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Free, regular, and open elections are sought-after qualities of a liberal democracy. Reading electoral turnout as an indicator of political engagement, though, is a reductive reading and can obscure entrenched levels of political disengagement. This article considers the implications of Article 21, subsection one, of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948) as an assessment of political participation. There are three lines of investigation. First, the paper will examine the model of political engagement implied within Article 21 and its subsequent iterations. Second, theories of political participation are linked to a study of civic engagement within the British parliamentary system. Third, building upon these two arguments, the 2016 Brexit referendum is presented as a case study to demonstrate the limitations of a voter turnout measurement. Political participation must be continually (re)imagined, (re)constructed, and reflected upon otherwise we rely upon voting by numbers.

The focus on health, the environment and sustainable mobility make cycling a preferred choice as a mode of transportation. However, cyclists are very vulnerable in the event of a collision with a motor vehicle, especially in suburban and rural areas where the planning of the road is much less suitable for cycling. The general objective of this study is to document the risk factors related to the road environment for collisions between a cyclist and a motor vehicle in a less dense “regional environment” (small and medium sized communities). To analyze collision data, several methods were used: Kernel Density Estimation, Kulldorff spatial scan statistics, Poisson regression and logistic regression. Our results show that the spatial concentrations of collisions are mostly near the cycling infrastructure and intersections. There are some risk factors to explain a collision (intersection; presence of cycling infrastructure; urban areas; urban arteries) and to explain an injured cyclist (lack of cycling infrastructure; young cyclists (15 years and under); lighting conditions).In conclusion, our study on low-density environments produces results that converge with those of the existing literature on urban areas, but also shows some specific features. Similar risk factors to urban areas are intersections, urban arterials and the age of the victims and specific risk factors for low density areas are urban area, the presence of cycling infrastructure and lighting conditions (night).