Originally Posted by chipcom
Just a little more food for thought...the number of fatalities have been decreasing, while the number of facilities have been increasing - many like to equate the reduction to helmets, but there really is no data to support that claim since supposedly the majority of fatalities are helmetless.
I'd love to see some data that breaks down the number of fatalities of cyclists using the road vs. using facilities, even though we pretty much know that the majority are on the road and consist of those who are not following the rules of the road. While this supports the notion the vc is safer when using the road, it does not support the notion that facilities are more dangerous than the road.
Ironically, when searching for the statistics in my above post I found
this study done by William Moritz in 1998 showing that streets with "bike lanes" (not mups or sidewalks) were safer than riding in the road and that was from polling League of American Bicyclist members!
Of course Forester attacks Moritz methods on his site
here.