Sacrificing entitlement for self-preservation: ‘privatising vulnerability’ as a cyclist in Dublin

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I present and explain the process of ‘privatising vulnerability’ that cyclists in Dublin engage in as a means of coping with structural conditions of ‘precarious entitlement’ to public space. First, I introduce and situate my study in relation to seminal work exploring cycling mobilities. Second, I describe the context of the study – Dublin, Ireland. Third, I explain the classical grounded theory methodology and approach to qualitative interview data collection employed throughout the research. Fourth, I briefly posit the core category of the grounded theory – precarious entitlement – so that privatising vulnerability can be understood as a process of response and one element of ‘precarious entitlement theory’. Fifth, I delineate the process of privatising vulnerability, and its four variations: anticipating disregard, waiving entitlement, tolerating transgression, and precautionary transgressing. Sixth, I conclude that privatising vulnerability can be understood as a process of pragmatic adaptation and submission to conditions of domination – in particular, to the spatial domination of automobility. Following these perspectives, I delineate the unique contributions privatising vulnerability can make to understandings of cycling experience and practice and toward wider matters of mobility justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Cycling
• entitlement
• automobility
• public space
• risk
• vulnerability
• harassment

Introduction

Amidst a ‘mobilities turn’ (Sheller and Urry 2006) in the social sciences, numerous mobilities scholars have contributed to critical social theory on automobility (e.g. Sheller and Urry 2000), theorising the scale and nature of the dominance of automobility over other forms of mobility in the West. In the context of both the mobilities turn and pioneering critical work on automobility, there has been a proliferation of literature exploring cycling mobilities within different contexts where automobility systems may be more or less dominant. In this paper, drawing from Egan (2019) and building on Egan and Philbin (2021), I contribute to this emerging literature by delineating a process of ‘privatising vulnerability’ that cyclists in Dublin engage in as a means of dealing with structural conditions of ‘precarious entitlement’ to public space.

The paper proceeds as follows. First, I review seminal research relating to an exploration of cycling mobilities in contexts where cycling is marginalised (e.g. Jones 2005) and relatively normalised (e.g. Freudendal-Pedersen 2014). I argue that spatial entitlement is a common thread across this literature in the encounter between the distinct yet intertwined mobilities of cycling and driving, and that this encounter has been well documented but not well theorised. Second, I provide an overview of the context of this study, Dublin, Ireland, in which I outline the spatial entitlements of cyclists in Ireland (RSA 2019), the policy context (Smarter Travel 2009), the demographics of ridership (Central Statistics Office 2017a, 2017b), and the city’s cycling infrastructure (Conway et al. 2019). Third, I detail the generalities of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967), the methodology of the study, in addition the particulars of the interview data collection approach and final sample. Fourth, I introduce the core category of the grounded theory – ‘precarious entitlement’ – in order situate ‘privatising vulnerability’ as a response to conditions of precarious entitlement to public space, one of two processes of response that make up ‘precarious entitlement theory’ as a whole (Egan 2019). Fifth, I delineate the process of privatising vulnerability, and its four variations: anticipating disregard, waiving entitlement, tolerating transgression, and precautionary transgressing. Sixth, in my conclusion, I argue that privatising vulnerability can be understood as a process of pragmatic adaptation and submission to the spatial domination of automobility. Positing precarious entitlement theory as a practical and modifiable construct, I offer a number of contributions that this theory can make to contemporary understandings of cycling experience and practice in the field of mobilities, and the potential for future, more refined formulations of this theory with respect to different social groups/identities and matters of mobility justice (Sheller 2018).

Exploring cycling mobilities and spatial entitlement

Diverging from a largely ‘neutral’ and unexamined understanding of the car as a technology in social theory (Urry 2000), in their seminal article on automobility, Sheller and Urry (2000, 738) draw attention to the impact of the car on the ‘time-space scapes of the modern urban/suburban dweller’ in Western societies, relating what is described by Urry (2004) as a ‘system of automobility’ to capitalism, consumption, industry, infrastructure, culture, resource-use, and the ‘public’ mobilities of cycling, walking and public transport. Specifically, Sheller and Urry (2000, 738) point out how automobility has a ‘specific character of domination’ that makes its impact particularly pervasive over a range of aspects of social life and urban experience, such as the transformation of ‘public spaces’ into ‘public roads’ in which non-car mobilities become less viable (Urry 2000, 194). In the ‘mobile civil societies’ of automobility, automobility becomes a requirement rather than a choice, thereby leading to public space being experienced from a distance within the confines of a bounded car and being produced in such a way to facilitate automobility above all else (Sheller and Urry 2000). These conceptualisations of automobility and the car feature more broadly amongst a shifting perspective within the social sciences described as the ‘mobilities turn’ in which movement is shifted from margin to centre as a legitimate and central object of social research and theory (Sheller and Urry 2006).

Within Western societies in which automobility can be said to dominate, the ‘public’ mobilities of cycling, walking and public transport are still a feature – albeit a marginalised feature – of social life. Following the ‘mobilities turn’, a proliferation of literature has focused on exploring the mobilities of cycling within contexts of its marginalisation (Jones 2005; Spinney 2010; Aldred 2013; Larsen 2014; Scott 2016) as well as specific contexts where cycling mobilities may be said to flourish, if not dominate (Freudendal-Pedersen 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Larsen 2017). A key theme emerging from this field in relation to developing cycling research is the need to develop richer understandings of the experiences and practices of cycling between A and B that go beyond preconceived categories of assumed importance in transport studies such as rational utility and safety (Sheller and Urry 2006; Spinney 2009; Larsen 2014; Freudendal‐Pedersen 2015a). As Spinney (2009, 823) argues, the mobilities turn ‘recognises that mobility and movement are entangled with relation of power, identity and embodiment’ and that there is a need to explore the ‘meanings of the journey itself’ (Spinney 2009, 829), particularly through ‘embodied experience’. Similarly, Larsen (2014, 60) argues for the utility of an (auto)ethnographic approach to the study of cycling experience and practice in particular contexts, as such a method enables insight into the ‘multisensuous reality of practices’ of mobility that can only be truly appreciated through the bodily participation of the researcher. Despite such calls for, and uses of, methodological innovations such as (auto)ethnography (e.g. Jones 2005; Spinney 2009; Larsen 2014), video ethnography (Spinney 2011) and mobile audio diaries (Jones 2012), the exploration of cycling mobilities using traditional qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups – such as the work of Aldred (2013), Freudendal‐Pedersen (2015a), and Scott (2016) – has yielded insightful perspectives that fulfil distinct aims of the mobilities project (Sheller and Urry 2006; Cresswell 2010) in eliciting the broader meanings and practices of mobilities that go beyond preconceived rationalistic transport variables.

