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(1) Work.

Workers were asked whether they cycled to work regularly or occasionally, “regularly” being defined as four times a week or more often.

Thus of all workers rather more than a quarter, and of workers with bicycles rather more than two thirds, cycled to work regularly at this time. This would mean that at April 1944 nearly five million workers were using bicycles regularly to get to and from work. In addition to this a few used bicycles occasionally for this purpose.

It was shown in Table 2 that more men than women possessed or used bicycles, and a higher proportion of male than of female workers cycle to work.

Of those with bicycles the proportion of men who cycle to work is again somewhat higher than the proportion of women.

Analysis by occupation is given below. Cyclists who do not cycle to work and who only cycle to work occasionally are grouped together to make the table more readable. There are no important variations in the proportions cycling to work occasionally in the different groups.

Factory (1) Heavy work and war work.

(2) Other manufacturing.

Most noticeable is the high proportion of agricultural workers who cycle to work. In the clerical group the percentage cycling to work is low when it is noted that a relatively high proportion in this group have bicycles. Of clerical workers who possess or have the use of bicycles only about one half use them for getting to work.

Percentages based on the numbers of workers with bicycles are not shown in the table above as the numbers in individual groups are in general too small to give reliable results. However further grouping of occupations shows that there is some difference between the results for manual and non-manual workers when only those with bicycles are considered. The first five groups in the table above and the miscellaneous group are classified as manual workers, and the remaining three groups as non- manual.

Table 16

Three quarters of the manual workers who are cyclists, but a lower proportion of the cyclists in non-manual occupations, use their bicycles for getting to work.

Of all manual workers 29% and of all non-manual workers 22% cycled to work.

There are no very marked differences between workers in different economic groups. 22% of those in the two lowest groups as against 28% of those in the middle group cycled to work. This difference is just significant. Of workers in the two upper groups 26% cycled, the difference between this and 28% in the middle group not being significant. It will be remembered that the proportion of workers with bicycles does not very much from one group to another.

Analysis by workers in urban and rural areas is given below:-

It is clear that a considerably higher proportion of workers in rural areas than in urban areas cycle to work. Also of those workers who have bicycles most use them for getting to work in the country and about two-thirds do so in the towns.

Analysis by region shows some marked differences.

It should be noted that in some regions the sample of workers is very small and the results are therefore subject to a wide margin of error. There is however no doubt about same of the differences between regions.

In East Anglia and the South, both regions with relatively large rural populations, the percentages of workers cycling to work are markedly high. Roughly two thirds of the workers in these regions possess or use bicycles and the majority of those who have them use them for getting to work.

In Scotland, Wales, the Northern regions and in London lower proportions of workers have bicycles and use them for getting to work.

The Midlands shows a relatively high proportion of workers cycling to work and over half the workers in this region have bicycles.

It was found in the present inquiry (April 1944) that 23% of all workers in urban areas cycled to work. The figures are not strictly comparable as the groups covered by the samples are somewhat different, but this result does suggest that there may have been some increase in the proportion of workers who travel to work in this way, when seasonal differences are taken into account. As regards weather April is perhaps more comparable with October than with the other seasons for which results are given.

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(2) Shopping

Only a small proportion of the population use bicycles for shopping. “Regularly” was defined in this case as for most of the errands that are done.

In analysing these results by sex it is relevant to divide the women into those who are housewives and those who are not housewives, since the former group may be expected to have more shopping to do.

As high a proportion of women who are not housewives as of women who are use bicycles regularly for shopping, and rather more use them occasionally. More of the women who are not housewives have bicycles to use. As is shown below something like half the housewives who had bicycles used them regularly for shopping, but only a quarter of the other women who had bicycles did so.

The number of housewives with bicycles is of course small, and allowing for the sampling error it would be more accurate to say that between 42% and 62% of housewives who have bicycles, or the use of a bicycle, use them for going shopping.

Men cyclists use their bicycles less frequently than women cyclists for shopping. Possibly they have less shopping to do.

Some differences between occupation groups are worth noting.

