Who are the one percent super polluters ?

If you're reading this you're probably earn a salary in the top 10% worldwide, if not the top 1%. If you think I have incorrect figures for 1% and 10% salaries please see the update at the bottom of this blog for my response to the misleading Oxfam / Guardian report

Our starting point for this article: We needed to reduce our emissions by 18% a year, beginning in 2019. Of course, we now know that this is not what actually happened in 2019 so we now need to reduce our emissions even more steeply beginning in 2020. This will not be achieved by any easy measures which allow us, i.e. the relatively rich people who live in developed nations, to carry on our lives as usual, consuming more and more each year. We cannot rely upon negative emissions because the technology to achieve this does not exist.

In October 2018 we received the IPCC's latest report on climate change which gave us 12 years to turn around our behaviour to preserve conditions on the planet which are compatible with human life.  Soon afterward I noted that life carried on as usual immediately after this news as if everyone was waiting for everyone else to take steps. We now know that 2019's emissions, far from being the 18% lower than those of 2018 required to start to tackle the biggest problem that mankind has ever faced, were actually the highest ever recorded (while power sector only energy emissions, where small drops were balanced by rises in others, barely changed from 2018).

Our lack of action last years means, of course, that we now have to take even more drastic steps than were required a year ago. You can see what is required in the graph above. The red lines become steeper for each year that we wait before we take action. We now need to reduce our emissions not by just 18% per year but by more than 20% each year. Can we we do this ? Will we start to try to save ourselves ? Will I be back here in a year's time with the same message once again ?

Source: Oxfam

Who are the 1% richest ? The answer may surprise you.
It's quite well accepted that the richest people on the planet cause the most emissions. It's quite obvious why this is the case: the more that people earn, the more they spend and the more they consume. Higher income results in higher consumption and higher consumption results in higher emissions. Some products are more harmful than others, but anything extra that we buy has an impact.

There is a great inequality built into climate change. Half of all climate changing emissions result from the behaviour of the richest 10% of the population of the planet. The effects of the resultant climate change are, however, mostly felt by those who had little or no impact, with 99% of casualties so far being in developing countries.

If you earn over $58000 per year you make up part of the left-most
green bar - the super polluters who produce more than 10x the global
average emissions. If you earn less than that but more than $19300 then
you're in the next highest column - with about 5x average emissions.

If we go beyond the richest 10% and look at the richest 1% of the population then we find ourselves focusing on a truly elite group of people. The 1% are the "super polluters", earning vastly more than the average person, consuming vastly more and with an environmental footprint which is also vastly higher than the average. As you can see from the graph left, the impact of the 1% is more than 10x greater than average. These super consumers are disproportionately responsible for climate changing emissions.

Now comes the part which may surprise many readers of this blog. You are almost certainly in the 10% and you're quite likely to be one of the truly elite top 1%. You may not feel like a member of the elite and this may initially sound hyperbolic, but only 1% of the world's population earns more than $58000 per year so if your annual income is higher than US$58000 (equivalent to about 51000 euros or 43000 UK pounds) per year then you are in fact a member of the exclusive 1% club. i.e. in comparison with 99% of the world's population, you are the elite. If your annual salary is less than this, but still more than about $19300 (€17000 / 14300 pounds), then you're still in the top 10%. i.e. even people who earn minimum wage in many nations are still part of the top 10%.
(2021 update: original referred to slightly outdated source which gave $32400 / $13700 per year)

How will we answer future generations' questions?

What to do if you realise you're part of the 1%
How should we react to this revelation ? To my mind it is clear that the people who can do most to reduce climate changing emissions are those whose emissions are highest in the first place. i.e. the elite few who earn in the top 1% or top 10% worldwide.

If we know that we're part of the group then we have a responsibility to do something. If people who are part of that group, who have choices in their behaviour and who are amongst the highest earners and highest emitters on this planet, can't be convinced or convince themselves to cut down on their consumption in order to emit less carbon, who then can we convince ?

Isn't it better to push someone else to make cuts?
Of course, the problems faced won't be solved by a few individuals acting alone. We actually need many individuals to recognise their part in this problem and act. Even then, if all the 1% eradicated all their emissions (perhaps by the "eat the rich" meme becoming reality) even that wouldn't eliminate more than at most about a fifth of the emissions. i.e. "eat the rich" as a policy would achieves just one year's worth of reduced emissions. But the rich are still personally responsible for a disproportionately large part of the problem so while they should use their voices to campaign for governments and big businesses alike to take action to control their emissions, and they should try to ensure that such things as pension funds are invested in ways such that they result in low or zero emissions (even if this might mean a lower pension), they also need to remember that it is only the relatively rich who even have such things as pension funds and given the extraordinary size of emissions per comparatively rich person they do have a responsibility to tackle the problem that they are causing.

