[Closed] AVOID USING THE WORD 'CYCLIST' BECAUSE IT 'DEHUMANISES PEOPLE WHO RIDE BIKES

Velocipeide jockies ?

Dandyhorse pilots?

If we can’t be called cyclists, what should we be called?

50 points.

I've been banging on about it for ages. Makes a lot of sense to me. Apparently when they tried it in Seattle it worked pretty well.

There's a list if suitable language in this article.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/02/dont-say-cyclists-say-people-on-bikes/385387/

FWIW, I agree totally.

If you take a media rant and replace ‘cyclist’ and ‘motorist’ with ‘person on a bike’ and person in a car’ it sounds rather different. Clunky, I admit, it’s better just to say ‘people’

Similarly, rather than ‘a car crashed’ the phrase ‘a person crashed their car’ changes the emphasis. The car has no agency - it’s about people.

Some of whom are in cars and acts like ****, some on bikes and act in a way that increases risk for the rest of us folk on bikes. I wish both groups would quit it.

But Holland and Belgium etc don't have the same problems  

First, a response to the actual question: hooprollers.

Second, an inevitable tangential response.

When you use nouns you define people, and when those nouns are anything much removed from "person" you define people by a single characteristic; be that colour, religion, current mode of transport, or whatever.

Doing this has a lot of effects. It frames issues (such as "cyclist casualties") and thereby also frames the solutions (fewer cyclists means fewer casualties). It obfuscates the real issues and otherwise obvious truths, such as the fact that no-one travels solely by pedal cycle.

This means that it becomes political leverage: if you don't cycle, you're not a cyclist, therefore the problem becomes them-and-us.

Consider the common conversation had with local authorities, often laid out in local media, whereby people campaign for "more money for cyclists". The typical response from the "man in the street" interview is, well, they don't pay tax, they don't have insurance, so on and so on. The man in the street doesn't cycle, and doesn't want his money spent on them. You also get the claims that "money for cyclists" is sexist, racist, etc, because people who currently cycle in the UK are predominately (and very much perceived as being) white, able-bodied adult males. Money for them surely isn't progressive investment.

Asking for "investment in cycling" is a little different: you're then asking for a means of transport to be supported. The conversation can be focused on the people who would be most affected by that investment, which is those who rarely or never currently cycle: people who "aren't cyclists". Then it becomes progressive, not about funding a "freeloading" status quo. It becomes about a transport system, not about "them". It even leads to a conversation about the man in the street having fewer cars in front of him at the lights.

There's a pile of research out there on the psychological effects of defining groups, ranging from some fairly recent stuff on media treatment of people fleeing conflicts, but also reaching much further back across other subjects. It's probably fairly unsurprising that it affects the view of the group held by those outside it, but it also affects those inside it. They behave differently as a result, subconsciously adapting to fit the view held by the outsiders. That research implies that the more you define people on bikes as cyclists, the more people who don't ride bikes will take a negative and adversarial view of them, and the more the people who do ride bikes will behave in the negative manner they're accused of.

A broadly related piece, whereby "cyclists" crops up in a local society meeting and starts causing the inevitable issues:

https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/what-one-old-lady-can-teach-you-about-cycling/amp/

But Holland and Belgium etc don’t have the same problems

If that is the case then I'd say Its largely because they already have this attitude. People on bikes there are just ordinary people who happen to be riding a bike. In the UK you are seen as some kind of fanatic or extremist for choosing to ride a bike. You need to dress up in fluorescent colours, wear a helmet and become a 'cyclist'

Cyclists in the UK

People on bikes in Holland

@nickjb you are probably right

Some of the most powerful messaging going about is trying to humanise jobs/roles/activities in Oz there were billboards reminding people that the man in lycra was a. Father, brother, husband or fireman etc. On public transport here it uses kids to remind you that staff go home to their kids every day don't be aggressive to them. People see a uniform or role and make an assumption - check out any thread on here about police and you will get some sweeping negative stuff through

Remember that video of a chap in London trying to put through a car window and get to the occupants inside, with a machete? He arrive at the scene on a bike, thus referred to as a cyclist. If ever a mugger or theif uses a bike as a getaway vehicle, they are referred to as a cyclist. When they run away or use a car, it’s never ‘pedestrian’, ‘jogger’ or ‘motorist’ committing these crimes. ‘Cyclist’ in the mainstream media is used to weight the reader against an individual, as most drivers see them as a nuisance, so any bad press just reinforces that view. Who here identifies with machete wielding gangsters or muggers and thieves, as we’re all cyclists...

Well, in the Netherlands there are two nouns for "cyclist". There's "fietser", which is simply someone using a bike, and "wielrenner", which is reserved for sporting use. This means that the large majority of people are fietsers, but not that many are wielrenners.

