Lies, Damn lies, and statistics.

From:

Activity # Fatalities per 1,000,000
exposure hours
------------------------------------------------
Skydiving 128.71
General Aviation 15.58
On-road Motorcycling 8.80
Scuba Diving 1.98
Living (all causes of death) 1.53
Swimming 1.07
Snowmobiling .88
Passenger cars .47
Water skiing .28
Bicycling .26
Flying (scheduled domestic airlines) .15
Hunting .08
Cosmic Radiation from
transcontinental flights .035
Home Living (active) .027
Traveling in a School Bus .022
Passenger Car Post-collision fire .017
Home Living, active & passive (sleeping) .014
Residential Fire .003

I've always liked the above chart and based on average speeds it seems to support the previous mile for mile stat. From the same site I find it statistically significant that in a typical year over 90% of cycling deaths involve collisions with motor vehicles. From the previous posts I will assume that 100% of driving deaths involve at least one motor vehicle and at least some if not virtually all deaths of pedestrians also involve motor vehicles. Since cars have at least a 3 to 1 kill ratio. It seems to me that the solution is less cars not more.

As for cost, anecdotally, for the average cost of a auto mechanic's invoice I could buy at least a new single speed / Fixie. On a bad day a 105 to Ultegra race bike. The bike I commute on cost me $1,400. I think it is far safer and vastly more reliable than all cars in a similar price range.

The average American spends $6,000 on auto expenses. The median household income in 2007 is $50,740. If everyone rode we could afford to take an extra six weeks of holiday a year. The idea almost sells itself but unfortunately mostly everyone employed in an auto sector would get 52 weeks of holidays per year (unemployed) to spend camping (homeless).

I'm sure approximately 150 million North Americans agree with the original post. How could they be wrong?