For us to see a 20% annual reduction in emissions we need a change in the patterns of consumption of the richest people on the planet because anything else places far too much of a burden on the people who have the least to lose. If the richest 1-10% remain the biggest supporters of large polluting companies, the most enthusiastic consumers of steadily more of the planet destroying products made by those companies, happily consuming reassuring marketing greenwash from those companies while also continuing to buy their products, then they really have to take a good proportion of the blame for those products destroying the world on which we live.

We won't be able to do this without targeting consumers, especially the big consumers. The elite group who are lucky enough to have choices can change their behaviour and their doing so will make a disproportionate difference.

There is no way out of this without taking some personal responsibility. To reduce emissions we need to consume less. We probably also need to earn less to achieve this because as we've seen, people who can use their discretionary spending to consume and emit more than people who have fewer choices. We cannot rely upon rich philanthropists who otherwise pay very little tax deciding how much of their wealth they will give away and what should be funded. That does not result in an fair society. A tax system which reallocates wealth more equitably has to be part of any attempt to tackle the climate change.

How can it be ethical to hold onto a pattern of income and consumption which we know harms others ?

Leaving the club
I'd never ask anyone to do anything that I wouldn't. Personally, I left the 1% club on purpose nearly 20 years ago by choosing a different way of living. Initially I asked to work three days a week at my existing job, but this request was rejected so I stopped working in software development and did something else instead. I left the 10% club more recently, this step coming a little sooner than expected due to politics elsewhere.

Having a lower income does not necessarily mean living badly.

Those who are lucky enough to have a choice can in many cases make a decision to earn and consume less without any adverse effect on their lifestyle. For instance, opting to work four or three days a week in an existing job results in less income and lower consumption. It also means lower emissions because you spend less, and has the positives of less commuting and an extra 52 days of free time every year. Who wouldn't want that extra time to themselves ? Reducing one's income and stepping out of the 1% gives it to you.

Is there such a thing as "good" consumption?

We have a green self-image, but these things only help us to
reduce emissions if they're part of a pattern of lowered
consumption and we don't compensate by spending and
emitting more in other parts of our lives.

Not all consumption has the same effect of course. For instance, spending money on things like far better insulation results in a short term increase in emissions due to the embedded carbon in the product but reduces energy consumption and resultant emissions by a far greater amount in the longer term. It also makes your home more economical and more pleasant to live in. Similarly, installing solar panels costs about as much as buying a second hand car but instead of resulting in years of expense and emissions it results in years of lowered costs and emissions. Both these examples are of things which may be difficult to afford initially on a lower income but afterwards they make life on a low income both easier and more pleasant. However this only works if it really results in a reduction in consumption. If what we saved by insulating our home is used for some other activity, such as travel or maintaining a high consumption of more or less any other product, then our emissions will remain high. A high income is a problem in and of itself: If a saving is made in one place, it will probably lead to more being spent elsewhere.

Of course this blog has generally had transport and cycling as a subject. Living car free results in instantly lowered costs and emissions. The most efficient vehicle on the planet is you using your own muscles to push the pedals of a bicycle. The bicycle is not only a very inexpensive form of transport which is compatible with living a lifestyle of lower consumption and lower emissions but also improves your well-being. Working fewer days per week leaves more time to enjoy it. But the task ahead of us enormous. Merely riding a bike a bit isn't enough.

Update September 2020. Oxfam and The Guardian work together to fudge the issue
Oxfam and SEI have published a report and the The Guardian has reported on it. Unfortunately, this report is rather misleading and the Guardian's reporting of it is even more so. The report authors used PPP (Purchasing power parity) income figures which the original report admits is not perfect (see page 33) but which The Guardian reported without any qualification thus: "Globally, the richest 10% are those with incomes above about $35,000 (£27,000) a year, and the richest 1% are people earning more than about $100,000."

Unfortunately, that is plain wrong. These figures don't correspond to any individual's actual income. PPP is an attempt to compare consumer side purchasing power of individuals across countries. What's more, the Guardian's conversion of $35K to £27K is a simple currency rate conversion which doesn't even take into account the higher prices in the UK. As the OECD suggests that prices are 21% higher in the UK than in the US, the correct conversion of $35K PPP is not £27K but £33K PPP.

However it is my view that this usage of PPP is simply incorrect so far as emissions due to income are concerned. PPP is nothing more than "an inflation rate that is equal to the price of the basket of goods at one location divided by the price of the basket of goods at a different location." The purpose of PPP is to make a comparison of the cost "to maintain a standard of living comparable to the US in terms of consumption." Note that this is a very US-centric measure. The basket of goods is based on US consumption patterns. There is no an attempt to allow for the fact that people in different countries buy different goods, that people in most countries buy much less and people in poorer countries buy far fewer of the expensive items which have similar prices worldwide. There is also no attempt to allow for emissions. All these things are beyond the remit of PPP.

