Originally Posted by Helmet Head
Gene, a) you're dodging again, b) you really don't get it. Which accident type is "more deadly" (defined as is more likely to kill you if it happens to you) is irrelevant to the question of which accident type is more likely to kill a given cyclist. You're ignoring the importance of the frequency factor.
Consider:
100 cyclists are killed per year.
10 cyclists are hit from behind in daylight, all 10 die.
800 cyclists are hit from "some other direction", 780 walk; 20 die.
2,000 involved in crashes that don't involve getting hit; 70 of those die.
What are the odds a given cyclist dies from...
crash that doesn't involve getting hit... .70
hit from other direction: .20
hit from behind: .10
So, in this example, even though getting hit from behind in daylight is very "deadly" (100%), and getting hit from some other direction is relatively safe (only 20/800, or 2.5%, die) a given cyclist is still TWICE as likely to die from getting hit from some other direction than from behind in daylight.
These numbers are obviously made up, like yours. They are meant to illustrate the irrelevance of your "deadly" factor in determining whether it is true that being hit from elsewhere is much more likely to kill you while you are cycling than is being hit from behind in daylight.
What you are doing is trying to rationalize why it feels like a cyclist is more likely to die from a hit from behind than from elsewhere. I understand. It doesn't feel intuitive. But logic is logic. Compared to the total number of cyclists killed, very, very few get killed from overtaking collisions in daylight (and even fewer when you cull out those where the cyclist swerved in front of the passing vehicle, say to avoid an opening door, or where the motorist drifted into a bike lane or shoulder hitting a cyclist who was not even in his path).
In short, as counter-intuitive as it seems, it is very safe to ride in the path of faster traffic!
My proof that "being hit from elsewhere is much more likely to kill you while you are cycling than is being hit from behind in daylight" remains unaddressed, much less refuted.
The problem with your math is that you are making the assumption that you can do the "batter's average" based on knowing how many accidents occur... you don't have that data. You cannot do a 20/800 calculation as you don't know that the 800 number exists. Nor do you know about the "2000" getting hurt... you only have the "70." The data is woefully missing.
With automotive statistics the insurance companies have a rough idea of the numbers of miles that autos travel in a year, but no such compilation exists for cyclists... either by ridership or by milage, and certainly not by accidents not reported.
Just as an aside and to illustrate my point, you disputed the number of riders on the 56 bike path... the group doing a study on that path did a survey and found an average of 35 riders per hour... who knew?
As I said earlier, go ahead and tell the OP to move more to the left... but the "data" you quoted has no relevance at all to the "why" of being able tell the rider to move... it just ain't there.