Advocacy & Safety - riding with pedestrians vs. riding with cars

i know i've read somewhere that there's a statistically higher rate of injury when riding amongst pedestrians than when riding amongst cars. i'd like to cite whatever study concluded that in an article i'm writing, but i can't find it! does anyone have a link for me?

Not sure where the actual stats are, but you are likely to find that riding with peds means riding on the sidewalks or MUPs, and that the injuries are minor and most likely the domain of the younger riders.

Where as injuries incurred while riding amongst cars tends to be more serious.

I doubt you will find many deaths occurring while riding amongst peds... that is NOT the case when riding with cars.

I don't know where the study is either, but the biggest problem with riding where pedestrians normally are, as in sidewalks, is that in the transition zones where sidewalks cross roads (intersections) you are an unexpected hazard; something in the pedestrian zone moving way faster than a pedestrian moves. That's were most serious accidents occur.

On the sidewalks, well, anyone who's paid attention to people on sidewalks can easily see where the hazards are. People on foot turn without warning, stop, start, step out of doorways without looking, etc.

Fatality rate is higher around cars.

How about my area, where there are people walking along the streets, instead of on the perfectly good sidewalks. It's a problem for the bikes, and the cars as well. I had to slow down and wait to pass (oncoming car traffic was present) a couple of them yesterday (walking side by side - right and left tire track) on my bike. My bell only got me a dirty glance over the shoulder with no change. I almost hit one of them last Fall, after dark. He was in the right tire track on my side-street, wearing all black, or dark blue of course.

The numbers most commonly cited come from John Forester's Effective Cycling book... to the effect that cyclists are 2.6 times more likely to suffer a crash on a bike or multi-use path than they are riding in a traffic lane. Forester, in turn, based his citations principally on statistics compiled by Cross & Fisher in the late 1970s.

Cyclists tend to have more crashes overall on bike trails and paths... typically because pedestrians do not operate with traffic rules other than a general admonition not to jaywalk. As noted, we tend to have more fatalities in car bike collisions, for obvious reasons.