If someone in a third world country can buy a loaf of bread for 20 cents while it costs someone in the US $2, that would push us towards a simple 10x difference in PPP while emissions are ignored, but the product consumed is unlikely to be have the same emissions in both cases. While it's highly likely that a relatively poor person will walk to a local bakery to collect bread, it is more likely that that a US citizen will buy their loaf by car. PPP does not allow for the likely difference in emissions due to apparently equivalent activities such as buying a loaf of bread which result from a person in one country being rich enough to consume vastly more energy and nor does it take account of richer people disposing of items more quickly. e.g. PPP makes no allowance for American citizens throwing away a vastly higher proportion of their food than people of other nations, nor that they buy, driver and dispose of far more cars than people of most other nations. All these things are also beyond the remit of PPP.

In the report, the effect of use of PPP salary figures is that it makes high western consumption seem more comparable to the far lower consumption figures for poorer countries. This is clearly playing down the much higher emissions of richer people, including those who are thought of as being relatively "poor" in richer countries but whose emissions are actually often quite high in comparison with poor people in poor countries. I find it a disingenuous way to make a comparison and one which in large part lets us in the richer nations off the hook. In reality, emissions are close to directly correlated to actual income levels, and top 10% salaries so far as emissions are concerned really do begin at something close to $19300 per year, no matter what country you live in.

Another quote from an Oxfam spokesman is also worth repeating: “this isn’t about people who have one family holiday a year." This is also highly misleading. 80% of the planet's population has never flown in an airplane. Not even once. Airliner manufacturers are counting on this because they want to grow their polluting trade. Those same people have also almost certainly never travelled long distances by other modes either. Anyone who takes "one family holiday" a year actually is doing something exceptional by world standards and producing an exceptional level of emissions as a result. Flying annually, or indeed taking long journeys by any other mode, is very much a top 10% habit. To reduce emissions from transport we have to travel less, not just change modes.

The Dutch Oxfam Novib website makes a similar mistake to that made by The Guardian, referring to an income of $38K as a top 10% salary and a salary of $109K as a top 1% salary. The 90% of the world's population which has lower emissions actually has a salary below $19300 and the figures they're quoting are again the result of a PPP comparison which makes us in the west seem less wealthy and less responsible for the damage that we're creating than we actually are.

This problem is caused by us.

To conclude, people living in rich western nations can't go on blaming only those on high salaries for the bulk of emissions because almost all of us are actually in that category and as a result almost all of us have extremely high emissions because of our wasteful lifestyles. The population of Europe and the USA combined is about 10% of the world's population and we almost all have wasteful, polluting lifestyles.

We can't go on blaming others. Let's look in a mirror once in awhile.

2021 update with new top 1% and top 10% salaries
The article above was based on the available data when it was written which was slightly outdated giving slightly lower than accurate top 1% and top 10% salary figures. But note that this was not enough to make redundant the point of the article, that most people in rich western nations make up a part of those high polluting groups. There is now a new source of data for the true level of top 1% and top 10% salary figures. The updated figures for 2021 are $19300 per year for a top 10% salary and $58000 for a top 1% salary. i.e. if you earn more than these figures then you make up part of that top 10% or perhaps top 1% of earners who are the biggest polluters on the planet. Sadly, Oxfam continue to this day to make use of misleading PPP figures, which cause most people who are part of these high earning groups not to realise that they are a part of those groups.

2023 update "Quantifying the human cost of global warming"
A recently published article in Nature quantifies the impact thus: "~2.7 average European Union citizens or ~1.2 average US citizens emit enough carbon in their lifetimes to expose one future person to unprecedented heat, and the average citizen of Qatar emits enough carbon in their lifetime to expose ~2.8 future people to unprecedented heat. Those future people tend to be in nations that today have per capita emissions around the 25% quantile." i.e. it's us. The average consumers. Our lifestyles kill people. Yes, the super rich are worse than us. We knew that. But that they are so unbelievably terrible doesn't give average consumers in the west a free pass.

Reduce CO2 emissions by increasing cycling

The Fietsberaad recently published a story about how the ten most likely measures to decrease short car journeys made in towns involve promoting cycling. The ten top measures (with links to examples of each) are as follows:

1. priority for cyclists at traffic lights
2. make a town impossible to traverse by car (segmentation)
3. providing good and safe bicycle routes
4. improve accessibility of schools for cyclists in comparison to motorists
5. decrease number of parking places
6. parking at a fee/higher parking fees
7. maintenance of bicycle parking facilities
8. free/high-quality bicycle parking
9. delivery services
10. promote independent cycling by children

Note that the examples pointed to are all real. This isn't just hot air, but policy which is already being implemented and which already has demonstrated success in this country.

