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Old 08-11-17, 02:11 PM
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wphamilton
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Location: Alpharetta, GA
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I can't say how safe you are, on your roads, but in the general sense ...

45,000 traffic related bicyclist injuries in 2015 per NHTSA
6.2 billion miles ridden (low estimate, the high is around 21 billion)

Which comes to one traffic injury for every 138,000 miles ridden. That doesn't seem all that dangerous.

But behind the curtain on those numbers, that's only what the police note on the accident reports. If the police didn't bother, or there wasn't a report, it's not included in that number so we know that there have to be more that 45,000 injuries.

I look at a different number, the estimated number of all ER visits that are bike related. That will include crashes on sidewalks, mountain biking, kids playing chicken, etc, so it's an upper bound.

485,000 ER visits bike-related.

So that would be one ER visit per 13,000 miles ridden.

The best thing we can do, more than concerning ourselves with equipment is actively protecting ourselves. Awareness, experience, avoiding the riskiest situations and behaviors.
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