Despite its diversity, English only has "cyclist", which is allows the BBC use pictures of angry-/miserable-/exhausted-looking wielrenners hunched over racing bikes in lycra and wraparound sunglasses to illustrate most of its articles about whether we might want to build some infrastructure so that everyone has the option of being a fietser to get to school or work in the morning.

Can I whisper cyclist rather than shout it?

Just getting dressed in my lycia to cycle to work. No idea where I'm going to put this machete.

Can I whisper cyclist rather than shout it?

I think I'll just cough at the same time as I say it.

@mikesmith we probably have a lot to learn from other nations on this topic.

I read some stats on most respected jobs around the world. Teachers and police are ranked very low here but highly in other places.

Unfortunately it says more about the state of Britain today.......

Further to nickjb's post about the Netherlands, Belgium etc., most people there ride a bike on a regular basis, so will associate their own self-image with cyclists/people on bikes. Even if they don't, loads of their friends and family will ride regularly, so they will be much more 'humanised'. It means that there isn't that them vs us divide that exists in the UK (and also here in NZ).

This happens in all fields! Even though it’s usually jocular, guitarist and bassists wouldn’t have such volume wars if they called themselves “musicians who play xxx”.

There's a bike in our bike shed at work with a child seat on it. It has, in big reflective letters, "TOM" on the back. I know what that's for.

Netherlands/Belgium/Denmark - yes, there's a massive difference in CULTURE. We wear helmets because our infrastructure is shit and we feel frequently threatened out on the road. They don't, because, well... they don't.
Interesting Bez's stuff about the 2 names for cyclists in Dutch. I wonder how cyclists (wielrenners or fietsers) are treated in law when conflict arises with motorists...

Sounds sensible to me, it just creates a them and us culture.

Nice blocks cap title BTW.

I read some stats on most respected jobs around the world. Teachers and police are ranked very low here but highly in other places.

You mean the ones that the govt is constantly trying to cut funding from, despite being core to its values so they focus on the perceived ‘negatives’ to get public support for the cuts (long holidays, ‘haven’t the police got anything better to do’)?

Real puzzler that one.

I sort of agree. If I got run over while walking on the pavement the local newspaper would report "Pedestrian run over". But at no point in my life would I describe myself as a pedestrian. In the same way that "Cancer Mum" describes nobody.

I remember the biggest insult my mom gave me and my friends when at age 15 we spent more time talking and faffing about bikes than actually riding them: "You're not cyclists - you're just bike riders"

The reality is you are just someone in the way. I don’t see attitudes changing in the UK no matter what name you give to the person getting in the way.

Bez

Well, in the Netherlands there are two nouns for “cyclist”. There’s “fietser”, which is simply someone using a bike, and “wielrenner”, which is reserved for sporting use.

Despite its diversity, English only has “cyclist”...

Well now, thanks to BigJohn's mum, we have a word(s)

“You’re not cyclists – you’re just bike riders”

🙂

FWIW, I agree totally.

If you take a media rant and replace ‘cyclist’ and ‘motorist’ with ‘person on a bike’ and person in a car’ it sounds rather different. Clunky, I admit, it’s better just to say ‘people’

Similarly, rather than ‘a car crashed’ the phrase ‘a person crashed their car’ changes the emphasis. The car has no agency – it’s about people.

Some of whom are in cars and acts like ****, some on bikes and act in a way that increases risk for the rest of us folk on bikes. I wish both groups would quit it.

This.

I never ever refer to myself as a cyclist. Never have.
If anyone else does I generally reply "I ride bikes" or am a "bike rider".
This isn't from a dehumanising viewpoint but because "cyclists" as a group are pretty embarassing. I don't actually like cycling or cyclists. (some of you might have noticed)
I do love riding bikes though. like absolutely love it.
Not just pedalling along like a plumb though.

Not just pedalling along like a plumb though.

Of course not - that would be crazy 😉

Can I still use seeklist?

“You’re not cyclists – you’re just bike riders”

See geex last post 😀

Not just pedalling along like a plumb though.

You shold try doing less of it then.

BIG HITTER!!!!!

Still creepy

I only do MTB and hate being called a cyclist because it's always associated with road.

There is a large amount of research that illustrates the use of labels enable dehumanisation.

As a result, I think in terms of road use we should avoid using labels like ‘driver’, ‘cyclist’ or ‘pedestrian’. I have said that before on here - but I don’t think many paid attention previously...

Because labels enable dehumanisation they are incredibly dangerous - we only need to think at the current time of ‘Leaver’, ‘Remainer’, ‘Immigrant’, ‘Benefits Cheat’ - all joyfully uses by politicians, mass media and other groups to manipulate and incite.

a picture of commuters sharing space with other road users in shite weather is not the same parameters as a dutch family stock photo in a pedestrianised area.

more people would commmute by bike if it wasn't so threatening.

As a discussion with some of my colleague who like to bring up when a 'cyclist has been killed in town (London)'

I mention its a person who owns a bike