Women's Freedom to Ride

The War on Cars

The War on Cars, LLC

Cars, Society & Culture, Culture, Bicycling, Politics, Urbanism, Walking, Transportation, Cities, Transit, News Commentary, News

4.9 • 937 Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why don’t more women ride bicycles in London? The advocacy group London Cycling Campaign wanted to know, and so they asked. What they discovered was disturbing: Among more than a thousand women surveyed, nine out of ten said they experienced verbal abuse and aggression while biking. Ninety-three percent said drivers had used vehicles to intimidate them. One in five said they had given up riding permanently or temporarily after they had been harassed. And when women reported incidents of aggression to the police? The cops almost never followed up.

We spoke with the London Cycling Campaign’s Kate Bartlett about what women face on the road and what advocates are doing to make cycling safer and more accessible for all.

*** Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, exclusive bonus content and stickers. ***

This episode was sponsored by Pinhead Locks and Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest discount codes.

LINKS:

Check out the London Cycling Campaign’s initiative to get more women out and riding freely.

Merch! Pick up The War on Cars t-shirts, stickers and more in our store.

Purchase books from podcast guests and support independent booksellers at our official Bookshop.org page.

thewaroncars.org

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone, we just wanted to give you a heads up that there's some language and descriptions of harassment and violence in this episode.
0:08.0	If that might be difficult for you to hear, go ahead and skip this one or come back to it when you feel ready. Thanks.
0:15.0	As a 15 year old growing up in Edmonton, Linda Young used to ride her bike to school.
0:22.0	One afternoon she came out of class, eager to ride home,
0:25.2	only to find that her front wheel had been stolen.
0:28.5	Now, most people would just kind of curse, kick the dirt,
0:31.5	walk home, and that would be that. But not Linda, her stolen
0:35.6	front wheel started her on a lifelong mission to develop the ultimate bicycle security
0:41.1	solution. She founded Pinhead in 1997. We met Linda at the
0:46.2	Winter Cycling Congress in Edmonton back in February and pretty quickly realized
0:50.6	Pinhead is the perfect war on cars sponsor. It is a small ambitious
0:55.6	woman-owned business that is obsessively focused on designing great products
1:00.4	for people who ride bikes. P Pinhead is different from other bike locks
1:03.6	because it secures every part of your bike with one key. You can lock up your wheels,
1:08.2	your seat post, saddle, headset, frame, everything, with the same key.
1:14.0	And with Pinhead's new tagbox, you can track your bike no matter where it goes.
1:19.0	Pinhead locks are sold and installed in bike shops all across North America so you can walk into your
1:24.2	local bike shop and ask for it.
1:26.4	But you can also order online and war on cars listeners get a 15% discount.
1:31.4	Just go to pinheadlocks.com and when you check out, enter coupon code
1:35.4	war on bike theft. Again that's pinheadlocks.com coupon code war on bike theft for 15% off.
1:45.0	A complete stranger walked up behind me and slapped me on the ass. It was so hard it bruised through my clothing.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The War on Cars, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The War on Cars, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.