andrelam

I know my wife at times gets worried that I ride my bike a lot and that it is supposidly dangerous. I would postulate however that simply being on the road is dangerous and the majority of death and destruction is caused by vehicles. You hear all the time that you shoud not ride, but nobody tells you to avoid going on the roads. Better yet buy a big SUV because you will be even safer. Maybe we are not so far off from the roads described in Ray Bradbury's FAHRENHEIT 451. I hope not, but sometimes it does feel that way. These past two weeks have not been good around the Buffalo NY area.

This past weekend a 39 year old woman cyclist was killed in a drunk hit and run driver. Luckily a passenger in the car that did the hitting called the police to "blow in" the driver. They found the drunk driver and damaged car at the driver's home. I sure hope they thow the book at the driver. My view is driving drunk is an accident waiting to happen, therefore spare no mercy for the driver. They had a choice to get behind the wheel or not.

Many would state that this clearly proves that it is dangerous to ride a bicyle, but the roads are sadly danagerous to all motorists, and it is the drivers of motor vehicles that do most of the killing, or near killing.

During this same weekend an off duty police office was cut-off on his motorcycle by a 17 year old driver who was driver outside his allowed time restriction. The cop nearly bled to death due to a cut artery, but apparently will survive. His passenger was luckier and was thrown, but without serious injuries. The irony is that the cop was almost shot to death this spring in a bad shoot out that left his partner parralized for life. Again the driver caused an accident that was in this case almost fatal.

Two weeks ago in Rochester (75 miles way) an 17 year old driver also driving outside of her restricted time and with 4 passengers on boad, also a violation of her driving restications made a mistake that caused everyone to die. The young drivers passed a vehicle on a two lane road. She over-corrected when returning to her lane, causing the SUV to swerve into oncoming traffic. All 5 passengers were killed immediately. Clearly driving an SUV did not help these girls. Once the accident info is published it may actually show that the fact that they were driving an SUV may have made the swerving more pronounced and harder to recover from due to the high center of gravity, especially when compared to a sedan.

This is just a short list of the deadly events on our local roads. As a cyclists we need to be extra vigilant for all the inattentive and inexperienced drivers out there. Riding a bicycle certainly gives you less protection than a car, but being in a car certainly doesn't insulate you from other driver's mistakes. You can just as easily be killed while "minding your business" in your car as you can on your bicycle. Summer seems to bring with it lots more serious accidents. Be carefull out there and be vigilant. Enjoy your ride, but get there in one piece!

Happy riding,
André

closetbiker

from https://neptune.spacebears.com/opine/helmets.html

Nearly twice as likely to be killed by a horse, six times more likely to drown, 100 times more likely to die of pneumonia or the flu, than to be killed while riding a bicycle.

More than twice as likely to be seriously injured in a car, and four times as likely to be poisoned, than seriously injured on a bicycle.

On a per-mile basis, the odds of being killed while riding a bicycle are about the same as the odds of being killed or injured while out for a walk.

On a per-capita basis, the odds of being killed while riding a bicycle are nearly the same as the odds of being killed by a bolt of lightning

CommuterRun

I agree with the points you make in your post, but not the point you make with the title.

I look at it like this. Motor vehicles are inanimate objects. As such, they can neither be dangerous nor safe by themselves. It takes an operator to make that determination. This you covered in your post, and I agree.

Horses, on the other hand, as brought up by CB, being animate, can be dangerous. As can other animals including drivers and other cyclists.

sbhikes

Ooh ooh. I've been poisoned more often than I've been seriously injured on a bicycle.

CTAC

It does not show how this data was computed.

I've heard that about 1% trips in the US are done on bicycles. Killed bicyclists are about 1% of killed drivers. That tells me that bicycles must be as dangerous(safe) as cars.

kuan

Anyone watch the crashes on the tour today?

closetbiker

I think it does:

The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) records every traffic-related fatality in the country. Injury statistics, derived from the General Estimates System (GES), are considerably more vague because they use statistical sampling from incident reports. Because of this difference in reporting, discussions on the cause of accidents tend to revolve around the more reliable fatality data

we've selected three rates of injury and fatality:

...per 10,000 vehicles, ...per 1 million population, ...per 1 million miles travelled

We applied these three rates to pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, and cars. We derived all of our data from federal transportation research studies and crash statistics.

We took the helmet lobby's own numbers for per-capita deaths and injuries, and compared them to other per-capita deaths and injuries

Of course, it's up to each cyclist to determine how his exposure to risk -- and tolerance for risk -- matches up with the level of risk for the general population. Frankly, we started this search for data expecting the numbers to be much higher than they are. But it turns out we're talking about a few thousand injuries out of 3,000,000,000 miles cycled every year.

gcl8a

BIKE CAR
per 1 million population 2.5 12.9
per 1 million miles travelled 0.2 1.3

This doesn't add up. People, in general, do way more miles in a car than on a bike. Thus, the ratio of death rates in a car (between population and miles travelled) should be much, much larger than for bikes.