A range of new perspectives, concepts and ways of understanding cycling experience and practice have emerged from this growing body of work. In his evocative autoethnography of cycling in Birmingham, Jones (2005, 815) looks to produce ‘An embodied understanding of the bicycle, affected by and affecting its users and their perception of the urban’. He reveals surprising personal experiences and practices while performing cycling such as the act of gazing at pedestrians when stopped at lights, experiencing a pleasurable adrenalin rush in dangerous situations and transgressing road rules on the grounds of ‘personal safety’. Most poignantly, Jones (2005) remarks how cycling mediates an ‘intimacy’ with one’s surrounding that driving does not, part of which involves the possibility of having one’s ‘bodily limits being breached beneath the wheels of a Birmingham bus.’ (Jones 2005, 826).

More robustly, Jones (2012, 648) generated the insightful concept of ‘affective capacity’ from a Birmingham mobile audio diary study with cyclists. With this concept, ‘affect’ is proposed as a potential conceptual bridge between body and world/self through positive and negative ‘intensities’; a given individual, then, has a particular ‘capacity’ to cope with such affective intensities (such as cycling in strong wind and rain). Jones (2012, 645) introduces this concept in the context of arguing how the modern ‘sensescape’ is one of profound ‘sensory discipline’ in which modern individuals are insulated from intense stimuli of any kind, instead being habituated to highly controlled environments. In this context, cycling is situated as a practice in modern life that tests the modest affective capacities of modern practitioners since it is practiced in uniquely unregulated environments. One particular ‘intensity’ that cyclists had to deal with in this study was that of endangering interactions with drivers in shared space.

Drawing on Jones (2012) work on ‘affective capacity’, Larsen (2014) comments how cyclists are sensuously exposed to weather in a way that drivers are not, but one intensity of particular importance ‘is the danger of cycling in car-dominated societies, where cyclists rub shoulders, and fight for space, with heavy motor vehicles, and any collision between the two is likely to injure or even kill the cyclist.’ (Larsen 2014, 63). Accordingly, cycling in car-centric contexts – such as London (Larsen 2014) – may require the ‘capacity’ to deal with the ‘intensity’ of potentially endangering interactions with drivers in shared space to a far greater extent than in places where cycling is widespread like Copenhagen (Larsen 2014, 2017).

Nevertheless, idyllic notions of cycling experience and practice in Copenhagen itself have been challenged (Freudendal-Pedersen 2014, 2015a, 2015b). As Freudendal‐Pedersen (2015a, 39) describes, in Copenhagen, part of the cycling as a practice is ‘about feeling and sensing the city – being part of its organism.’ Indeed, part of experiencing and practicing cycling in Copenhagen is being positioned in a way that is ‘intimate’ with one’s surroundings (Jones 2005). However, ‘cycling in Copenhagen is also about being part of the fight between the bicycle and the car.’ (Freudendal‐Pedersen 2015a, 39); in this way, ‘intimacy’ involves being exposed to interactions with other public space users, interactions that may be hostile, endangering and/or competitive. Cycling in a city that is branded as a ‘model’ cycling city (Freudendal-Pedersen 2014), then, is not as utopian in experience as it is portrayed, with ‘ongoing tension regarding the rights of cyclists relative to motorists’ (Freudendal-Pedersen 2015b, 599), whilst, at the same, perceptions and constructions of this utopia impede collective efforts to expand the rights of cycling and spaces for cycling relative to the car (Freudendal-Pedersen 2015b).

Drawing on an impressive body of historical research, Longhurst (2015) explicitly attends to the ‘rights of cyclists relative to motorists’ (Freudendal-Pedersen 2015b, 599) in the specific context of the U.S. over the last century. Charting the struggles for status that cycling lobbyists have engaged in in relation to the formal entitlement to use public roads, Longhurst commentates on the elitism of early advocacy for the legal status of cycling (also pointed out in relation to race by Lugo 2018), the legal struggles over the bicycle being an equally legitimate or second-class vehicle with explicit user rights and responsibilities, the question of having a ‘license’ to cycle, and the negotiations determining where one should be obligated and/or entitled to cycle when using a public road: all of which have shaped the contemporary mobility context for cycling in the United States. Overall, Longhurst provides a rich history for the particular context of the U.S. that helps us to situate present-day cycling mobilities and rights that stands in contrast to the more cross-sectional empirical work on cycling mobilities to date.