Of course, it's not just about CO2. There are various other benefits to society, such as lower cost of sickness, and not being so reliant on foreign oil.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, driving is getting cheaper, encouraging higher car usage.

Cycle paths and the disabled

Cycle paths don't only provide utility for cyclists. They are also useful for other groups, such as those with disabilities. In the Netherlands it is quite common here to see people riding on electric buggies, hand cycles or adult tricycles. The paths make cycling by any means a good way of getting about, and there is the social aspect that people with disabilities can join in rides with able bodied friends.

This photo was taken on the direct West-East cycle path through one suburb of Assen.

This person is riding in an electric powered buggy which transports the owner in her wheelchair. This is next to a busy road in the area of the industrial estate, but here as everywhere else, the subjective safety is good enough that everyone can cycle.

And here are some traffic education cards (I featured some of these earlier) handed out to primary school children. The first one explains that in Dutch law, wheel chair users are also cyclists so should be expected n cycle-paths. The second refers to pedestrians and explains that while a cycle path may be compulsory for cyclists, it is not forbidden to walk on it (especially in the unusual cases when there is no separate walking path).

Strange but true: wheel chair users are also cyclists!      Compulsory for cyclists but not forbidden for pedestrians

Being truly "inclusive" and providing for all its members is one of those things which marks a mature and responsible society. In the Netherlands, cycling is truly something for all, just as it should be.

Where cycling is only for a brave or "foolish" few, it remains a minority interest.

On bogeys, gaps, juu-juu and being told to f-off...

Other bloggers have yet again been writing about drivers and how they behave towards cyclists.

I recognise all these problems from when I lived and cycled in the UK. What's more, the friend with whom I rode from Land's End to John o'Groats reminded me this morning of a shop in Cornwall in the UK at which we bought refreshments. As we were loading them onto our bikes outside, the owner came to the door to tell us to "fuck off" because we were cyclists. Most people we met on that ride were reasonable human beings, but he wasn't the only unpleasant one. I've known pubs in the UK to shut their doors when cyclists arrive. They'd rather not have our money, rather than let in what they think are outlaw cyclists. It's really very sad, and of course makes no sense at all.

Anyway, the thing is... none of this happens over here. Not at all, ever. Cycling here is always a pleasure.

Take my commute today. A 63 km round trip, which as always was completely uneventful so far as drivers were concerned. As is normal, they gave way to me at the side road junctions where the law says they should. They also gave way to me at most junctions where they have priority over the cycle path and the law says they don't need to. White van man who this morning had pulled a bit too far out of a side road in order to join the road parallel with my bike path pulled back to let me past, and did so early enough that I didn't have to slow down.

Everyone smiled. No-one shouted. Lots and lots of people cycled.

Another normal day in the Netherlands.

In related news, a recent survey reveals that three quarters of Dutch cyclists sometimes sing as they ride along.

Cycling and the economy

How often do cycling campaigners get told that providing decent infrastructure for cyclists is "too expensive" ? Or that it's simply a waste of money ? In many countries cycling gets a pittance compared with other modes of transport.

There is clearly a lot of muddled thinking going on. Cycling is not a problem, but is part of the solution so far as reducing dependency on foreign oil, improving people's health (which makes companies more profitable) and leads to a happier society. What's more, encouraging cycling simply makes good financial sense.

A few weeks ago I came across a graph showing the "Current Account Balance" (it's explained at that link) of various different countries. It actually explains itself as "a country's net trade in goods and services, plus net earnings from rents, interest, profits, and dividends, and net transfer payments (such as pension funds and worker remittances) to and from the rest of the world during the period specified."

Green shows a positive balance, red shows a negative balance, or rate of increase in debt. The length of the line shows the size of this trade balance.

Let's look down the list of the top ten nations.

China of course gains its wealth these days due to its incredible level of exports of manufactured goods. It is famous for having a lot of bikes (though sadly cycle usage is dropping), Japan also has a lot more cycling than average. Germany has around 10% of journeys by bike. Saudi Arabia and Russia have oil and gas. Switzerland has about 6% of journeys despite being a mountainous country. The Netherlands has around 27% of all journeys by bike, and leads the world. Norway earns its position in the list due to being an oil exporting country as only 4% of trips are by bicycle there, Kuwait also has oil, and Singapore is another big trading nation with high public transport use.

