Originally Posted by
jowilson
Nope.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811743.pdf
On page two, data is given for the location of cyclists deaths. In 2011, 59% of pedalcyclists deaths occured at a non-intersection location, 31% of deaths occured at an intersection, and the other 10% occured at other locations.
Although I'm not quite sure how this is possible, as most near-crashes for me have occured inside or at least 20 feet outside of intersections, but numbers don't lie.
Another interesting statistic, pedalcyclists accounted for just 1.9% of all traffic related fatalities, and pedestrians accounted for 13% of traffic related fatalites. Simple math shows that the other 85.1% is made up of motorists. Alors, a mon avi, cyclisme est plus sauf de conduite. (So, in my opinion, cycling is more safe than driving)
Why "nope?" 31% is a large portion of the accidents, but not enough to balance the 6.2 times greater danger if you eliminated them. Just as I said.
FWIW, the numbers I've seen elsewhere were closer to 40-50% involving intersections, particularly at non-rural locations. Rural locations involve other factors, and logically efforts to reduce danger at intersections would apply only to those who deal with numerous intersections (for example non-rural commuters).
Regarding the reasoning in the final paragraph, it doesn't follow from looking at only the total numbers of fatalities. You have to normalize to some factor, miles driven or hours on the road or some other quantity. The most generous calculation I've found anywhere was that cycling was about 2 times more dangerous than driving for most cyclists. That's not particularly bad odds though in my opinion.