Revolution Smmr

Hi, I'm trying to find some statistics on which US city has the most cycling fatalities (both total and per-capita). I can't find any numbers from the last year on google, only from the late 90's and early 00's. Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction? Thanks.

noisebeam

Per miles cycled? Per number of cyclists?

I don't have any current data, but this provides some discussion./thought on how to interpret rates:
https://www.mcdot.maricopa.gov/bicycl...IPfatality.pdf

Al

Revolution Smmr

cool, I'm mainly looking for which city has the most cycling deaths each year... period. A per-capita number would just be nice for comparison's sake.

zeytoun

New Haven CT

Treespeed

I don't know about cities, but Florida has the worst per capita cycling deaths, where raw numbers is I believe California. But Cali has something like ten times the population of Florida.

Helmet Head

If I had to guess in pure numbers, it would probably be New York City.
But in terms of per capita, I'm guessing New York City, Philly, Chicago or Portland, OR.

EDIT: What I meant to guess was: Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Miami-Hialeah, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood-Pompano Beach and Orlando.

Seriously, Phoenix and all those Florida places? Wow!

noisebeam

Would you change your guess if you had 1995-1998 actuals?
https://www.ewg.org/reports/bikes/congress.html

"Among large metropolitan areas, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida had the highest per capita bicyclist fatality rate -- 9.3 bicyclists per million. Other large metropolitan areas with bicycle fatality rates more than twice the national average included Miami-Hialeah (7.7), Phoenix (7.7), Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood-Pompano Beach (7.7) and Orlando (7.1)."

Al

noisebeam

Current data by county can be found here.
https://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...B%20REPORT.HTM

However it is not easily pulled/organized/sorted by pedalcyclist, for example here is the county rate for AZ:
https://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm....htm#CTY_MAPS9

Al

randya

You're a freaking idjit, anything to advance your personal crusade against bike facilities in general and Portland in particular; and although I see your own personal biases and inferiority phobia extends to major northeastern metropolitan areas, I see you also left Boston off your list. But anybody that knows anything about this subject would have immediately put Florida at the top of the list.

crtreedude 

It makes sense that Florida would be high. One factor is probably the number of hours that people can ride. I am sure a place like Michigan is really low - perhaps snow on the road for most of the year. The other factor is all the people who live in Florida who shouldn't be driving.

oilfreeandhappy

Interesting - Florida and California. Another response had a link that verified Florida a few years back. My first thought is that it would be an area with more inclement weather. However it's probably the fact that more people cycle throughout the year, that increases these numbers.

randya

bad drivers in big cars is what makes Florida so dangerous. Who actually wants to cycle in 90 degree 90% humidity weather? I'm pretty sure more people cycle year-round in the Pacific Northwest than in Florida.

What

They'll give anyone a license here, for $20. And it shows.

As far as "Who actually wants to cycle in 90 degree 90% humidity weather?" well, sometimes you just suck it up and ride.

Riding around Miami is actually a lot of fun.

joejack951

Southern Florida has a huge immigrant population and some very dense, flat cities, many of which are beach towns with weather that, most of the time, worst case will only leave you sweating (as opposed to frozen). My guess would be that the majority of cycling deaths happen there as opposed to the more spread out areas of western Florida.

sgtsmile

heh, I can see why you might think that. However, over the river from michigan (or across the lake, depending on your route) our climate is similar in southern ontario. We get snow for about 3 months a year and in many spots in the south of the province, it does not make cycling all that hard (lake effect snow belt areas aside).

Cheers.

Pat

Not hardly. California's estimated 2006 population was 36,457,000 while Florida's was 18,089,000. That makes Florida's population 49.6% of California's.

Artkansas 

I was an adolescent in St. Pete. The driver's there made me a very safe cyclist. I had to be very aware at all times because the drivers weren't. Tampa was better.

wheel

Good thing I live in Tempe :-

I tend to think it has to do with sidewalk riding as one effect.

Very rural for cycling if you get past the sprawl. You can find Forest roads all over.

Weather

noisebeam

Phx-metro cyclist-motorist collision stats 2001-2005:
-75% during daylight. Highest incidence 3-6pm workdays.
-Majority in marked and unmarked x-walks
-Majority involved side impact (primarily left) of cyclist
->50% not wearing helmets
-Majority listed as cyclist at fault
-28% of cyclists under 18yrs

Al

drmarthacastro

I got this interesting data:

Texas leads cycling deaths. Texas ranks 14th in number of cyclist fatalities per capita. (5)

Four states lead cycling deaths. Four states (California, Florida, New York, and Texas) accounted for 43% of bicycle deaths in 1999. (6)

randya

I believe that these are the four most populous states as well. Some further checking would probably also lead to the conclusion that these same four states lead the nation in motorist fatalities as well.

kemmer

I wouldn't be surprised if the states with the highest cycling deaths also have the highest auto deaths regardless of population. A dangerous place to drive is generally a dangerous place to ride after all.

shortbus901

Wow, I was going to jokingly say Tampa, FL. I can't say I'm surprised though, it's terrifying to ride on the road around here. Even walking isn't safe, I had a friend killed by a hit & run driver a few months ago, they still haven't found the POS that hit her.

Trevor98

I think you might have a problem finding reliable data on the subject.

First off, your basic question is ill defined. What exactly is a "cycling death?" Does anyone dying while cycling count regardless of the cause of death (freak aneurysm, lighting strike, old age, etc) or are we limiting the definition to only those deaths caused by participation in cycling (i.e. crashes, over exertion problems, etc).

Secondly, compiling death statistics is becoming more problematic as the causes of death become ever more specific (and often less useful). Not that many years ago old age was a cause of death but now the same death would be listed as pneumonia or whatever killed them first. Some localities list secondary or underlying reasons for the death but many do not and I'm not sure that cycling would ever be listed as a cause of death. Cycling itself doesn't really kill that many people . This is readily shown through the causes of death in a car accident that kills a cyclist. The death certificate would list the specific cause of death (blunt force trauma, heart failure, or what ever finally did them in) and may list vehicular accident in addition. Cycling would likely not be listed at all. A search of such records listing would not really reveal that cycling was involved at all. Compiling cycling deaths from such reports would be pretty worthless as it is for many death statistics (Auto accidents are not listed as a cause of death either).

To counter this problem most cause of death statistics are compiled from ancillary data (e.g. police reports) because they are far more informative about what the victim was doing at the time of death and what general activity caused the death (such as falling off a cliff- also not a official cause of death). These reports will give insight to more serious accidents that involve the police but will utterly fail to account for other types of cycling deaths.

I think that this bit of trivia is beyond the capacities of the current system.

gsk3

What you say is partially correct but wrong in critical places. The U.S. death certificate has blanks for multiple causes, and they are used with great regularity. Then there is an underlying cause of death as well. There is certainly a code for bicycle accident during transit: https://www.who.int/classifications/a...d/icd10online/
Look up V10

So, for instance, a cyclist who dies in a collision with a car would have that listed as the underlying cause of death, and perhaps a crushed chest and renal failure in the MCD section.

Ari