Links to data
 

I hope this is the right place to post this thread.

I am basically a commuter. Have been commuting roughly 50% of the time by bike for about 3 years now.
What I am interested in is statistical data and places where I can educate myself on A&S issues. Not necessarily individual stories, but items like comparing the costs of car ownership/opertion to cycling. Saftey data such as deaths per mile cycled versus death per mile driven.

Ultimately, I'd like to be educated enough to write useful, data backed, pamplets or booklets for use by local advocacy organizations.

Can you guys/gals point me to some decent sources?

Thanks in advance.

Try a Google search, or a Yahoo search.

Use keywords , or a combination of keywords, like:

Bicycle
car
collision
roadway
automobile
accident
fatality

Search engines can be a powerful tool for research like you are trying to do.

I know how search engines work because I wrote a search engine program for my computer programming class in 1982. The program I wrote was the shortest, and therefore the fastest, that anyone had seen , at 1.27k of memory. I gave it away as "shareware".

Try this site:

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

I did a Google search for the two keywords, bicycle and automobile.

Ed Holland started a post here with some good links:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=277739

Thanks.

I was hoping for some references to government statistics and such. I know there's a lot of good information on the internet, but there's also a lot of bunk. I don't know if I know enough to tell the difference yet.

If you're in the US, search for the DOT Department of Transportation. Once you find a DOT site, search within the site. Good luck because it can be daunting to find stuff on the DOT web site. You end up finding a lot of PDFs, which you have to individually download and search through.

How to Tell the Liars from the Statisticians (Popular Statistics)
http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Liars-Sta.../dp/0824718178

The best is How to lie with statistics. Lots of cartoons and simple stories.

-G

EDIT: Following ILTB, here is the Amazon link ...

http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statis.../dp/0393310728

I try and collect information like this on the BaltimoreSpokes.org web site, if you search around you might find other articles of interest.

Cost of a car:
http://www.baltimorespokes.org/artic...60923200957794
http://www.baltimorespokes.org/artic...50831202702667

Bike Safety:
http://www.baltimorespokes.org/links...+%26+Education
(Links to Ken Kifer’s site are especially good.)

I also have this info:
Crashes/million miles (C1)
|.......Miles/year (C2)
|.......|...........Miles between crashes (C3)
|.......|..........|.........Cyclists Population (C4)
720.....580.....1389....Elementary school students
510.....600.....1961....Collage associated adults
340.....814.....2941....Commuters
113.....2400....8850....Bike Club members (1975)
103.....2758....9683....Bike Club members (1996)

(Which came from this now invalid link: )
http://www.massbike.org/info1/stats.htm#experience

I would also like to point out that there is evidence out that as the number of cyclists increase the bike crash states can go down or remain static. Most refer to this as safety in numbers but it also questions the notion that bike crashes are directly related exposure (miles driven.)