surreal

cycling is dangerous? perhaps to cyclists it is, but it doesnt pose a very serious threat to other folks, like motorists, pedestrians, motorcyclists, or other bicyclists.

i'd say that the bigger/faster the vehicle, the more danger it presents to others. the risk one decides to assume by mounting a slower, lighter vehicle shouldnt be something a cyclist oughta be penalized for...rather, he or she should be applauded.

think of just how incredibly safe the roads of ANY nation would be if the ratio of bicycles to automobiles was reversed...wow.

-rob

surreal

oops...i just realised that my use of the term "any" in my final sentence was sorta silly...of course, that's only true of any nation where automobiles on the road outnumber bicycles..heehee, i'm rather tired...sorry.

-rob

Allister

Much as I dislike this form of argument, I'm going to have to ask you to quote some statistics to back that claim up. All the figures I've seen indicate that the fatality rate for cyclists is more comparable to motorists than motorcyclists. Factor for a level of experience in the cyclist, and the figures plummet.

Possibly, but not because they're inherently dangerous. Either way 'what if' discussions are irrelevant and pointless.
There are no 'accidents of history'. There is only history.

Moose

Take that phrase and substitute the word "car" for "bicycle" and it still rings true...as with many other things we use on a daily basis!

Allister is soo right, if if's and butt's were candy and nuts, every day would be chrsitmas!

Allister

On this subject, there was an interesting post on the bikeqld emailing list a couple of years ago by one Lawrence Roche, a lecturer at QUT. I won't reproduce it here without his permission, but the post is archived ]here. Apologies if I've posted this link here before (I suspect I have).

Um... isn't that a 'what if' statement?

Moose

Yeah it is

Also my post shoud've read ...ifs and buts... not ...if's and butt's...

pardon my grammar, I was just reading a thread about sattles!

Felix C

Here's one guy I think needs some support from all of us. During a mayoral election in Portland about 10 years ago, he raced the other candidate. She rode a bus while he cycled, she fully expected him to barely be able to keep up. When she got off the bus, there he was waiting for her.

He's a great guy I think and I hope he continues to get more support in the future.

Here's a URL for you to see what he's about as he is the congressman from Oregon's 3rd district.

https://www.yourcongress.com/profile.asp?member_id=44

cyclezealot

Anyone read anything more about the Green Mayor of Paris,France. Last I read he was sick of the millions of suburban cars daily invading his city and ruining it's atmosphere. The problem of finding storage for these invading machines was not to be allowed.
I read he was determined to stop it. He was closing down major arteries and converting them to cycling roads. Really central Paris is not all that big. Significant numbers could ride from the Peripherique to downtown in a very short time. Not even a challenging ride, it is pretty flat for the most part. I hope the Parisians resent this invasion. Mass transit is incredible. Hope the new Mayor is lucky. The mayor is an avid cyclists himself.
So here, this is a case for promoting cycling and demoting auto commuting. I like that idea. Less pollution, a stronger economy, --less dependency of our oil addiction, and a healthier, more stable workforce.

Feldman

Watch Oregon for the next few years. In 2000, a ballot initiative drawn up and supported by far-right-wing property rights zealots won in a landslide. It's still being fought in court, but could stand.
It is so extreme that it construes any kind of land use planning or zoning as a "taking" of property ("takings" laws look to this layman a lot like a protection racket but, then, my family roots are from a mobbed-up part of Jersey.) The ability to challenge and bust zoning could possibly be used for good as well as ill, to allow pedestrian-distance business to housing development--I just hope someone tries to do it!

John E

Ah -- the old story of unintended consequences of governmental actions. "Be careful what you wish for ... you may get it."

LittleBigMan

Allister, I believe I have those statistics memorized:

For every hundred million hours we spend doing each of the following activities, fatalities are:

Motorcycling: 8,800
Driving: 47
Cycling: 26
Commercial
Airling Flying: 15

The only reason cycling is about as dangerous as driving is that we spend almost twice as long to go from A to B on a bike.

john999

Here are some more reliable statistics :

www.

Roughly, it shows that there is a serious bike accident for every 16 serious car accidents (passengers and drivers).

I don't think you see anywhere like one bike for every 16 cars on the road, but nevertheless the figures are pretty inconclusive.

But what do shock jocks care about facts ?

The reality is that bicycles are seen as dangerous, and politicians don't want to be seen as encouraging something that is seen as dangerous, particularly to children.

[Compulsory helmets came in in 1991, btw]

john999

That links works btw, even though it doesn't show.

John E

'999 raises the valid point that, in the setting of public policy, perception is more important than reality.

We urgently need to challenge that 1:16 ratio, because it includes all cyclists and all motorists, including the irresponsible and the incompetent. Because a motor vehicle provides a modicum of protection, both clueless cycling and clueless motoring injure and kill cyclists disproportionately.

I hate to keep repeating my mantra, but the one thing I fear on the road, in any mode of travel, is bad drivers.

Felix C

By and large, bicycles are not dangerous. But there is an overwhelming, uninformed public opinion that they are. I was speaking with the mother of a woman at a dinner and she was glad her daughter had given up cycling because she felt it was dangerous. I was floored that she could even say such a thing.