Now let's consider the three countries which come in behind the Netherlands for the cycling rate. Denmark, where 18% of all journeys by bike, has a small population so is disadvantaged for a position in this list but is still positive at position 38, Similarly Finland and Sweden take 3rd and 4th place for cycling with 11% and 10%, and both of these are also positive. So, the top four countries for cycling are all in the green, doing well financially, and they also have good social policies.

If we look at the other end of the scale, the countries with the fastest growing debts, we find this collection. Not one country at this end of the chart has a high cycling rate.

The USA, UK and Australia have amongst the lowest cycling rates in the world at around 1% of journeys. Italy and France are at 3%. Perhaps the worst position of a country with a reasonably high rate of cycling is India at 11th from bottom. However, that is a country where cycling is associated with poverty and people cycle predominantly because the have to. Mind you, they're still doing better than the bottom ten are.

Of course, correlation isn't causation. I'm not saying that these countries are at this end of the list purely because people who live there are reluctant to cycle. However, it is perhaps interesting to reflect upon the way that the Dutch sometimes refer to their cycling policy as a fiscal measure. Getting people to cycle means spending less on road maintenance, less on imported oil, less on fixing diseases which are caused by a sedentary lifestyle and makes workers more productive.

I've mentioned it before, but the top four countries for cycling, all of whom have positive balances in this comparison, are also the top four for childhood happiness. Is it not worth trying to copy such a success ?

Do the British love their children too ?

It's a rhetorical question - of course they do. However, it does not always look much like it. Today I read in the Cambridge Evening News about how following a crash which involved two children going to school in Cambridgeshire on a dangerous road, a school bus has been laid on for others with the same route. However, this has resulted in the bus being withdrawn for another 57 children and they will have to make a similarly dangerous journey by other means.

The truly absurd thing about this is that the distances involved are so short. Sawston to Great Shelford was my commute for nearly two years when I lived in that area. It's a distance of under three miles ( 5 km ). These children should all be able to cycle that distance, and this is where they are really being let down. Why is it that British people put up with conditions on their roads which put their children in danger ?

And as cycling campaigners, where exactly do we expect the next generation of cyclists to come from if children can't ride their bikes such a short distance to school in safety ?

It's a societal problem, not just a cycling problem. And it's not the only societal problem that Britain faces. The UK has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe (the USA has a rate much higher again), a high rate of drug abuse, a knife crime problem, a problem with out of control teens, and the highest rate of binge drinking in Europe. There is a relationship between the policies which make for safe cycling and the social policies which lead to a happy childhood. The top four countries for cycling are also the top four for childhood happiness. Compare the experiences of British children with those of Dutch children.

Whether you are British or not, how does your country measure up ? What are your roads for ?

Note
Because the Dutch love their children, they campaigned for them. A 98% reduction in child road deaths has been achieved in the Netherlands.

My rhetorical question received an answer three years after this article was written.

A similar story came up a few months back. If the question in the title sounds vaguely familiar, that's perhaps because it's similar to the one posed in this 1980s pop song.

Stembijlet - Voting Form

A couple of weeks ago we received voting forms in the post for the waterschapverkiezingen 2008 (district water board elections 2008).

To some people this may sound like an odd thing to have an election for, but it's quite important here.

The water board runs a lot of things in the countryside. There are thousands of kilometres of dykes here, rural cycle paths also are largely run by the water board, and of course much of the natural landscape that we enjoy cycling through belongs to them. They are responsible for control of water level in the countryside, not water supply to homes. Wikipedia has more about this. The well run water boards are the reason why the low-lying Netherlands doesn't flood as often as other countries.

This cycle-path, like many thousands
of km of cycle-path and road in this
country, belongs to the water board.

The voting process is quite different to what we're used to. The election is for individuals and is a form of proportional representative, so every vote counts. This is markedly different to what we were used to in the UK. Never has a single vote of mine helped anyone get into power because my votes were swamped due to the effect of the "first past the post" electoral system. This is probably the first time in my life that my vote has had any significance.

This is a better form of democracy. A more democratic form of democracy.

The last date to vote was today, but my form went back into the post very soon after it arrived.

Cycling for everyone

The presentation here was made by John Pucher, Professor of Planning and Public Policy, in Vancouver.

It is well worth watching.

John is one of very few English speaking cycling experts who has really understood what is involved in achieving a mass cycling culture.

He and Ralph Buehler also wrote the invaluable article How cycling was made "Irresistable" in the Netherlands, Denmark & Germany.

I previously posted about how everyone cycles.

For good neighbours, live in a quiet, car-free street

A study about living in quiet vs. busy streets written by Joshua Hart confirms previous results in the USA:

This says that "people who live with high levels of motor traffic are far more likely to be socially disconnected and even ill than people who live in quiet, clean streets."

I suggest reading Joshua's own blog entry, or the report itself published on the living streets website.

