Trends in local newspaper reporting of London cyclist fatalities 1992-2012: the role of the media in shaping the systems dynamics of cycling.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Successfully increasing cycling across a broad range of the population would confer important health benefits, but many potential cyclists are deterred by fears about traffic danger. Media coverage of road traffic crashes may reinforce this perception. As part of a wider effort to model the system dynamics of urban cycling, in this paper we examined how media coverage of cyclist fatalities in London changed across a period when the prevalence of cycling doubled. We compared this with changes in the coverage of motorcyclist fatalities as a control group.

Methods

Police records of traffic crashes (STATS19) were used to identify all cyclist and motorcyclist fatalities in London between 1992 and 2012. We searched electronic archives of London's largest local newspaper

SUBMITTER: Macmillan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4682170 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature