‘Cyclists riding irresponsibly’

Complain to Oxford City Council about biased questions in the ‘Public Attitude Survey on the City Centre’

In November 2019, Oxford City Council launched a questionnaire to help understand the behaviours that residents, business owners and visitors think are acceptable and unacceptable in Oxford city centre.

Members of Oxford’s Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel (CoHSAT) have submitted a complaint regarding the disproportionate focus on the negative behaviour of cyclists above the problems posed by any other form of transport.

The Public Attitude Survey on the City Centre is open until 12th January 2020. You can use the free text fields in the questionnaire to complain, or adapt the template below and email your local Councillors.

Dear Councillors,

We have just noticed your ‘Public Attitude Survey on the City Centre’. We wish to raise a formal complaint about the way that this presents the problems caused by modes of transport in the city centre.
The only transport related problem that is prompted in the questionnaire is ‘Cyclists riding irresponsibly’. The survey does not prompt about (for example):

• Dangerous driving
• Air pollution
• Noise from traffic
• Difficulty crossing the road
• The amount of city centre space taken by motor traffic
• The amount of city centre space taken by parking
• Irresponsible and illegal parking
• Goods vehicles loading and unloading and loading freight
• Pedestrians walking irresponsibly
• Scooters being used irresponsibly
• Mobility scooters being used irresponsibly

As such the Survey can not hope to give credible answers in this area. But we are more concerned about the attitudes it will develop and reinforce among respondents by encouraging them to think about negative behaviours of cyclists in an imbalanced way. This is a retrograde step from a Council that we generally consider to be supportive of cycling.

Yours faithfully,