Dutch residential streets rarely have this problem
Residential streets in the Netherlands are rarely through streets for motor traffic. As a result, they are usually quiet enough for children to play.

Where busy roads come close to residential streets, the noise of motor traffic can be reduced in many ways. Quieter road surfaces can be used, speed limits can be lowered, and of course you can reduce the amount of driving by increasing the amount of cycling. This requires that cycling is made sufficiently pleasant as a manner to make journeys so that people will opt for it themselves.

People on busy streets elsewhere who "largely lived in the back rooms of their houses and chose dark or black curtains to conceal the soot build-up from vehicles" are living on streets which are also hostile to cyclists, leading to a spiral of lowering life quality.

A Dutch solution
There are busy roads in the Netherlands too, but they rarely go right past people's front doors. These three photos show a busy road in Assen and the barrier which separates it from where people live.

The houses are behind a layer of trees as well as a noise barrier. So, walking from the houses through the barrier you will successively see these three scenes.

First there are trees to hide the barrier from the homes. The barrier itself is around 4 metres high and consists of tinted toughened glass at an angle to reflect sound upwards.

The road behind the barrier has a 70 km/h (43 mph) speed limit despite being a dual carriageway. It also uses a quiet road surface. Cyclists and pedestrians have other routes so that they do not have to share this road, nor be inconvenienced by having to stop at the traffic lights.

The result of this is that the motor vehicles on the road are inaudible inside the homes on the other side of the barriers, and extremely quiet even in the gardens of those homes.

People live in houses here with exactly the sort of social interaction described for "Light street" in the paper.

There is also another view of the same barriers, including video and a later blog post illustrates how the original main road in this location has been civilized for cycling.

Three types of safety

Separate from the main road, a family cycles together, side-by-side. Straps on the front child seat are not done up. Slightly older children ride their own bikes. No-one wears safety equipment. The child in the rear is fiddling with something but the parents have no concerns concerned. This illustrates Subjective Safety.

The Netherlands is the safest place in the world to cycle. This is sometimes put down to a "safety in numbers" effect, but actually the infrastructure design is the vital component and shouldn't be overlooked. A lot of people would like their own country to emulate the Dutch success, but often they don't realise what is needed.

I used to do cycle promotion work in the UK, travelling from city to city and talking to a great number of people about cycling. They all already knew that cycling was healthy, good for the environment etc. Many people would like to be able to cycle. The number one reason that the average person in the street would give for not cycling was "it's too dangerous". So, what did they mean by this ?

One of many four metre wide cycle-paths
in Assen. School run cycling.

There are three measures of safety, all of which have their place in Dutch bicycle provision:

1. Actual safety - How many km you can expect to travel before you're injured on your bike.
2. Subjective safety (sometimes called "perceived" safety) - Are you near fast moving traffic ? Is it easy to make a turn across traffic ? Do you have to cycle "fast" in order to keep up ?
3. Social safety - Is there a mugger around that blind corner ? Will I be attacked in the street if I cycle ?

Cycle campaigners and planners might interest themselves in the actual safety, and it's a good thing that they do. Cyclists should of course be as safe as possible. However, no-one really makes a decision on whether to cycle or not based on these figures. Actually, cycling isn't really very risky in most countries and these figures often feature in cycle promotion literature. However, they're not successfully convincing people to take up cycling.

When people make the decision about whether it is "safe to cycle", they generally mean the second and third of our three different types of safety: Subjective Safety and Social Safety.

Also, if they're making a decision for someone else - perhaps their child or their partner - these issues become even more important.

Mother and children. Having several
metres of separation from the road
is essential for a high level of
subjective safety.

How do you improve Subjective Safety ? Here's a partial list:

• Cyclists should never mix with high speed or high volume motor traffic. A third of all roads in the Netherlands have a speed limit of 30 km/h or lower, most 50 km/h (30 mph) roads provide cyclists with a segregated path, as do many 30 km/h roads with higher volumes of traffic.
• On-road bike lanes and cycle paths without sufficient separation from the road are not suitable with high speed or high volume motor traffic.
• Reductions in speed and volume of traffic always help. All residential streets and a third of the entire road network has a 30 km/h (18 mph) speed limit or lower.
• Fully segregated cycle paths provide a good degree of subjective safety but must be built to a suitable standard. In this area they have a minimum width of 2.5 metres if for single direction use and 4 m for bidirectional use. Paths for pedestrians are separate.
• Junctions should be designed to make sure that cyclists are not left out. Cyclists can be separated in both time and space from motorists to maximise both efficiency and safety.
• In many cases, cyclists avoid junctions altogether so they cause as little inconvenience as possible.
• In Assen, the new standards require that cycle paths which follow the line of roads are separated from them by 2.5 metres. Where this isn't possible you will find a metal barrier is used, to provide a feeling of subjective safety as well as actual safety from crashing vehicles.
• Where possible, cycle routes follow a completely different route to driving routes, which of course improves the feeling of safety further.
• Reducing the noise of motor vehicles by using quieter road surfaces and installing noise barriers between the road and cyclists helps.