With my examination of existing cycling mobilities literature in mind, throughout work exploring cycling mobilities across a range of unique contexts, matters of spatial entitlement appear as a dominant concern in the encounter between the distinct yet intertwined mobilities and materialities of cycling and driving. As I have demonstrated, the experiential (and, to a lesser extent, the historical) aspects of how cycling mobilities and driving mobilities relate to one another have been explored and portrayed in-depth by a variety of cycling mobilities scholars (e.g. Jones 2005; Larsen 2014; Freudendal‐Pedersen 2015a; Longhurst 2015; Scott 2016). Nevertheless, whilst much has been done on the empirical and sensual aspects of these experiences, the availability of ‘high impact concepts’ (Glaser 1995) and empirically grounded theory to provide a useful framework for interpreting these complex relations and interactions in experience and practice appear to be in short supply. Much like Scott’s (2016) call for understanding cyclist actions in relation to driver actions, Adey (2006, 83) argues: mobilities need to be considered in ‘differential and relational ways’; ‘movement may be an action of domination in one circumstance but it may be viewed as an action of resistance in another. Mobility, like power, is a relational thing’. Cresswell (2010, 21) echoes such a call for a relational view of mobilities in exploring how mobilities interact: ‘Mobility is a resource that is differentially accessed. One person’s speed is another person’s slowness. Some move in such a way that others get fixed in place.’ whilst indicating the ‘fixities’ (Sheller and Urry 2006, 210) that enable mobilities so that the mobile is not seen to necessarily replace the static. In the work of Freudendal-Pedersen (2015b), Scott (2016) and Longhurst (2015), one can view public space as such a ‘fixity’ upon which mobile subjects interpret, signify, enact, and submit spatial entitlements in their encounters with other, differently mobile subjects. In this paper, I provide an empirically grounded theoretical account of cycling experience and practice in Dublin primarily (but not only) in relation to driving mobilities and materialities, outlining a process of cyclists privatising vulnerability in the face of precarious entitlement to public space in which cyclists routinely sacrifice spatial entitlement for self-preservation.

The research context: Dublin city

Utility cyclists in Dublin possess unique spatial entitlements as road users. Namely, cyclists have an entitlement to designated spaces on the road or pavement (e.g. cycle lanes, cycle tracks, advanced stop lines), which may be partially or fully exclusive to cyclists depending on the type of designation indicated (e.g. broken white line or solid white line, signage with times of operation indicated or no sign, etc.) (RSA 2019). Cyclists also possess equal spatial entitlements as road users: cyclists are fully entitled to use shared traffic lanes and bus lanes and have equal right-of-way in relation to other road users. As stated in the rules of the road addressed to motorists: ‘Vehicles do not have an automatic right of way on the road’ (RSA 2019, 124).

However, the spatial entitlements of cyclists are in transition. At present, cyclists are not legally entitled to a minimum passing distance in relation to overtaking vehicles. Rather, the rules of the road recommend that overtaking motorists leave one metre of space when travelling up to 50 kilometres an hour and 1.5 metres when travelling over 50 kilometres an hour (RSA 2019, 53). Despite efforts to transform this recommendation into legislation so that cyclists will be legally entitled to these spaces in the case that a motorist ‘close passes’, these have not have yet come to fruition (Ginty 2018); nevertheless, harsher penalties for ‘dangerous overtaking’ have been introduced in recognition of concerns with close passing (Cyclist.ie 2019). Furthermore, there have been efforts made to explicitly acknowledge the entitlement of cyclists to occupy the middle of shared traffic lanes in an updated version of the national ‘Rules of the Road’ (Sanz 2019). Indeed, in the most recent publication of the Rules of the Road (RSA 2019, 54), it has been explicitly stated that cyclists may rightfully adopt the ‘primary position’ (i.e. to position themselves toward the centre of a shared traffic lane) based on ‘need’ and that drivers ought to be aware of this fact.

Lastly, despite a policy aim for cycling accounting for 10% of total journeys in Ireland by 2020 (Smarter Travel 2009), national survey data indicates that cycling made up only 1.7% in 2016 (Central Statistics Office 2017a). This 1.7% comprises mainly of men (i.e. 74% male versus 26% female) and the biggest growth in ridership appears to be taking place primarily amongst young to middle-aged men (Central Statistics Office 2017b). Conway et al. (2019) point out that, in addition to the low rates and narrow demographics of ridership, Dublin has a very low rate of high quality cycling infrastructure compared to the relatively cycle-friendly context of Copenhagen. In an analysis of eight radial routes in Dublin, Conway et al. (2019) reported that 48.7% of major commuter routes into the city centre were shared with bus lanes in Dublin compared to 0% in Copenhagen. Furthermore, 16.1% of such routes in Dublin comprised of cycle tracks compared to 77.2% in Copenhagen. With these considerations in mind, Dublin is, in summary, a city that has a low rate of cycling that is primarily engaged in by men and that takes place within a material context of poor cycling infrastructure.

Study methodology

Classical grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) is a flexible yet systematic method to generate theory grounded in data from a given problem area of study. In this study, I adopted classical grounded theory methodology in order to provisionally explore how utility cyclists in Dublin dealt with matters of risk. In total, I gathered data via 28 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with cyclists across Dublin. Participants varied in terms of age (23–78 years old), cycling experience in Dublin (2 weeks – 30 + years), gender (12 women and 16 men), and geography (e.g. from Dublin, other Irish counties, U.S., Germany, etc.; cycled in different locations across Dublin).

In selecting interviewees and designing interview questions, I was initially guided by a provisional interest in exploring how utility cyclists in Dublin dealt with matters of risk such as being ‘at risk’ and putting others and oneself ‘at risk’. At this stage – the open coding phase (Glaser and Strauss 1967) – I gathered data from relatively open-ended interviews with utility cyclists and analysed it using open coding techniques. Rather than coding an ongoing concern and management of ‘risk’, what emerged as a ‘main concern’ for utility cyclists in Dublin from my analysis of interview data was ‘precarious entitlement’ to public space (the focus of Egan and Philbin 2021).

Having conceptualised a ‘main concern’, I commenced the selective coding phase (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Namely, I increasingly directed my data collection and analysis toward the conceptual development of the main concern and the processes of resolving it (one of which is detailed in this paper as privatising vulnerability) through theoretical sampling and selective coding. During this process, my focus was to theoretically ‘saturate’ the main categories of the theory (i.e. precarious entitlement, privatising vulnerability and provoking responsibility) by theoretically sampling in interviews for data that could lead to further significant conceptual developments for these main categories, such as new variations of privatising vulnerability or additional or more refined conditions of precarious entitlement. When theoretical sampling in interviews no longer led to any more significant conceptual and theoretical developments in analysis, I judged that a theoretical saturation point for the study had been reached, thereby concluding the study.

