Originally Posted by
wphamilton
I agree with just about all of Stromberg's points, but I take issue with his leading claim "Walking and driving are just as dangerous as biking" and the big graphic to support it. Injuries and deaths per million hours traveled. It's useful information to know, but misleading because it doesn't fully support his claim. Comparing transportation choices (as opposed to recreation), we have a destination in mind - a certain distance. Since we ride slower than we drive, there are more hours and consequently more risk. 3-5 times the risk while cycling (depending on who you read), on a per-mile basis.
???
People likely make transportation choices based more on how much time they have to spend to devote transportation.
That is, with a "destination in mind", you'd choose to drive if the distance was long and ride if the distance was close.
Comparing risk on a per-mile doesn't make sense. While it's not perfect, comparing risk per hour makes more sense since it roughly accounts for the selection of mode based distance/time issue.
2.5 miles/h walking
12 miles/h riding (probably high)
50 miles/h driving
600 miles/h flying
I suspect that most people who would have to spend 1+ hours riding would choose to drive instead.
The graph that compares cycling and pedestrian deaths as "Deaths per 100 million KL of travel" is problematic.
His conclusion that "but again shows that your odds of being killed on a bike or on foot are very similar." can't be right unless the speeds doing either was the same
and the time spend doing both was the same.
Originally Posted by
wphamilton
Another, a little thing, but the Walker study he cited while speculating that wearing a helmet might make accidents more likely. The Walker study has been criticized for several reasons and should probably not have been included, and frankly no study has shown that riskier behavior resulted from wearing a helmet.
The average distance was
3 inches closer for passes that averaged 1.5 meters. It isn't clear that 3 inches matters at all with respect to real risk.