spandexwarrior

Okay, I stumbled upon this article which states that accident rates decrease in cities that have more cyclists. The author says that he believes an increase in the number of cyclists is what cycling advocates should be shooting for if they want to improve things. I think it is a good idea- but when you think about what it would actually take to convert a noncyclist to cycling, the idea starts to lose its magic. So what do you people think? The article also mentions the Killed by Automobile study of New York cycling accidents. He emphasizes the point that cyclist killers are disproportionately male. Infact, only 2 percent of fatalities involved female drivers. This, according to author, indicates deliberate aggression as being the cause, moreso than driver error. https://www.cars-suck.org/littera-scripta/LAB-talk.html

MichaelW

If you break down the cycling casualty stats into different groups it becomes apparent that the most dangerous group to belong to is teenage male. This is hardly surprising and is replicated in almost every other type of activity from crossing the road to climbing trees. Children under 10 also feature heavily in cycling casualties. One of the safest groups is older experienced regular rider with cycling club memebership.

I-Like-To-Bike

I have never seen the cycling casualty stats that isolated the relationship of cycling club membership to cycling casualties. Please expound or provide a source (and PUHLEEZE - no John Forester horse poop.)

CommuterRun

I don't think it's arguable that more cyclists would make cycling less safe. Just the increase in numbers would increase visibility, thereby increasing awareness on the part of both motorists and cyclists. Which would lead to cycling being more safe.

DigitalQuirk

I don't think the answer is more cyclists, but rather more consistency among cyclists. If cars were made like bikes, we'd have some with fenders, some without, some with just headlights, many with no lights, a few with seatbelts, and we'd have chaos on the roads. Cyclists need to organize, determine what things should be mandatory for a street-worthy bicycle (including the possibility of needing a reflective vest worn by the rider), have it passed into law and make sure it's enforced...for the sakes of their own survival. It would also legitimize cycling as a method of transport, and then you're likely to see more converts.

Bekologist

I would think on a general note, that more cyclists in a given area would make cycling a more visible and 'normal' road activity to the windshield geezers.

I-Like-To-Bike

I think this proposal belongs in the same bin with the mandatory education-licensing proposals. Who the heck would benefit from such WTF schemes? Certainly not cyclists, except maybe the self proclaimed expert/"experienced" dogmatists and trainer wannabes.

ghettocruiser

You make this sound like a hypothetical scenario.

This pretty much describes the cars that I see on the road daily. It doesn't matter if cars are supposed to have features like daytime running lights when a third of them have blown bulbs and fuses, owners who (intentionally?)drive with the lights off, custom signals and brake lights of all colours of the LED-rainbow, and aftermarket unprofessionally-installed headlights aimed in random directions.

slagjumper

Perhaps there is a confounded variable. That is in cities with more bikes, there are fewer bike-car accidents not because there are more bikes, but:

there is more awareness
better safty programs
more governmental support for cycling
more repect for cyclists in those areas.
less cars
less traffic

Also gets into the question of ratio of cars to bicyclists.

I think that more cyclists will mean that more attention is paid to our needs. But like the "Watch Children" signs that appear after a nasty accident, I suspect some biker-blood will have to be spilled to get more attention and resources focused on the issues.

Brian Ratliff

I think there are a few factors other than simple numbers which result in more cyclists. The author of the article takes some liberties with cause and effect. The effect is that more cyclists are on the street. The cause is that the streets are more conductive towards cyclists.

There is, however, the issue of driver familiarity. Beyond a certain point, cyclists start becoming the rule instead of the exception on the road, and drivers have to learn to deal with them. Right now, our numbers are small and short of this tipping point.

So in conclusion, I think the author's argument is wrongly based on the misuse of a statistical figure. However, his conclusion is correct, that increasing the efforts to put more cyclists on the streets will have the effect of making cycling much safer. To me, this means making cycling safe, both in actuality and in perception, low cost, efficient, hassle free, and convenient.

This means supporting efforts which make any of the following contributions:

1) awareness
2) consumer advocacy for better equipped and cheaper bicycles
3) traffic engineering to support cyclist integration
4) legal efforts to streamline and clarify traffic laws as they pertain to cyclists
5) decreasing speed and numbers of cars
6) getting more cyclists out on the streets
7) moterist and cyclist education

These efforts don't necessarily have to be all done by the same group, and not everyone has to necessarily be pointed in the same direction. Just the fact that there are combined efforts will shake out solutions to the problem of cycling safety and numbers. As long as things are moving, we are okay.

closetbiker

The more cyclists are on the road, the more "normal" it will be and the more respect cyclists will get as legitimate users of the road.

One question can be, are bike lanes attracting more people to ride their bikes on the roads? I asked a local traffic co-ordinator if our lanes in my city has increased cycling on those routes, and she said, she didn't know, they didn't do any counts in the areas before the lanes were "installed" (painted) or after they were installed. If they do attract more cyclists, maybe they're worthwhile in the long run despite their drawbacks.

There was a thread a while back entitled, Aggressive Driving is Emotionally Impaired Driving (https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-safety/145333-aggressive-driving-emotionally-impaired-driving.html) that linked a study about individual traits being related to traffic collisions. I have always thought a good amount of the "difficult" drivers, were "difficult" people.

webist

I think the author was merely arguing in support of CM type activities.

I don't have citations as to source, but the authors claim that most cycling fatalities are caused by aggressive passing by motorists seems to fly in the face of the oft repeated stat that suggests the rear end collision is rare.