‘Precarious entitlement’ to public space

Exploring matters of utility cycling and ‘risk’ as a point of departure for this study, precarious entitlement to public space was conceptualised as the main – but not the only – concern of utility cyclists in Dublin. As described in the preceding ‘context’ section, utility cyclists in Dublin possess unique and equal entitlements to public space as imparted in the Rules of the Road (RSA 2019). These include an exclusive entitlement to particular spaces (e.g. segregated cycle lanes, cycle lanes with a continuous white line, advanced stop lines) and entitlements shared with other road users within shared spaces (e.g. right of way, the right to occupy a shared traffic lane in a majority of circumstances). Exercising these entitlements, however, is experienced as precarious due to conditions of precarious entitlement to public space; these overlapping conditions may be understood as material (insecure space), social/cultural (spatial disregard) and institutional (police neglect). Accordingly, the public spaces that cyclists are entitled to use may be experienced as insecure in various ways (e.g. insecure spatial design, temporal design and negligent maintenance), cyclists experience routine disregard of their shared and exclusive entitlements to space by other road users (e.g. illegal parking in cycle lanes, dangerously close passes, getting beeped when occupying shared traffic lane, etc.) and cyclists perceive that police do not protect their spatial entitlements from disregard or punish acts of disregard. Individually and collectively, then, the conditions of precarious entitlement contribute to the experience of precariousness or endangerment in assuming and exercising spatial entitlement as a cyclist in Dublin; one has spatial entitlement in theory that is dangerous or unreliable to exercise in practice. Accordingly, entitlement cannot be taken for granted or confidently assumed since a context of precarious entitlement presents a tension between exercising entitlement and one’s self-preservation. As argued in Egan (2019) and Egan and Philbin (2021), precarious entitlement to public space can be considered not a personal, but structural, vulnerability (ten Have 2016). The focus of this paper, however, is one of two major processes conceptualised regarding how cyclists in Dublin deal with conditions of precarious entitlement: privatising vulnerability. For more on the second process (i.e. ‘provoking responsibility’), see Egan (2019). Along with the category of precarious entitlement, both of these processes make up ‘precarious entitlement theory’. Therefore, privatising vulnerability as a response to precarious entitlement is one of two aspects that comprise ‘precarious entitlement theory’ in its entirety.

Privatising vulnerability: self-preservation in conditions of precarious entitlement

In response to the conditions of precarious entitlement, cyclists may engage in a process of privatising vulnerability. That is, cyclists make their vulnerability emerging from conditions of precarious entitlement (i.e. insecure space, spatial disregard and police neglect) a private issue as opposed to a public or political issue. In this way, privatising vulnerability refers to the process of taking vulnerability emerging from conditions of precarious entitlement (i.e. insecure space, spatial disregard and police neglect) on as an issue of personal responsibility and control as a means of self-preservation. One retreats from interaction, reliance and any form of moral/civic relationship with others as a means to protect oneself as much as they feel is possible.

Four variations of privatising vulnerability were conceptualised. First, cyclists may take measures to pre-empt acts of spatial disregard from other road users as a means of privatising vulnerability – anticipating disregard. Second, cyclists may refrain from using or insisting on their right to particular spaces when such spaces are shared with other more powerful road users who may disregard them or are hazardous to transit – waiving entitlement. Third, acts of spatial infringement by other road users may be patiently overlooked and endured due to the perceived futility of challenging such acts in promoting respect for spatial entitlement – tolerating transgression. Fourth and last, one may use space in a transgressive way – that is, in a legally or morally unacceptable manner – as a means of maximising their safety – precautionary transgressing. In combination, then, through anticipating disregard, waiving entitlement, tolerating transgression and precautionary transgressing, a cyclist can strive to take their vulnerability in their own hands and out of the hands of others in doing what they believe is required to keep them from harm, irrespective of what is right or wrong and how things ought to be. Practical considerations of self-preservation, then, may come before concerns of entitlement.

Anticipating disregard

Anticipating disregard involves a variety of actions taken in order to predict the disregard of others before such disregard actually occurs and protect oneself as much as possible in the case that such disregard does indeed occur. Disregard can include incidents of close-passing, infringement of right of way by pedestrians and motorists and drivers opening car doors without due regard for oncoming cyclists. Anticipating disregard, then, entails diverse means of making oneself more ready, more prepared and more aware in the case that an act of disregard does in fact occur. Accordingly, when one is anticipating disregard, they are in a state of heightened vigilance and some degree of anxiety, often bracing themselves for a danger and actively on the lookout drawing upon their senses – sight, sound and touch – and knowledge from previous experience for cues that they will be disregarded.

Illustrating the participant’s perspective, in Paula’s opinion, anticipating disregard has saved her from being killed in the past. Indeed, as a variation of privatising vulnerability, Paula anticipates disregard as a means of ensuring her own safety despite being perfectly aware that such acts of infringement of space are a disregard to her spatial entitlements as a cyclist:

P:… sometimes I would look at the driver to see are they looking in my direction … I’d always be looking to see if they’re indicating … I’m always looking to see what their next move is going to be – just to keep myself safe. I have literally saved my life a couple of times by anticipating … eh … the behaviour and the next move of … of a motorist! (Pause.) And chased after them and called them a cow (bursts out laughing)! Motorist would say “Oh, I didn’t see you” but what they really mean is “I didn’t look.”

R:And what would you say is the difference between those two things?

P:Eh … you can’t see something if you haven’t looked. So, they basically haven’t … used … the facilities that they should be using – they haven’t been a proper road user. Like, for example, I’m on the road and a car is about to come out of a side road and come into my … lane, right? If I see a car sitting there about to come into my … lane, I know I have the right-of-way but I know by their behaviour that they’re coming out anyway … like pffft (shakes head).

