Follow enough bike news, and it won’t take long for you to notice a few concerning patterns in headlines about bike crashes. The word “accident” appears even when the driver is clearly at fault. A cyclist’s clothing or helmet choice is mentioned—though the driver’s DUI only appears in paragraph three. And then there’s the constant “car hits cyclist” refrain, which cloaks the fact that a human being was even at the wheel.



It’s an issue of victim-blaming that frustrates advocacy groups, who say that this kind of messaging from mainstream media scares people who want to ride bikes—and makes cycling less safe as a whole. Martha Roskowski at People for Bikes says there are several issues at play when it comes to cyclist-blaming headlines. Chief among them is the fact that so many bike crashes are featured in the news at all.

RELATED: Take the #CrashNotAccident Pledge to Reframe How We Report Bike Deaths

“When there’s a crash that involves a bike, it seems to be more newsworthy than a crash involving two cars or even a car and a pedestrian,” Roskowski says. “There’s more attention paid to them.”

And then there’s the victim-blaming that happens almost immediately.

“You see it in the comments, but it also happens more subtly in the coverage of the crash when the writers immediately go to, ‘Were they wearing a helmet, were they wearing reflective clothing?’” Roskowski says. “On the one hand, it’s ingrained to ask those questions, but it’s also insidious because it shifts the thinking to what could the cyclist have been done to prevent the crash. Helmets have some potential role in the severity of the injury, but often the force is so immense that the helmet is not going to change the outcome.”

It’s all part of this idea of shifting the responsibility to the person on the bike before the facts are known, Roskowski says. And where better to do this than immediately—in the article’s headline? We’ve written about this before in our support of the #CrashNotAccident petition.

“The use of the word 'accident' implies no one meant to do anything,” Roskowski says. “We use accident in just three places: car crashes, workplace accidents, and little kids getting potty-trained. We don’t use it with plane crashes, train crashes—but for some reason we jump to absolving the driver of blame with language from the beginning, and then the line of thinking goes right to, ‘that person on the bike shouldn’t have been there.’”

So how can we start better framing bicycle crash media reports to be less cyclist-blaming? Let’s start with the headlines. Here are some typical ones—and how we would fix them.

RELATED: Broken: When Traffic Laws Fail Cyclists

From CBS San Francisco: “Bicyclist Struck, Killed By Car Near Palo Alto.”

‌•Why it’s bad: This is a typical headline about a bike crash, from this week alone. But where’s the motorist in this headline? Was the car driving itself?‌

•A better headline for this news story: “Driver Kills Cyclist Near Palo Alto.”

From the CBC News: “Patricia Keenan, Kelowna cyclist, mourned after fatal crash into car door.”

‌•Why it’s bad: If you read the text of the article, it’s clear Keenan was actually killed when a car driver opened his or her car door into the cyclist’s path, which is illegal in most places and puts the driver at fault. But to read the headline, you would think she rode her bike directly into a parked car and there was no second party involved at all. It’s a tragedy—and an unintentional one, for sure—but if we expect to raise awareness about the dangers of opening a car door without checking for cyclists, absolving drivers of any guilt in Keenan’s death is not the way to do it.

‌•A better headline for this news story: “Patricia Keenan, Kelowna cyclist, mourned after being fatally struck by driver’s car door.”

From the Newtown, PA Patch: “Cyclist 'Lucky To Be Alive' After River Road Accident: Police.”

‌•Why it’s bad: Here’s an interesting one. The headline makes it seem like if anyone is at fault in this incident, it’s likely the cyclist. But midway through the article, this sentence appears: “The cyclist was not at fault, and the driver, who has not been identified, was solely responsible for the accident, police said." If the driver was solely responsible (and in this case, driving with a suspended license), how was this an accident? Just another reason we support the use of #CrashNotAccident in headlines.

‌•A better headline for this news story: “Cyclist Seriously Injured in River Road Crash; Driver Will Face Charges.”

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Bicyclist fatally run over was new to Minneapolis, careful about bike safety.”

‌•Why it’s bad: The focus on the cyclist’s safety in the headline and throughout the article makes it clear “this was one of the good ones.” Another piece on this same incident chose the same tack, using the headline, “Bicyclist Killed On Franklin Ave. Wore Helmet, Lights, Just Moved To Mpls.” But why can’t we start from the understanding that cyclists don’t deserve to be hit by drunk drivers—even if they’re not wearing helmets or carrying lights?

‌•A better headline for this news story: “Drunk Driver Arrested After Striking and Killing Cyclist.”

From the Chicago Tribune: “Des Plaines woman, 66, dies when bicycle collides with car in Aurora.”

‌•Why it’s bad: The headline implies her bicycle struck an immobile vehicle by the use of “bicycle” before “car.” But the cyclist was riding with a group of cyclists on a trail when a driver hit her with a car at a street crossing. The use of “collision” is common in headlines about crashes between two cars—but if a motorist hit a pedestrian, would you ever frame that as a pedestrian “colliding” with a moving car? The forces are too dissimilar. In this case, “hit by a car” seems far more accurate and less cyclist-blaming.

•A better headline for this news story: “Des Plaines cyclist, 66, struck and killed by car driver in Aurora.”

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