Originally Posted by
tjspiel
I don't know why anyone would find this that shocking. A great deal of money, research, and public education has gone into increasing the likelihood that people involved in a car crash will survive with minimal injuries.
What do cyclists get? A piece of styrofoam to wear on their heads.
I'm not complaining. We just need to understand we are riding on the streets using a vehicle that offers us no protection from collisions at all and we should act accordingly.
Except that there are 2 major considerations you didn't mention:
1. Cars are often travelling at 60-75mph, where as bikes and cars using the same streets are typically on streets where the speed limit is 25-40mph.
2. Cars always have to be on the streets, whereas bikes can be on separate bike-only bike trails. A biker going down at 20mph or hitting another bike head-on at that speed is bad, but 200lbs of biker + bike hitting something (perhaps another 200lbs of biker + bike) is very different than a 3,500 pound car hitting another 3,500 pound car.
If everyone is biking on streets with cars I could understand. I cannot believe that cars on streets have a worse fatality rate than bikes on bike paths. I would agree with what you're saying, theoretically, in car vs bike collisions.