As Paula eloquently describes, under conditions of precarious entitlement, one cannot assume that their entitlement to public space will be respected at any point as a cyclist – one always has to expect the worst from other road users by anticipating disregard. This means taking responsibility for others actions in your actions; this means – if self-preservation is a priority for you – privatising vulnerability:

You know, you have to … You can’t just take the right-of-way. You have to anticipate their move. And it’s looking at situations like that where you’re assessing the danger, the risk, where you just need to … take responsibility not just for your own actions but for their actions as well.

Failing to anticipate disregard may mean putting oneself in harm’s way through a failure of personal responsibility. In this way, through privatising one’s vulnerability, anticipating disregard is experienced as a responsibility – something you have to do when you have knowledge of the likelihood of disregard. To do otherwise is reckless as spatial disregard is a fact of life for a cyclist in Dublin, one that the cyclist must adapt to if they are to stay safe:

You know, the regular cut-off scenario which happens quite often. That happens to me at least twice or three times a year … and if I don’t anticipate it, it would happen more often. But, you know, these are the occasions that you do have to anticipate and look out for. Now, if you are a cyclist, you’re going straight on past traffic that’s going slow that you know is going to speed up, you have to anticipate it. If you’re a cyclist, you’re going straight on where cars are about to turn left, you have to anticipate it. You have to look over your shoulder even though you’re going straight on. There’s no other way.

Waiving entitlement

Waiving entitlement can also be seen as a variation of this process, one which is often overlapping with anticipating disregard. When a cyclist waives entitlement, they refrain from using or insisting upon their entitlement to public space. Waiving entitlement, then, means holding back from exercising or asserting one’s entitlement. If one is waiving their entitlement, they are tentatively or submissively exercising it or even renouncing it altogether – giving it up. In this way, waiving entitlement can vary between the cautious and deferent use of one’s entitlement and the complete renunciation of it. In the context of utility cycling in Dublin, cyclists waive entitlement to various public spaces out of a fear of the hazards of assuming entitlement in conditions of precarious entitlement. Namely, in conditions of precarious entitlement, asserting one’s entitlement to a public space could result in serious harm due to the possibility of spatial disregard and the risks of insecure space. Furthermore, under conditions of police neglect, one is left alone to suffer the consequences of spatial disregard with little hope for compensation. With these conditions in mind, if one assumes right-of-way in a place where disregard of one’s right-of-way is highly likely, asserting this entitlement to right-of-way with a motor vehicle ahead may result in a potentially harmful collision. Thus, although cyclists may be aware of their entitlements to a particular public space or to respect in a particular public space, due to conditions of precarious entitlement, they opt to waive their entitlement to certain public spaces on the grounds of personal safety – they may dismount, hug the curb, reroute or give way and thus mitigate exposure to other potentially disregarding road users.

For Patrick, waiving entitlement is often a frustrating but necessary exercise. It is clear in Patrick’s accounts that he avoids asserting entitlement to road space as much as he can. This, he believes, is the most prudent course of action in relation to his personal safety as he neatly captures his attitude to dealing with precarious entitlement with the phrase ‘irritated not injured’. That is, he prefers to resentfully waive his entitlement in order to prevent injury rather than assert his entitlement and risk being injured. Accordingly, he perceives entitlement but does not act on it for the sake of his well-being. Asserting one’s entitlement is simply not worth the danger and as a relatively vulnerable road user you cannot win – if you wish to stay safe, anticipate disregard from other road users and waive your entitlement in advance.

P:You know, you constantly hear cyclists going “I’m in the right, I’m in the right!” –it’s no fucking good to you when you get knocked over. Right is fine up to a point but in any collision between you and a car, unless it’s a wing mirror, you’re going to come off worse. So, in terms of risk mitigation, you know – you’re talking about how do I mitigate risks – I modify my cycling wherever possible, I’m aware of and wherever possible try and take account of stupidity in motorists … stupidity/inconsiderate motoring.

R:Yeah, so, you said now that you’ve kind of modified your cycling over time, over a long period of time …

P:Well, it’s just cop on … See, the point is you can get … you can maybe have a lucky escape, right … so, for your own self-preservation you have to learn from this (chuckling), and you go “Right, I did nothing wrong there”, but that’s going to be no consolation for you if you’re in the back of an ambulance – you know what I mean (laughing)?! You’re right – you didn’t do anything wrong but … if you had just held back a bit – irritatedly – they would have gone front of you. So you’re irritated, not injured. So, I’d prefer to be irritated, not injured!

Similar to the pragmatism of Patrick, William waives entitlement in the sense that he refrains from asserting his entitlement to a road space due to a judgment of the greater risks in doing so. On his regular commute to college, he refrains from using a segregated cycle track beside the roadway due to its poor condition, which, he feels, is unrealistic for cyclists to use. Thus, he uses the road instead as a response to this incidence of insecure space. The road, then, is a smoother, cleaner surface that he can travel to college on; however, the speed limit on this particular road is quite high and he finds it intimidating to travel on because of this. On top of this, the left-hand side of this road surface has hazards of its own – bumps, drains and obstructions. Accordingly, William faces insecure space on two levels: first, a poorly maintained segregated space and, second, a road space that is hazardous for cyclists to use on the left-hand side, thus requiring cyclists to pull out into the road which has a high speed limit. Out of fear of fast moving vehicles in the centre of this space, William waits until the last possible second to avoid the potentially damaging surfaces on the left-hand side of the road space as a means to allow the cars behind him to pass before occupying the centre of the road. At the root of his reluctance to pull out is a perception that obstructing drivers behind him by asserting entitlement to the road space is likely more dangerous than letting them pass. Overall, he fears anger from motorists from asserting entitlement on the road: he fears spatial disregard. His strategy of waiving entitlement is a way of avoiding such anger and the potentially dangerous consequences of it since the potentially aggressive persons are operating powerful vehicles in a shared space:

Cycling down those roads can be a little bit intimidating, when cars are like zooming past you! And so I feel like, if there’s … if there’s like … if I see a bump in the road up ahead of me or a drain pipe, I wanna avoid it just for my bike’s sake. But, if there’s a car right behind me, I tend to try and wait as long as possible to actually go around that, so that they have the opportunity to go around me. And sometimes they don’t so I end up having to swerve at the last minute out and back in … just because I’m conscious of them getting past me without me interfering with them. So I end up normally … like if there’s a cone in the road ahead of me, and I can see it and I’m thinkin, “I could get out now and pass by that cone, but then I’m going to stop this driver behind me, and I don’t want him to get road rage and start, you know … ” (smiles and laughs).

Tolerating transgression

A cyclist may anticipate disregard from other road users up ahead and, in anticipation of this, waive their entitlement to the right-of-way as a precautionary measure. However, what about when disregard is directly experienced or one’s space is dispossessed by another road user? Namely, how does one privatise their vulnerability when they come across and experience transgression by others? As a variation of privatising vulnerability, tolerating transgression is when one endures acts of spatial disregard as a means of protecting one’s physical and mental well-being. One can tolerate transgression by just ‘getting on with things’, taking a deep breath, making efforts to ignore what one has experienced, redirecting one’s attention to other things or even engaging in some sort of privatised way of punishing the individual without direct action to bring about such a challenge to their misconduct.

Tolerating transgression can be understood as a variation of privatising vulnerability as one tolerates, rather than challenges, transgression, thereby dealing with precarious entitlement in a private as opposed to public or interpersonal way (e.g. by provoking responsibility). The individual recognises that someone has committed an act of transgression that may have endangered them and contributed to ongoing conditions of precarious entitlement, yet, the individual responds by privatising vulnerability instead of looking to call the person to account or contest their behaviour in some shape or form. Challenging acts of transgression, then, does not serve the task of privatising vulnerability – it does not help the person deal with vulnerability within their own personal sphere of control as, by implicating people and attempting to oblige them to act in a certain way, one is extending their expectations of others as opposed to dealing with the problem themselves. Tolerating transgression is therefore part of privatising vulnerability as it enables one to refocus attention toward themselves and their own actions in relation to managing their safety and well-being as opposed trying to get others to take responsibility for their vulnerability.

In one respect, tolerating transgression is seen as a strategy to protect one’s mental health from the toxic interactions of non-recognition inherent in being subject to acts of spatial disregard following from a perception that challenging acts of spatial disregard ‘doesn’t resolve the case’; that is, challenging transgression is a futile endeavour that brings about stress in the individual without improving the conditions of precarious entitlement. Accordingly, finding various ways to endure transgression or, in the words of one participant, ‘dismiss it from my mind’ is favourable to trying to tackle acts of transgression in some manner. Through doing this one can mitigate, as another participant describes, the ‘slippery slope of negative thought’ that may come with routinely being subject to acts of spatial disregard.

In James’s experience, challenging acts of transgression has not led to any positive consequences. Spatial disregard continues just as before, only with James experiencing heightened indignation. Now James tolerates transgression through letting this sense of indignation go and continuing on with his cycle. Furthermore, in more dangerous incidents of spatial disregard where James has felt that his safety was seriously threatened, he used to report to the police. However, he would either not hear anything back from his reports of misconduct or the response would be neutral. In this way, on another level, looking to punish transgression at a legal level did not work due to perceived police neglect – another condition of precarious entitlement. These experiences further prompted James toward tolerating transgression and, through doing so, leaving behind the will to intervene in acts of transgression and hold people responsible for their actions and complicity in precarious entitlement: ‘I leave behind the intention to report it. Because I know that nobody will get reprimanded and nothing will come of it.’ Accordingly, for James, tolerating transgression is considered to be the most rational way to deal with acts of spatial disregard in the context of precarious entitlement as challenging transgression proves to be futile and, at times, personally destructive and unpleasant.

However, for Julia, tolerating transgression is not only adopted as a means for one to cope better with painful emotions that could not be resolved socially (e.g. through interaction of some sort) but, rather, is a way of privatising one’s vulnerability due to fear of the risks of public confrontation or ‘punishment’ with other road users – i.e. fear of escalation/retaliation:

I cycle on my own a lot – I would not be confident that if I was to approach somebody that they wouldn’t get out of their car, that then they wouldn’t follow me, you know, later on and do a punishment overtaking for me having dared to say something to them about parking in a cycle lane.

This fear of retaliation was shared by Brian, who was considering how his actions could impact the safety of other cyclists:

I don’t want to make a driver angry – it’s not safe for the next cyclist. I’m trying to make it safer for the next cyclist.

Precautionary transgressing

So far, I have outlined variations of privatising vulnerability that, for the most part, are ways of cyclists dealing with the potential transgression of others. However, cyclists themselves engage in forms of transgression as a means of dealing with precarious entitlement. That is, cyclists engage in acts that are generally considered legally or morally unacceptable as a means of protecting oneself from harm and mitigating exposure to risks: precautionary transgressing. Transgressing, then, is enacted as a means of precaution in the face of the risks of harm in doing what one is legally or morally obliged to do or that which is acceptable to do. Thus, doing what is improper to keep oneself safe is thought to be favourable over doing what is proper but, through doing so, putting oneself in greater danger. Importantly, ‘transgressing’ generally involves – much like the ‘spatial disregard’ of precarious entitlement – transgressions of space; that is, uses of space or ways of using space that are considered transgressive for a cyclist. These transgressions may be illegal, such as use of the pavement or other non-permitted spaces in favour of the road, or crossing a junction during a pedestrian green light in order to get a head start on drivers who may ‘race’ to get into the lane ahead. However, acts of transgression may also be legal but frowned upon, such as dismounting one’s bicycle to cross a junction using pedestrian lights, rather than talking a right hand turn in a right hand lane shared with drivers.