The clerical and distributive groups contain a relatively high proportion of women workers, and it might be expected that these groups would have high or average proportions using bicycles for shopping, since women use bicycles for this purpose rather more than men. However agricultural workers are nearly all men and it will be seen that 10 % of this group depend on their bicycles for shopping, and a further 7% use bicycles occasionally for shopping.

The occupation groups not shown in the table above have in general lower than average proportions using bicycles for shopping.

A somewhat higher proportion of people in rural areas than of people in urban areas go shopping on a bicycle.

About a quarter of those with bicycles in rural areas use them for shopping, but the proportion is lower in urban areas.

In the regional analysis given below those answering “never’ and “occasionally” are grouped together for greater simplicity.

Relatively high proportions use bicycles for shopping in East Anglia and in the South. These two regions are of course, largely rural, but the same may be said of the South-West and South-East in which only average proportions use bicycles for shopping. The percentage is fairly high in the Midlands.

It is of interest to note that about the same proportion of people in different economic groups use bicycles regularly for shopping, although the proportions of bicycle owners and users in these groups differ quite considerably, as has been shown.

The lowest economic group contains a high proportion of housewives and unoccupied people (particularly soldier’s wives and pensioners), and of the few who have bicycles in this group about a third use them for shopping, a higher proportion than do so in other groups.

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(3) Leisure

More people use bicycles for leisure purposes than use them for shopping, and about as many use them for leisure as for work.

Nearly two thirds of those who use bicycles at all use them sometimes for leisure purposes, and about 18% of the adult civilian population do so.

There are marked differences between the habits of men and women in this respect.

Though 24% of men as against 14% of women use bicycles sometimes for leisure, the proportion of women cyclists who use bicycles for leisure is considerably higher than the proportion of men cyclists who do so, 77% as compared with 55%. It will be remembered that men cyclists more frequently used their bicycles to get to work than did women.

Analysis by occupation is shown below. In this table no distinction is made between those who go out once a week or more and those who go out less than once a week.

Factory (1) Heavy work and war work

(2) Other manufacturing.

The numbers possessing or using bicycles in different occupation groups are in general too small for percentages based on them to be very reliable, and therefore in the table above only percentages based on the whole sample in each group are given. By comparing the figures in the first two columns above it is seen that about five - sixths of the cyclists in the clerical group use their bicycles for leisure activities, whilst rather less than two thirds of all cyclists do so. The proportion using bicycles for leisure in the distributive group is also relatively high. Of workers in building, transport and public services comparatively few use bicycles for pleasure. This group is mainly composed of men. The proportion is also low in the case of agriculture, another group in which men predominate. The 3% of retired and unoccupied people who had bicycles all used them for leisure purposes.

In the table below the percentages of cyclists in broader groups, manual and non-manual workers, and non-workers, using their bicycles for leisure purposes, are shown, and compared with the proportions in these groups who cycle to work regularly. The “manual” group includes the first five categories shown in Table 27 and the miscellaneous workers and the non-manual all other workers.

A considerably higher proportion of the cyclists in non-manual occupations then of those doing manual work use their bicycles for leisure purposes, but of the latter group a higher proportion use their bicycles for getting to work. Of the cyclists who are non-workers, (allowing for the sampling error) between 63% and 81% use their bicycles for pleasure. Of the non-workers and of the non-manual workers the majority are women, but of the manual workers the majority are men

Analysis by economic group show that about the some proportions of cyclists in each group use their bicycles for leisure purposes. It will be remembered that somewhat greater proportions of people in the middle economic groups than in the higher and the lower groups were cyclists.

Although a higher proportion of people in rural areas than in urban areas were cyclists, only about the same proportion in both types of area used their bicycles for leisure purposes.

Thus a higher proportion of cyclists in towns than of cyclists living in the country use their bicycles for pleasure.

Analysis by region is shown below. (The proportion using bicycles once a week or more, and less than once a week, are added in the first column).

The proportions using bicycles for leisure purposes are relatively low in the North and in Wales. In the North more, and in Wales about as many cyclists do not use their bicycles for leisure as do so. In the South a relatively high proportion use bicycles for leisure.