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OPINION
Anatomy of a lie: How Guide Dogs London fabricated an attack on cyclists
Thu, Aug 28, 2014 15:06
82
Guide dog in training (CC BY-ND 2.0 licenced by Jay-P:Flickr)Yesterday road.cc, and just about every other media outlet you can think of, ran a story about how one in four London guide dog owners said their dogs had been hit by cyclists.
The Evening Standard reported the story with this opening paragraph:
"Cyclists are increasingly smashing into blind Londoners and their guide dogs after mounting the pavement and jumping red lights, a charity warned today."
And many outlets used a comment by Robert Harris, London engagement manager for Guide Dogs. Harris said: “We work incredibly hard to get blind or partially sighted people out of their homes and mobile, so to hear that vision impaired people are anxious and in some cases fearful about going out in London because of irresponsible cyclists is very worrying."
On the face of it, this is terrible stuff. The blind are, rightly, a group for whom everyone has sympathy. Making your way in a world full of text and fast-moving objects when you have little or no sight is extremely hard.
Action for Blind People says two-thirds of registered blind and partially sighted people of working age are not in paid employment, and nearly half of blind and partially sighted people feel ‘moderately’ or ‘completely’ cut off from people and things around them.
So, pressed for time as journalists always are, the bald assertions made by Guide Dogs were reported verbatim. Talk of "irresponsible cyclists" "smashing into" people after "mounting the pavement and jumping red lights" is standard anti-cycling media fare. Easy to bang it out and not question it.
Dodgy survey, dodgy numbers
Over the course of the day, more of the background started to emerge. You might think that Guide Dogs London was acting on a vast number of reports of issues with cyclists. Perhaps they'd polled a significant sample of London's 41,000 blind and partially sighted people to find out what problems they had getting around, and been told by a large number that cyclists were an issue.
Not so. The one in four figure comes from a self-selected online survey and represents just 14 people claiming they or their dogs had been hit by cyclists.
You read that right: 14.
Guide Dogs clearly went looking for ammunition, having already decided to target cyclists.
Here, for example, are a couple of tweets from London Guide Dogs:
Thanks to David Robjant (@bike3isavolvo) for spotting those
That survey has since been taken down, so there's no way of knowing to what extent it used leading questions to get the responses London Guide Dogs were looking for, but those tweets are not the words of impartial researchers.
Expectation bias
The signs of dodgy research were there in Guide Dogs' original announcement of the 'CycleEyes' campaign.
It speaks of a "a noted increase in guide dogs and their owners being hit by a bike or having a near miss."
"Most of these reports," the organisation said, "come directly to Guide Dogs verbally."
In other words, Guide Dogs had nothing but the impressions of its staff that blind people were having more problems with cyclists. It's perfectly feasible that this is something researchers call 'expectation bias'. You become aware of something, and suddenly you start seeing it everywhere.
So, Guide Dogs London set up a survey on Survey Monkey and got results that it presented thus:
"Of the guide dog owners who responded, 42% had been involved in a collision with a cyclist and 76% have had a near miss when cyclists either ride on pavements or skip red lights at pedestrian crossings."
The reaction of one guide dog user I mentioned this to was: "How did they know, they're blind?" Well, quite.
Guide Dogs initially claimed one in four of London's 320 guide dog users had been involved in an incident in which a cyclist hit their dog.
A footnote to the release about Guide Dogs' campaign vilifying cyclists, however, admits:
"Through social media we invited blind and partially sighted to fill in a Survey Monkey. 33 of those who responded were guide dog owners from London, 42% of those have been involved in a collision with a cyclist 76% have had a near miss (defined as where they have narrowly avoided a collision)."
42 percent of 33 is 13.86, which indicates a) it's really stupid to turn such small numbers into percentages even if it does make your wholly useless survey look all sciencey and b) as I mentioned above, this whole campaign is based on just 14 people complaining.
Think about that. London is home to between 8 and 15 million people depending on how you count them and how you define 'London'. You could pick any two random groups of people among that vast population, ask one if it had had problems with the other, and get 14 complaints. Ask Lithuanian redheads if they'd had bad experiences with German shepherd dog owners, and I bet you'd get 14 tales of woe.