As a means of dealing with precarious entitlement, precautionary transgressing is a variation of privatising vulnerability as one does what they believe they need to do to keep themselves from harm and danger to the greatest extent possible, irrespective of what one ought to do or what another ought to do. This awareness of taking precautionary measures against what is expected and accepted creates conflict in the individual which swings from a sense of entitlement based on considerations of personal safety under conditions of precarious entitlement to a sense of guilt deriving from one’s awareness that they may be putting others at risk or inconvenience whilst also breaking a moral or legal code.

For Yvonne, precautionary transgressing is practiced for her children’s safety, enabling her to look after her children whilst cycling. Cycling in the spaces one is meant to cycle is simply too dangerous. In order to cycle legally, Yvonne described that she would have to cycle on the left-hand side of the road whereas, for her children, the safest place was on the right-hand side pavement on the way to school. This, however, puts her in a position of having to shout across to the children on the other side of the road which, Yvonne believes, could lead to her children getting anxious and wanting to go across to their mother whilst additionally distracting Yvonne from her awareness on the road and therefore looking after her own safety. Accordingly, this arrangement is experienced as unsafe by Yvonne for both herself and for her children. Precautionary transgressing, then, is considered by Yvonne as the responsible thing to do – something one must do for the sake of safety:

So, there are times when with your children you have to cycle on the footpath … and there’s no way around that.

Indeed, Yvonne mentions that cycling with one’s children may yield certain allowances from other public space users to transgress public spaces that one is not formally entitled to use when cycling compared to cycling solo:

… there are lots of really courteous people and especially with kids on the bike you get people stopping to let you cross the road and stuff. Again, when you have kids the rules are different. People are generally more patient and nicer to you.

Nevertheless, despite these partial allowances and Yvonne’s conviction that certain forms of precautionary transgressing are justified, she still experiences ambivalence in breaking the law as a precaution:

But, the thing is, it is uncomfortable knowing that technically it’s illegal. And, if someone, if they stop you and go “You know you shouldn’t be cycling … ”

Ultimately, though, Yvonne recognises that conditions of precarious entitlement mean that, with children, cycling where one is obligated to cycle does not make sense from the point of view safety and, therefore, precautionary transgressing is the most reasonable course of action. Yvonne describes how cutting through the local park avoided a hazardous bridge and confusing junction which mix cyclists with motor vehicles, leaving cyclists vulnerable. However, through precautionary transgressing, Yvonne fears her 12-year-old could be subject to complaints from others when transgressing since she will be viewed as an adult as opposed to a child cycling. This dilemma leads Yvonne to challenge the act of cycling through the park as transgressing; that is, cycling is prohibited in the park but Yvonne believes ‘slow cycling’ should be allowed due to the hazardous cycling conditions nearby in which the park provides a safe route for children. Prohibiting cycling, then, in light of precarious entitlement, was perceived as ‘unfair’ and precautionary transgressing as reasonable.

… they repainted the signs in the park to say ‘no cycling in the park ’ … but, again, when you’re with kids it’s a much safer way. In order to avoid a junction with my daughter I come through the park but, technically, she’s 12 now so she’s not a little tiny thing and, like, she’s very good but … someone could kind of … rip us for doing that. I feel that’s unfair because … that’s the safer route … and we are being cautious and courteous and stuff. Rather than ‘no cycling’ it should say ‘slow cycling’. By going through the park I can avoid the dangerous bridge and the weird junction – we go straight onto the protected lane so it gives us a much safer route into town.

Similar to Yvonne, Charlotte felt that having to transgress in order to stay safe was something that should not be the case – something that was unfair. One should be able to cycle safely where one is obligated and entitled to cycle. The conditions of precarious entitlement, however, prevented this from being the case. Charlotte vividly illustrates the conditions of precarious entitlement she had faced on her commute to work – first, insecure space:

Conyngham Road was the most hairy … place. Particularly coming back into town, where you have a big junction where the Phoenix Park entrance is … and, as a cyclist, you’re really exposed there because there’s a whole lot of quite fast moving traffic turning left into Infirmary Road and …

And, second, the fear of spatial disregard; namely, Charlotte did not feel confident that she would be regarded by fast moving motorists if she chose to occupy the road space:

… you can’t clearly be in that left lane – otherwise you’d be mowed down …

Consequently, exercising one’s entitlement to the space required courage in the face of this precariousness brought about by insecure space and fear of spatial disregard:

– so, you have to force yourself to be brave and go out into the … straight on lane where no one really wants to … and I felt quite vulnerable there …

Charlotte, however, came to find this precariousness too much to deal with and, as a result, opted for precautionary transgressing as a means of privatising vulnerability rather than relying on others to respect her in an insecure space. This left Charlotte with a feeling of bitterness that her entitlement to public space could not be secure and comfortable to use:

… and eventually I decided I was going to use the path. And, I would cycle slowly on the path and where it is too narrow or there are too many people, I would just get off and walk it. So, I did kind of resent that … those junctions I did not feel safe at.

For Charlotte, then, it was simply not considered feasible in many cases to exercise entitlement without putting oneself in unjustifiable danger. Furthermore, it was viewed as unfair that she was put in the position where transgressing was safer than compliance and which inconvenienced her commute by taking longer than the more dangerous route:

I felt a bit annoyed that … there wasn’t a safe way for me to go that didn’t involve me … doing that. So I either had to go on an unsafe route or go a safe route but … break a few rules. It would have been faster to go along the Quays on the road but that was less safe.

