Originally Posted by
closetbiker
Don't guess.
Why not? FARS guesses. Yes, they make educated guesses, but still ... it's a guess.
Deaths are accurately counted. "Number of exposure hours" are not -- and it's not clear that's the appropriate metric anyways, as my bike ride to work takes two to three times as long as my car ride to work.
FARS is a reliable and trusted agency that provides accurate information.
They peg driving at .47 deaths per million exposure hours, cycling with a .26 deaths per million exposure hours, and motorcycling at 8.8 deaths per million exposure hours.
Yes, but their "exposure hours" (and miles), especially for cyclists, is a guess. For cars they can look at the total amount of gasoline bought and extrapolate from that, but for bikes -- they have to ask people, and most people don't keep track of that.
Injuries are also poorly counted. Serious injuries send people to the emergency room where it might be counted (if they bother), but the smaller ones are not counted. This disparity in statistics leads to "deaths" being the only metric that safety is often judged by, where injuries are important too. (Of course, this is really neither here nor there, though I do think [yes, a guess] that cyclists get injured significantly more than motorists, especially when we consider injuries that don't send you to the emergency room.)
This of course takes into no account of the increase in lifespan a cyclist can expect from the regular exercise cycling demands. Taking this, and the deaths to cyclists into account, people who ride bikes live on average longer than those who do not use a bicycle for transportation.
I also imagine that people who drive live longer than those who can't afford cars -- but not because of the driving, but because of better health care and higher income leading to taking better care of one's self. A driver who exercises regularly should statistically live longer than a cyclist ...
But we've drifted far from my point. My point was to point out the massive flaw in the reasoning that came up with the idea that "if this [A bicycle is an inherently more dangerous vehicle] were true, there would be 40,000 cyclists per year killed on US roads rather than 40,000 motorists" -- it totally ignored the point that's there's more drivers than cyclists.
A bicycle is beneficial. Cyclists, on average, live longer than regular folk. If more people ride them, we'll be safer, we'll be healthier, and the air that we all breath will be cleaner.
Yes, but I do believe that for a given trip (i.e. same number of miles), you're more likely to suffer fatal injuries during this trip if you ride than if you drive. And the statistics you pulled up (flawed as they are, they're the best available) agree (though you gave the stats on hours rather than miles, as people often do when trying to show how safe bicycling is.)
... and don't forget, if all the people who drive cars, rode bikes instead, those 40,000 deaths would virtually vanish.
Quite likely. But I'm really talking about an individual deciding if he should bike or if he should ride, and if he decides to drive today, the odds of him arriving at work uninjured are higher than if he rode. Not greatly higher, but higher.
Not that it would ever happen. People are just too in love with that contraption that kills.
That "contraption that kills" also gets people to their destination quickly and comfortably, allows them to take several friends with them (or not), can carry cargo, keeps them entertained, and if an accident does happen -- it is extremely effective at protecting it's occupants. Calling it a "contraption that kills" shows how out of touch you are with most people who use one. As for it never happening, the price of gas certainly could make that happen if it went high enough.
And really, the only reason it kills so often is the speed. If cars were limited to bicycle speeds, deaths and injuries would go way down, perhaps by an order or two of magnitude? And if you sped bicycles up to cars speeds, well, they'd be motorcycles with a death rate increased by an order of magnitude.