In the countryside away from all
motorized traffic, our family, rides
in comfort,

For social safety:

• You should always be able to see out of any tunnel as you enter it.
• Blind corners on paths are not acceptable.
• Cycle paths should be wide to allow cyclists to move out of the way of other people who may be on the path.
• Good sight-lines are required and there should be no places to hide along a cycle route.
• A low crime rate and a good conviction rate are needed. Cyclists should not feel that the police do not take their complaints seriously. 
• Areas that are clean, litter free, graffiti free, where grass is mowed and plants are not allowed to overhang the cycle path have a better feeling of social safety.
• Cycle paths should be lit at night so that you can see potential muggers, obstacles on the path etc.

If subjective and social safety are improved then people will cycle. They will want to. and so they will do it.

To summarise... No-one will do anything that feels too dangerous to them. Everyone wants their child to be safe and their partner to be safe. That's why so many journeys which ought to be cycleable are made by car. There is no point in arguing with people's decisions, or ridiculing them. The person making the decision to use a car has made it for quite logical reasons. Their level of confidence about cycling in the conditions around you is not the same as your own.

What to do... If you want people who do not cycle to take up cycling, then the right thing to do is to campaign for or design in road conditions which make cycling into an appealing option. That is what the Dutch have done. Everywhere. It is the key to the high cycle usage and high cycle safety figures.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that subjective safety is a concern only for inexperienced cyclists. No-one suffers from cycling being pleasant. Steps to increase the subjective and social safety of cyclists lead to a better cycling experience for all. Experienced cyclists are less likely to give up cycling in a subjectively safe environment. It becomes a lifetime habit. People continuing to want to cycle on the road when there is a parallel cycle-path are a sign of failure due to low quality. Always set your sights high enough when campaigning or planning.

A British child being trained. Wearing
fluorescent clothes and a helmet to ride
in the gutter on a residential street
which is subject to rat-running

So, where do helmets and fluorescent clothing fit in ? For some individuals, wearing such a thing improves their own feeling of safety to the level that they will ride. However, these items actually do little to improve actual safety and can have a negative effect on the subjective safety of other people due to making cycling look dangerous. Where cycling has a high degree of subjective safety, as it does here, no-one wears these safety aids. Dutch cyclists are safer without them than cyclists elsewhere are with them.

For more on the same theme, perhaps this post is most suitable. There are quite a few other posts tagged subjective safety which show different aspects of what makes cycling subjectively safe and the result of it. Amongst the other things needed to make cycling attractive is to make cycling more direct, so there are a lot of examples there to illustrate that concept too.

Big picture vs. small picture subjective safety
December 2011 update: I've realised since writing the text above that many people have slightly misinterpreted what I meant. There are two types of "subjective safety".

The most important, "big picture", type of subjective safety is that of society as a whole which causes everyone to cycle. This is what my article is about and this is what causes Dutch people of all ages and social positions to find cycling to be a safe activity, even wearing black clothes on an unlit bicycle at night. Cycling in the Netherlands always feels safe. This leads to a very high modal share for cycling.

The other, "small picture", type of subjective safety is that which involves people using safety equipment such as fluorescent clothes and helmets when they cycle. While this may make it possible for a few individuals who are already interested in cycling to cycle a bit more and to feel safer as they do so, it is debatable whether this does anything for the overall modal share for cycling.

Some people argue that it is detrimental to the modal share if cyclists take up visible safety equipment to improve their own "small picture" subjective safety. I suspect that "big picture" subjective safety is barely altered at all by this. The issues that people who don't cycle can see and which put them off cycling are with street design, not with the clothing of existing cyclists.

All the photos are of subjectively safe cyclists in the Netherlands, except the last which is of a British child being taught "safer cycling" in Cambridge. He is riding too close to the kerb on an unsuitable bike, but wearing fluorescent clothing and a helmet. The child in the fluorescent clothing will probably give up on cycling within a few years, while the Dutch cyclists will in all likelihood keep on cycling through their lives because high levels of subjective safety make it a pleasant thing to do.

The children in the photo at the top are all tired. Why ? Because this family is returning from the last day of a four day cycling event. They've cycled at least 40 km per day as part of the event, plus however far it is between their home and the startplace in Assen. The object which the child at the back is fiddling with as he cycles is a medal.