Can you imagine the response you'd get if you asked people with "strong views" about, say, immigrants to fill in a survey?
And they're not just complaining about something that happened recently. Guide Dogs does not appear to have set a time scale on its trawl for trouble, so those incidents could have happened any time in the last couple of decades.
By sloshing around its deeply dubious numbers, Guide Dogs was able to get all sorts of people who should know better on board with its anti-cyclist campaign.
Here's Charlie Lloyd from the London Cycling Campaign for example:
Charlie from @london_cycling supporting @guidedogs cycling campaign. pic.twitter.com/32gKWOz03p
— LondonGuidedogs (@GuidedogsLondon) August 27, 2014
And Lib Dem group leader on the London Assembly - and cyclist - Caroline Pidgeon:
Huge thanks to @CarolinePidgeon from the London Assembly for coming along to support #cycleyes @guidedogs pic.twitter.com/7FTxEDTIAg
— LondonGuidedogs (@GuidedogsLondon) August 27, 2014
Lloyd said: "I don’t know if it was a stitch up or a cock. The absurd casualty stats were quickly withdrawn."
That may be true, but by then it was too late. Stories like the Evening Standard's had been written, and what corrections were made were minimal, and usually at the end of stories.
As for London Cycling Campaign supporting a the campaign, it's hard to say they weren't very naive in failing to see how the story would be told in the mass media.
"Our involvement was based on the fact that there is a real issue with the way some cyclists intimidate pedestrians," Lloyd told me in an email.
"The other consideration is that many in the Guide Dogs movement wish to block some of the infrastructure that will help make London safer for cycling.
"They have strong opposition to floating bus stops, even though there are thousands of them across the UK where old style footway based cycle routes pass bus stops. We think it is worth while working with blind people to discover the best design for floating bus stops in London."
A common threat
What's deeply troubling about this sorry tale is that Guide Dogs chose to target another group of vulnerable road users instead of taking on the source of risk to all: bad drivers and London's abysmal road system.
Road traffic danger limits everyone's mobility, and its main source is motor vehicles. But Guide Dogs doesn't have the gonads to say that London's awful roads keep partially sighted people from getting out and about, because like everyone in their position they think of traffic as being like weather: it just happens and nothing can be done about it.
Far easier then, to go after cyclists, knowing that the mass media won't question that "irresponsible cyclists" are "smashing into blind Londoners" than to demand London's roads be organised for the convenience of people rather than motor vehicles.
Lazy, lazy campaigning, with the wrong target.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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82 comments
'drfabulous0 wrote:
truffy wrote:
Yet there are some tossers on road.cc who seem to think that all motorists are as guilty as each other.
Funny ol' world, innit?
Guess that makes me a tosser then. The way I see it if you're driving a car with no passengers, using a car for a journey under 8 miles, using your phone while driving even with a hands free, travelling at or slightly over the limit, driving any 4wd vehicle on the road, parking in the bike lane or on the footpath or any number of things which are legal and accepted then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!!
Are you saying, then that ALL motorists fulfil all of these criteria? I think you may be deluded. In fact, I KNOW you are.
But I do accept your assertion that you're a tosser.'
No FREESPIRIT1' it's clearly a list with the word 'or' in it at the end suggesting that if you do 'any number of things which are legal and accepted', but arguably a major problem inherent with opinions towards driving, 'then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!!'
You know full well ALL drivers are guilty of making solo journeys that don't justify the use of a car, so does your denial suggest you are a deluded tosser? yes...
Your quote as it stands does indeed fully qualify you. Perhaps you might want to reconsider it as you have failed to allow for disabled car drivers who certainly can't ride a bike '8' miles (wherever that figure came from).
They are actually a group of car users who share many common problems with cyclists.
Oh, and thanks for tarring me and many of us here on road.cc with your brush. Nice to know I'm a problem when driving, but suddenly turn in to a wonderful being when riding one of my bikes. Perhaps I should get a halo I can wear on my bike to make sure everyone realises how great cyclists are and how detestable almost everyone else is...
