioned by the State transport agency that asked women why they do or don\u2019t cycle and what would encourage them to cycle.<\/p>\n

A perception that concern about appearance discouraged women from cycling was not borne out, the report said. \u201cOnly 15 per cent of our survey respondents considered this a deterrent factor. Of more importance were aspects such as road safety<\/a>, infrastructure and personal safety<\/a> concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only 3 per cent of women surveyed had never cycled and almost 70 per cent considered themselves \u201cconfident\u201d cyclists. However, women complete just 1.3 per cent of their trips by bicycle compared with 3 per cent of journeys taken by men.<\/p>\n

Half those surveyed said unsafe roads were a barrier to cycling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen in the workshop observed how urban sprawl and car-based land-use planning has left many with little practical option but to travel by car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants noted the \u201ccharacteristics of road traffic in Ireland are changing\u201d, with an increasing \u201ccar culture\u201d and \u201caggressive\u201d driver behaviour. \u201cWomen\u2019s concerns revolve around high traffic speeds and volume, as well as the increasing size of vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

One suburban-based woman told researchers: \u201cI think the majority of Irish drivers do not know what it\u2019s like to be a cyclist in Ireland. I believe if they cycled Irish roads for even just a week, they would understand cyclists much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Campaigners highlight gulf between numbers of boys and girls cycling to schoolOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A woman living in a rural location said she lived only one mile from a town, but the road was unsafe to cycle on due to the \u201chuge volume\u201d of traffic. \u201cThe cars just fly along … and people pull into the hard shoulder to let somebody overtake them. So it\u2019s not safe, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negative attitudes towards cycling were cited by 45 per cent of those surveyed, with women describing some abusive encounters. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I just get unpleasant interactions with groups of men or groups of teenage boys that\u2019ll yell something at me as I\u2019m going past,\u201d a city-based woman said. \u201cI once had some teenage lads try and step in front of me while I was cycling, and made to grab my bike, and I just had to yell at them and go round them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others saw their bike as a safer option than walking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m out and I\u2019m passing a bunch of young lads and they\u2019re menacing or fooling or whatever, I find if I\u2019m walking it takes a while to get past them, but if I\u2019m cycling I\u2019m past them fairly quickly. So, it kind of increases the safety in those situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another urban-based woman said: \u201cI actually never felt unsafe because I felt that I was on a getaway vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost 30 per cent of survey respondents said segregated cycle lanes would encourage them to cycle more, 27 per cent called for well-lit routes, a quarter wanted better-connected routes and 22 per cent called for protection at junctions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have lanes that are supposed to be for cyclists and instead people park their car there,\u201d a city-based woman said.<\/p>\n

The research will be used to inform the development of infrastructure, TII said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aggressive driver behaviour, speeding, poor cycling infrastructure and the increased size of vehicles are deterring women from getting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,44340,82,246491,2372],"class_list":["post-668404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-road-safety","tag-sports","tag-transport-infrastructure-ireland","tag-womens-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}