Per km travelled, Dutch cyclists are 3x less likely to die and 4x less likely to be injured than those in the UK, 5x less likely to be killed and 30x less likely to be injured than in the USA (statistics found here, page 506). Read more about the safety of cyclists in the Netherlands. However, this doesn't tell nearly the whole story, it's actually much safer than that for Dutch cyclists who fit the usual demographic for cycling in other countries. Two thirds of all cyclist deaths in the Netherlands are of people aged over 65. Most of their lethal injuries come from single vehicle collisions. i.e. when old people fall off their bikes, old age sadly can be enough to do the rest. This effect is virtually unknown in the UK and USA because so few older people cycle.

Pit Canaries

Seen many cyclists recently ? There is a huge difference between the rates of cycling in different countries.

The graph on the left shows the rate of cycling as a percentage of all journeys made in sixteen different countries. This is also known as a modal share or modal split. Australia, the USA and the UK are at the left with 1% of all journeys by bike, while Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands are on the right with 11%, 18% and 27% of journeys by bike respectively.

There is a huge difference between the numbers of cyclists you see in different countries. There is also a huge difference between their behaviours.

So, back to the question. How many cyclists do you see when you go out, and how many of them are dressed in a way that indicates that they feel they have to worry about their safety on the roads ?

Are your cyclists a small part of traffic, wearing helmets, dressed in fluorescent jackets and predominantly young and/or "sporty" ? Do your cyclists cycle "vehicularly" and identify themselves as "cyclists"? Or do you live in a location where cyclists are of all ages, both sexes, and generally ride in normal clothes with no worries about visibility ?

Cyclists are the pit-canaries of the roads. If they're numerous, dressed in ordinary clothing and wide-ranging in age you can tell that you are in a location where cycling is "normal" in society and where it is safe enough, and feels subjectively safe enough, that everyone cycles. If people feel they have to dress to be safe then this is a sign that they do not have adequate subjective safety.

It goes further. Do you see women routinely cycling alone at night ? Do children cycle long distances alone, day and night ? Do most children go to school by bike ? Do parents consider it to be safe for their children to do this ? Do those parents who do let their children cycle make them wear helmets and fluorescent clothing ? These are indicators of how subjectively and socially safe people feel and are a determinant of health of cycling in an area.

Make cycling a truly attractive thing to do and more people will do it. Here in Assen, children are regularly seen riding great distances with groups of friends. Some cycle 20 km to school in the morning and 20 km back again each evening. Take a look at a video of how children get to primary school here.

As mentioned a few days ago in "Reclaiming the streets", cyclists are also the pit-canaries of society. Societal problems can also lead to low rates of cycling. If there is a significant risk of mugging (or worse) in your area, you will see fewer cyclists. This is a problem for social safety. It is surely no co-incidence that the three countries with the highest cycling rates also have progressive social policies. You will find a very similar ranking of countries in the results of a UNICEF report summarized by the BBC with the title of "Why are Dutch children so happy ?".


Dutch infrastructure works so well to convince people to cycle that recent immigrants to this country cycle on average about as much as people who live in Finland.


The graph at the top is from John Pucher and Ralph Buehler's article "How Cycling was made Irresistible" - one of many articles referenced on our cycling articles webpage. The Dutch really have made cycling into an irresistible thing to do. Everyone cycles for at least some of their journeys.

We run cycling study tours here in the Netherlands on which we demonstrate the how it is that the Dutch have achieved their amazing high cycling modal share. We also run cycling holidays in this location, which we believe is the most pleasant in the world for cycling.

Sadly, since this blog post was originally written, the cycling rate in Denmark appears to have dropped quite sharply.

Reclaiming the streets

We've now lived in Assen for nearly a year. It's been the most peaceful year of cycling in my life. No-one has tooted a horn aggressively at me, no-one has driven their car at me, no-one has shouted at me in the street in an aggressive way.

This is surely a large part of why people cycle to such an extent in this city. It's a very pleasant thing to do, whether day or night, hot or cold, wet or dry. In effect, the streets are socially 'reclaimed' by cyclists at all times.

We've had several events in this city this year which have involved closing streets to cars. The Jeugdtour, held in Assen each year, is the world's biggest youth cycling event, and attracts participants from all around the world. This is serious racing. One of the Swedish competitors this year followed on with a silver medal in the Beijing Olympics. Anyway, this is but one of the events for which streets are closed to cars.

I've also seen closures for the fietsvierdaagse, a four day recreational cycling event which attracts a wide range of people from young to old, for musical events, walking events etc.

I like the attitude that the streets exist to serve the people instead of merely to serve the automobile.

The photo at the top shows friends riding two of the 107 bikes on the recent historical bicycles ride. A few streets were closed in one of the outlying villages for this event too, though in this photo they're on a bike path. I made a video: