Investigating the rates and impacts of near misses and related incidents among UK cyclists

The paper investigates the occurrence of non-injury incidents among cyclists in the UK, seeking to (i) generate a rate that can be compared with injury rates, (ii) analyse factors affecting incident rates, and (iii) analyse factors affecting the impact of incidents on cyclists. We collected data on non-injury cycling ‘incidents’ (near misses and other frightening and/or annoying incidents) from 1692 online diaries of cycle trip stages1 and incidents, participants having signed up in advance for a specific day. Following data cleaning and coding, a dataset was created covering 1532 diary days and 3994 records of incidents occurring within the UK. Incident rates were calculated and compared to injury risks for cyclists. Cross-tabulation and regression were used to identify factors affecting incident rates and the effect an incident has on the cyclist. Frightening or annoying non-injury incidents, unlike slight injuries, are an everyday experience for most people cycling in the UK. For regular cyclists ‘very scary’ incidents (rated as 3 on a 0–3 scale) are on average a weekly experience, with deliberate aggression experienced monthly. Per mile, non-injury incidents were more frequent for people making shorter and slower trips. People aged over 55 were at lower risk, as were those cycling at the weekend and outside the morning peak. Incidents that involved motor vehicles, especially those involving larger vehicles, were more frightening than those that did not. Near miss and other non-injury incidents are widespread in the UK and may have a substantial impact on cycling experience and uptake. Policy and research should initially target the most frightening types of incident, such as very close passes and incidents involving large vehicles. Further attention needs to be paid to the experiences of groups under-represented among cyclists, such as women making shorter trips.

Technical Vocabulary and Medieval Text Types: A Semantic Field Approach

This paper seeks to discover in what sense we can classify vocabulary items as technical terms in the later medieval period. In order to arrive at a principled categorization of technicality, distribution is taken as a diagnostic factor: vocabulary shared across the widest range of text types may be assumed to be both prototypical for the semantic field, but also the most general and therefore least technical terms since lexical items derive at least part of their meaning from context, a wider range of contexts implying a wider range of senses. A further way of addressing the question of technicality is tested through the classification of the lexis into semantic hierarchies: in the terms of componential analysis, having more components of meaning puts a term lower in the semantic hierarchy and flags it as having a greater specificity of sense, and thus as more technical. The various text types are interrogated through comparison of the number of levels in their hierarchies and number of lexical items at each level within the hierarchies. Focusing on the vocabulary of a single semantic field, DRESS AND TEXTILES, this paper investigates how four medieval text types (wills, sumptuary laws, petitions, and romances) employ technical terminology in the establishment of the conventions of their genres.