I'm afraid you missed the point somewhat, I am not pointing the finger at individuals. Any of the behaviours I mentioned are not a big deal in isolation, it's the numbers involved that cause the problems. Numbers so large that poor practice is considered the norm. The situation would be greatly improved if drivers accepted a collective responsibility for the conditions on the road, and that has to start on an individual level. It's like sitting in your car complaining about the traffic you're stuck in, you are that traffic. Seriously if every car you see with only one person in it had two people think how much more pleasant the roads would be.
I'm not claiming cyclists are saints, the proportion of dickheads is roughly the same on all forms of transport, sadly this seems to be >80%. By all means wear a halo if it makes you feel better, it's probably just as much use as a plastic bike hat.
I also disagree that my comment qualifies me as a tosser, I was already qualified due to my usual behaviour, demeanor and personality.
truffy wrote:
Yet there are some tossers on road.cc who seem to think that all motorists are as guilty as each other.
Funny ol' world, innit?
Guess that makes me a tosser then. The way I see it if you're driving a car with no passengers, using a car for a journey under 8 miles, using your phone while driving even with a hands free, travelling at or slightly over the limit, driving any 4wd vehicle on the road, parking in the bike lane or on the footpath or any number of things which are legal and accepted then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!!
On your bike mate!
I absolutely agree with you. You are, as you rightly say, a tosser!
Grizzerly
Some of us live in places where a 4x4 is sensible, I'm guessing you are referring to people driving them in towns / cities. I quite agree with the rest of your rant!
I could concede that if it was farmers driving around in old Defenders, however the most common cars I encounter when riding in the countryside are Audi Q7, BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne, very sensible.
That's life in Cheshire's Golden Triangle. The huge 4 x 4 appears to be compulsory.
Grizzerly / drfabulous
Just been shifting a bunch of, extremely heavy, welding gear in my Land Cruiser. Is that OK?
Depends.....does it have wooden seats?
WTF ?
I'm starting to despair of these discussions.
There seem to be a lot of sanctimonious people out there making glib and ill considered remarks.
FTFY
Eddy Merkx would have put the gear in a rucksack and cycled
comment removed
Pretty much all motorists add to the pollution that kills 5000 people a year in this country alone. So, yeah, all are guilty to some degree.
Of course, the reality is we've created a situation where driving is as good as compulsory, so there's not much mileage in making it solely about personal responsibility. But driving is a problem that does need to be sorted out collectively and politically. One issue being the degree to which it is subsidised, which distorts people's choices.
Driving is intrinsically more dangerous and more damaging, even when done well, in a way that cycling is not, so they aren't really the same.
Actually, pavement riding is fine as long as it's done carefully, which is why the police are advised only to intervene when it's unsafe. What's wrong with hopping a kerb when there's no one on it?
Otherwise though I pretty much agree with what you're saying. Vehicle traffic is the real issue.
Ummm, while correct, the proper way of looking at it is that 14 out of 33 is 42.42424242%, which rounds down to 42%. Magic!
Well done John for debunking yet another anti-cycling falsehood based on dubious evidence.
Please send this to Tim Hartford on Radio 4's More or Less program, they will love ripping this little survey apart....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd
I've just heard the trailer during PM on Radio 4, and they will indeed be featuring this survey on More or Less.
Got to love statistics!
That said it wouldn't hurt to knock it out of the big ring when we're in the vicinity of Moorfields Eye Hospital, just to be safe
I think the two biggest problems with the survey are:
1.) It is self selecting. You're more likely to respond to the survey if you have an axe to grind.
2.) How do they know that the people who did fill in the survey are actually guide dog users, and that they only filled in the survey once?
The sample size wouldn't be too bad if it was a proper random sample. eg: If you had the telephone number of every London guide dog user, you could ring up a randomly selected sample of them. Correct use of statistics on the result could also give an estimate of how accurate it is likely to be.
Another way of creating a more accurate stat is to not tell them what you're researching and to bung it into a "dummy" survey. This way they see questions about hair or shopping but the true questions kind of blend in.
Its like psychologists say - the best observations come from when people dont know they're being watched
classic!
well they raised awareness. but not in a good way.
makes you wonder what other figures they massage
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