Image: Takver [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr
More than half of Australia’s motorists think cyclists are “not completely human” and liken them to cockroaches, a national study by universities in Queensland and Victoria has found.
The study says there is a link between this dehumanisation of cyclists and deliberate acts of aggression towards them by motorists, such as driving too close or using their car to block a cyclist.
According to lead author Alexa Delbosc from Monash University’s institute of transport studies, more than 440 participants were asked to rate cyclists on a graph that depicted insects and humans. Around 55 per cent of motorists rated cyclists as “not completely human”.
This article is only available to Research Professional News subscribers. If you are a subscriber you can read the article in full on researchprofessional.com
Pivot-RP users can log in and view the article via this link.