What is killing Americans and many other people of industrialized nations is inactivity, not activity. Obesity is on the rise and I have seen an abstract from the Ameican Journal of Clinical Nutrition that asks whether there is enough emphasis placed upon fitness. There isn't if you ask me.

Several things astound me about the prevailing attitudes. One is the use of elevators to go between a single floor. I pass people waiting at elevators while I'm on my way to stairs and see them again after I've walked up or down to that same floor. They have saved no time and yet their body is falling into disuse slowly through a bad attitude. I see the same thing with regard to the use of buses. People will wait 10 minutes for a bus to take them just a few blocks...that is the epitome of LAZY.

Our culture has a serious inhibition against physical labor, if it can be avoided, it should be avoided. The underlying reason for this is the idea that it is better to have a desk job than to work with your hands and this brings on a whole other can of worms with regard to workplace injuries; back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive type injuries. If you want to make cycling more popular, our society has to stop looking at cyclists as inferior.

I get this all the time. I go to grad school at a major western university and there has been this big push lately to get people to stop using discriminatory language against "people of color" , gays, handicapped and what-have-you. But when it comes to cyclists just about anything goes...we are considered 2nd class citizens.

There are a few other things our culture does that slow us down. The idea that people sweat because they are nervous. Do you ever notice how many anti-perpirants there are out there? Why? Because people percieve sweating as something low class or nervous people do..it's not socially acceptable. So I get to class on a fine spring day and I am sweating a bit, people don't see a fit person staying fit, they see someone who is nervous. The other thing is that people perceive breathing hard as a sign of emotional instability, if you are breathing hard it's because you are upset.

Legislation may help, but until people see cycling and other forms of activity (outside health clubs) as intrinsically healthy, we will be in the same boat we always have been.

Final point, we have around 40,000 deaths directly from cars in this country. If any other object did this it would be unacceptable. Cycling falls far short of this. However, there are some pratices that make cycling more dangerous. One of these is the practice of riding against traffic. This leads to about half the fatalities we have from cycling and it's the one thing parents tell their children. This is one area I believe we can make a difference in.

Spire

Felix,
you say 40 000 deaths, but you must also include all the indirect ones, pollutants from the cars, particulates, etc... Also, the car plays a reasonable part in global warming and the changing weather patterns, therefore I maintain that a certain number of deaths associated with them should also. I wonder how high that death number would climb if we added all those in too?

Chris L

Exactly right. I will add a couple of points here:

1. I cycle over 15,000km per annum. Maybe those who go on with the "cycling is dangerous" crap can tell me why I'm still alive if that is the case.

2. Even if inactivity doesn't kill me, when I think of the consequences of it (having a tired old body that won't do what I want it to do by the time I'm 40), I think I'd rather die in any case.

This does not make cycling dangerous, however, it only says that failing to abide by the road rules is dangerous. I wonder how many people would die from driving against the flow of traffic. I guess I'll find out next summer.

LittleBigMan

How can these statistics be, "more reliable," when they address
hopitalizations, but not fatalities?

John, you should pay closer attention to the details.

In that respect, I confess I misquoted the motorbike figures:

Motorcycling: 880 deaths per hundred million hours of activity.

Here is the source of my original data:

www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm

john999

If you go back to index on that link you will find fatality statistics - 32 deaths for bicycle 1500 for cars.

But that is not very relevant ; people are just as concerned about serious injuries when it comes to bike safety.

The Failure Analysis Associates predictions were prepared for the insurance industry - we now know that these figures are unreliable, as the insurance industry has been losing money for years and many (including the largest, Lloyd's of London) have been bankrupted.
This is why there is now a 'national crisis' in insurance in Australia, with many sporting clubs and businesses either being refused insurance cover or being hit with increases in premiums of 200-700 %.

Strangely, no one has pointed out the more serious danger of walking !

ViciousCycle

In Illinois, the Illinois Department of Transportation often ends up subverting attempts by local government to make communities more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. I was recently at a citizen's meeting where local officials were seeking citizen's input on how to improve Roosevelt Road in Oak Park and Berwyn. A lot of people there expressed the desire to have more pedestrian crossings, sidewalk improvements, bicycle accomodations, etc. And the officials told us that Roosevelt Road is technically a state road, so the local communities can't add a pedestrian crossing or a stoplight or even sidewalk improvements on their own; IDOT controls anything that happens to the road design. And unfortunately IDOT cares only about cars, not people.

Politically, IDOT is tricky. They don't want public input, and they're not elected, so you can't make an effort to vote them out of office. A state official proposed a bill that would make IDOT more accountable, but the bill wasn't even close to having sufficient support.

Chris L

Actually, the reason for the increase in insurance premiums in this country is the fact that anybody who so much as sneezes in this country now wants to sue somebody over it. It's getting ridiculous. Australia now has a higher number of lawsuits per 1000 people than the US. Something I never thought I'd see happen.

Allister

So why the heck were they even bothering to hold this meeting?

Does anyone else think that IDOT only needs another well placed 'i' to read more true?

ViciousCycle

Oak Park and Berwyn wanted to revitalize the business district along the road in question without actually doing anything about the road itself. Maybe they were surprised at how much the citizens wanted to make changes to the road itself. The businesses along the stretch in question are best served by foot traffic, not car traffic, and so they will find difficulty making real improvements.