Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
Don't think that works out that way since in most cases, cycling is not an alternative at all to most high speed driving trips, especially long distance (inter-city) travel. Almost no routine cycling is done for long distance trips. Bicycle club rides, tours and centuries are an insignificant, infinitesimal slice of miles traveled in the U.S.
I suspect that total cycling mileage is far, far less than 0.55% of total mileage traveled in U.S by vehicles. Especially when vehicle passengers are included in the calculations.
The source of dougmc's stat of 0.55% trips by bicyclists is unclear, I suspect it only relates to short distance commuting trips, and includes no long distance or intercity trips at all.
The average (as opposed to the median) car trip is only a couple of miles (say 2 <= x <= 10) and while I know of no statistic for bicycles I would be surprised if the average bicycle trip was all that different. Dougs 0.55% is consistent with household travel surveys I am familiar with, most recently the 2009 National Household travel survey.
My guess is based upon my belief that most car passenger deaths are caused by higher speed trips that occur on rides that are longer than the average. If that is the case and one only compared the death rate of cars making short slow trips (which is by definition what cycling trips are) then the death rate of cyclists are far higher than comparable driving. Which is somewhat logical since even a low frequency of collision would result in higher frequency of deaths for those without physical protection (steel, air bags, etc..).
And I will freely admit that this is unfounded supposition, since there is no concrete data to either prove or disprove the guess; however, I do believe the theory logically sound given what data we do have.