Conclusion

Privatising vulnerability shows how cycling citizens pragmatically adapt to conditions of domination. In order to adapt, the structural vulnerability of precarious entitlement is individualised (Beck 1992; Bauman 2000; Kesselring 2008) or ‘privatised’ in thought, emotion and behaviour, and interaction or reliance upon others is avoided to the greatest extent possible. In terms of its consequences, this adaptation can – at least partially – be read as a process of submission to a form of domination that is particularly spatial in character; namely, as submission to hegemonic automobility (Sheller and Urry 2000) and sovereign freedom of movement (Sheller 2008) exercised by car drivers, culminating in conditions of precarious entitlement to public space where ‘force’ often overrules ‘right’ (Rousseau 2004).

In light of this spatial domination, privatising vulnerability shows how disregard is accommodated for and anticipated as a normal occurrence (anticipating disregard), space is given over to motorists (waiving entitlement), the will to resist disregard is suppressed (tolerating transgression), and spatially transgressive behaviour is engaged in for the sake of self-preservation (precautionary transgressing). This conceptualisation of cycling experience and practice theoretically contributes to existing work in which evidence can be found indicating a process of privatising vulnerability in response to conditions of precarious entitlement such as perceived impotence in the face of a dominating automobility (Freudendal-Pedersen 2014); ‘vigilance’, ‘expecting nothing to change’, ‘hanging back’, avoiding and changing one’s route (Aldred 2016); breaking formal rules (Jones 2005) such as footpath cycling (Jones 2012; Aldred 2016; Freitas and Maciel 2017; Bösehans and Massola 2018) and red-light infringement (Shaw et al. 2015); sticking to segregated routes only (Jones 2012; Scott 2016); ‘assuming hatred and stupidity from other road users’, exercising ‘emotional control’ in the face of spatial disregard, and ‘cycling on as if nothing happened’ following acts of aggression, to prevent both the negative emotional consequences of being disregarded and the ‘risk of retaliation’ that may come with a provocative response to the actions of the perpetrator (Balkmar 2018).

In relation to existing work in the cycling mobilities examining matters of ‘affective capacity’ (Jones 2012; Larsen 2014), privatising vulnerability could be read to show one way in which people cycling in Dublin pragmatically adapt to not only the affective but also the emotional intensities that may emerge in response to routine subordination and disregard enacted particularly (but not only) by driving mobilities such as humiliation, fear, disappointment, and indignation. In this respect, privatising vulnerability may not only be a way a of reducing affective intensities from an outside ‘environment’ or particular ‘stimuli’ (Jones 2012) but, perhaps more significantly, it can be viewed as a way of mitigating one’s exposure to the emotional intensities of certain kinds of potentially hurtful social interactions (i.e. spatial disregard) that one may have a limited emotional capacity to withstand and/or challenge in their everyday cycling practices.

Privatising vulnerability, however, is only one part of precarious entitlement theory; a detailed delineation of the antithetical process of provoking responsibility (Egan 2019), in which everyday cyclists look to provoke responsibility in other mobile subjects to respect their entitlement to use public space, is beyond the scope of this paper. However, provoking responsibility can be understood as a qualitatively distinct process for dealing with conditions of precarious entitlement, which may be enacted in the same cycle journey in which variations of privatising vulnerability are practiced. Nevertheless, either in its entirety or examining only privatising vulnerability in relation to precarious entitlement, precarious entitlement theory does not qualitatively or quantitatively differentiate the experience and practice of cycling in Dublin based on social group categories and/or identities. Instead, it is a theorisation of the general conditions encountered by people cycling in Dublin – which is a unique cycling context – and how these conditions are responded to. This is in accord with the pragmatic aim of grounded theory: to produce a useful and relevant transcending abstraction based on data gathered from the problem area (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Nevertheless, a grounded theory is always modifiable and can be altered to adapt to new and/or conflicting data (Glaser and Strauss 1967).

Amongst the women and men cyclists in Dublin involved in this study, a general and overriding concern with precarious entitlement ‘patterned out’ (Glaser 1998) along with a general process of ‘privatising vulnerability’ despite being open to qualitatively gendered cycling experiences and practices in relation to risk and precarious entitlement. This does not discount that members of particular social groups may experience further exacerbating (or even qualitatively distinctive) elements that contribute to a more severe or altered form of precarious entitlement to public space when cycling, for example, based on gender (e.g. gendered street harassment/‘intrusion’ by men (e.g. Kearl 2010)) or race (e.g. police harassment and ‘racialized mobility regimes’ (Sheller 2018)).

Considering race and cycling in particular, Lugo (2018, 81) highlights how, in the U.S., ‘bodies in the street get policed differently’. While for some bodies cycling police neglect may be an issue, for others police harassment or attention may be more problematic. Lugo (2018) demonstrates, for example, how some Latino cyclists encountered during fieldwork would cycle on the pavement to avoid police attention due to their potential undocumented status as California residents. While such riders may indeed encounter conditions of precarious entitlement and engage in privatising vulnerability, the risk of encountering police and the practices to hide from police when occupying public space stand in stark contrast with the condition of ‘police neglect’, suggesting instead another form of precarity extending beyond precarious entitlement as a cyclist in a context where automobility dominates.

In this respect, I propose precarious entitlement theory as a useful abstraction but one which is limited – and may indeed be qualitatively irrelevant in certain respects – for some groups who deal with conditions that extend beyond those of ‘street contempt’ (Lugo 2018) by drivers. Nevertheless, the current formulation does not discount the development of more targeted or considerably modified versions of the theory. In this respect, privatising vulnerability and, more generally, precarious entitlement theory provide a useful, grounded and modifiable theoretical framework for building conceptual understanding of cycling and non-cycling mobilities for a range of mobile subjects across different mobility contexts, thus adding to a rich body of research – theoretical and descriptive – exploring mobilities regimes, experiences and practices, and their relations with wider matters of mobility justice (Sheller 2018).

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the participants of this study and my supervisor Dr. Mark Philbin for his inspiration and guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health Postgraduate Research Supervision Enhancement Scheme.