I-Like-To-Bike

Oft repeating a single stat, gives the "stat" no added credibility or significance in the absence of any careful/honest analysis. Especially when the single "stat" is deliberatly used to mislead gullible acolytes about analyzing and managing risk.

royalflash

Ken Kifer´s page on safety stats had some info about this:

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

closetbiker

Yeah, I thought that too.

Here's a verifiable source that seems more in touch with everything that I've read on the topic

https://www.bikesense.bc.ca/appendices.htm#common

Most collisions happened at intersections, where there were no traffic controls, and in residential areas.

* 63% of the collisions occurred at the intersection of a street with another street, alley or driveway, while 31% happened between intersections.

I'd also add that I've read the majority of collisions that occur between intersections are at driveways (which, it seems to me, to be a bit of a mini-intersection itself)

Roody

I vote for fewer cars.

webist

Neither does your protest give any credibility or significance to the opposing point, if indeed you are trying to argue that rear end collisions are common. But perhaps you are merely trying to academically impress the gullible acolytes. If that is the case, I regret that I didn't ignore your post.

Brian Ratliff

Collisions are one thing; fatalities are another. While come-from-behind accidents are relatively rare (in the city limits), they are almost always fatal. On rural roads where intersections are less common and passing cars travel faster and pass closer to the cyclist, the percentage of collisions from cars encroaching from the rear soars to 35% some odd percent (from John Forester, Effective Cycling). These are also almost always fatal.

I-Like-To-Bike

Ah, another logic master from the HH school of thought. As in, any dang assertion or stat is correct until someone else proves it wrong. The issue is risk and your dang single stat doesn't mean a dang thing without a careful analysis of related exposure severity and/or probability issues.

btw can you prove to me that the center of the moon is not made of green cheese or that there are not invisible pods overhead at this very moment waiting to land alien life forms on Washington DC

ghettocruiser

Not just out in the country, in the city too. This study may have been posted before:

https://www.toronto.ca/transportation...report_ch3.pdf

The short answer is that of 10 fatally injured cyclists in the study period, 4 were hit from behind by cars overtaking them. That 10 also includes all the accidents where the cyclist was partly or completely responsible.

Studies in your home town may vary.

closetbiker

Well that's a good point and something I hadn't considered.

I checked a report I have that was put out by the office of the Cheif Coroner of BC entitled, "Deaths of Cyclists in British Columbia". In the back are case study reports of all 64 deaths of cyclists in a 7 year period.

Out of the 64 deaths, only 9 were cyclists hit from behind. 30 were deaths in intersections. (incidentally, 62 deaths involved motor vehicles, 1 involved a train and only 1 was a simple fall, 45 of those deaths were easily preventable and in 15 deaths, alcohol was involved by either the motorist or the cyclist or both) so it seems that the earlier post I made about collisions is still in the same ballpark as deaths.

oilfreeandhappy

Good point. I would also add that cities with more bicycles tend to have dedicated bike lanes. To me, this is the key to safety. I think it's safer to drive a car than ride a bike, if there is no dedicated bike lane. I think the reverse is also true.

Brian Ratliff

ghettocruiser: Interesting study. When accident types are broken down, this type is in the top three (~11%), and survivability seems to be an "either-or" affair, having more minor injuries than other type accidents, but also having more fatalities than other types of collisions.

closetbiker: The BC report tracks well with the Toronto report, indicating that "from behind" accidents are roughly 15% of all accidents. Do you have a link to it? And what was the fatality rate associated with those 9 cyclists hit from behind?

For sure, there are many more things which can go wrong at intersections; but then, there are also more things which the cyclist can do to control his or her fate. The come-from-behind is different; it has a decent representation in accident rates, and there is very little a cyclist can do about it.

In rural areas with few intersections, it makes sense, then, that overtaking collisions are more common; and with the higher speeds of cars, it creates more fatalities.

In any case, a 10-15% showing for overtaking collisions certainly puts this type of collision on my radar screen.

Brian Ratliff

The inability for the cyclist to have much control over overtaking type accidents also speaks to the need to relieve the cyclist of this threat through external means. Getting more cyclists on the street can help do this by allowing drivers to become more familiar with the actions needed to safely pass a cyclist. If drivers pass cyclists all the time, it stands to reason that they would become more accomplished at it.

TrevorInSoCal

For a good example of this go to Europe, if you haven't been.

I recently returned from a snowboarding vacation in Austria, and they definitely do the bike thing right there. Dead of winter and bikes and riders were still *everywhere*, there must be insane amounts of riders in the summer (I've only been to Europe a couple of times, both times it was winter, both times I still saw plenty of bikes.)

I saw mostly what we would call "beater" bikes, commuters w/ full fenders, platform pedals, racks, baskets, and riders in every-day street clothes. Most riding w/o helmets. Think the only rider I saw with a helmet was a messenger.

I've noticed one of the points brought up in seemingly neverending helmet debates is that requiring or "shaming" people into wearing helmets portrays cycling as a dangerous activity and actually discourages more people from taking up cycling. I can kinda see the point of that argument.

I witnessed more than one rider cruising down the narrow streets of Innsbruck with cars waiting patiently behind for an opportunity to pass. No "Get off the ****ing road!", no standing on the horn. Other than the freezing temperatures, and that whole ice/snow thing, it seemed like cycling paradise compared to the roads here.

Cycling for transportation over there seemed to be an everyday, matter-of-fact decision that was no big deal, whereas if you cycle for transportation in the states it must be because you're too poor to own a car, are an avid cyclist and are doing it for training, or you have some sort of political point to prove...

It would appear that we in N. America are eons behind the Europeans in terms of support/respect for cycling as a viable transportation alternative.

-Trevor