The numbers here say that people, on average, put as many miles on a bike as they do in cars.

closetbiker

I think you're making some assumptions that aren't true and that's why the numbers don't make sense to you.

Maybe fewer people drive than you think and maybe more people ride bikes than you think. Maybe if this doesn't make sense, you should look into it a little deeper

EnigManiac

According to StatsCan, the Federal statistics gathering agency in Canada, 80% of all traffic deaths and serious injuries are inflicted upon motorists. In a seperate section reserved as 'vulnerable users of the road,' pedestrians face the greatest risk of death and injury followed by motorcyclists, scooter operators and, lastly, cyclists.

My wife has resisted my attempts to get her to cycle, citing the danger of motor traffic. She was incredulous when I pointed out the facts above as they contradicted her preconceived notions and the unfounded myths about cycling she had always held.

John E

To me, the most fundamental question, for which I do not have an answer, is whether road bicycling for an experienced, defensive, careful, vehicular cyclist is less safe now than, say, 30 years ago. The death rate for motor vehicle occupants has declined, but this may be simply the result of improved active and passive restraint systems, door beams, controlled-crush unibodies, etc.

gcl8a

The only assumption I'm making is what the numbers mean. Look at it this way:

[(# deaths) / (million person-year)] / [(# deaths) / (million mile)] = X miles / (person-year)

The first two numbers are given on the web page you linked to (here is my big assumption: that the rate per person is really per person per year). Plugging in the numbers we get X ~ 10 for both cars and bikes. Do you really think that the average American only drives 10 miles per year in a car?

A quick perusal of several other websites, both government and those with an agenda, show that the numbers on the page you link are way wrong. Maybe if this doesn't make sense, oh nevermind...

Denny Koll

Your kidding yourself if you think riding a bike is safer than driving a car. We are all vunerable out there and one bad driver could take us out in an instant. Maybe you won't die ..maybe you'll be paralyzed or whatever.

The chances are still small enough that the reward justifies the risk for me. If you don't want to take the risk stay at home. But don't fool yourself.

genec

Thanks John... that is exactly what I want to know.

John Forester declared that the death rate for motorists has gone down and cited an internet site to prove his point... I then asked has the number of collisions gone down... and I brought up the fact that the active and passive restraint systems in today's vehicles, along with all the quieting, tend to make today's driver less aware of their speed and surroundings, and more likely to survive a minor collision.

I believe the vehicule collision rate has gone up, but people are surviving more. I think there are fewer cyclists actively on the roads, so the overall bicycle collision rate, even with an increase in general population, has remained steady.

Looking at statistics alone can make for some mighty interesting false claims.

BTW these are only my beliefs... I too would love to know the real answers.

genec

Yeah, no car involved in the big one.

closetbiker

I don't think many are fooling themselves. I think most collisions comes from poor riding choices and lack of observation, same as when driving in a car.

People get killed in cars every day and don't blink but have second thoughts about riding a bike in traffic.

In my province the ratio of collisions between cars and between cars and bikes of deaths are about the same (900 car/bike collisions = 5 deaths vs. 42,000 car/car collisions = 400 deaths) but in most of the collisions, there was some pretty fundamental things done wrong that led to the collision and was easily avoidable.

It's how you do something that matters more than what you do.

Denny Koll

True..but most of the poor choices and lack of observation comes from the car drivers, not the cyclist. Drunk drivers, cell phone drivers, speeders etc. and at least in my area...a general lack of respect for cyclists.

The Human Car

That s/b Do you really think that the average American only drives 10 miles per year in a 0.08 of a car? (Same logic to figure out how many cars.) Not everyone in the population owns or divers a car.

chephy

Same in a car. It happens. You're better protected in a car, but since you're going faster, you have less time to react.

genec

Reaction time doesn't matter to passive restraints like seat belts and shoulder belts, along with crumple protection and air bags.

Sorry, but these days in a collision in a modern vehicle, you are surrounded by a "crash coccoon." Bikes have nothing of the sort... You get hit at 25 or 30MPH on a bike and it is you and your skin that are protecting you.

Unfortunatly, that little "airbag" logo is staring at the driver the whole time... maybe they take more chances, maybe they don't... but either way, the odds that you are going to walk away from an auto collision are far greater today than ever before. Nothing has improved in the world of cycling for crash protection.

remsav

+1

"Last fall, a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) showed that safety improvements in the design of passenger vehicles -- not safer drivers -- are the reason motor vehicle death rates have been improving for the past decade. The study found an "increasingly dangerous traffic environment," and that drivers are actually getting more careless about seatbelts, speeding and driving while intoxicated. In fact, the study showed that if vehicle designs hadn't improved since 1985, traffic death rates would be on the rise."

closetbiker

don't fool yourself, cyclists make poor choices too, although more than the fair share of those poor choices fall into the hands of children and drunks on bikes.

Locally I wanted some information and was given 2 reports. One from the BC Coronors office https://www.helmets.org/bcstudy.htm where at the bottom you can read for yourself about those poor choices and one from a consulting firm for our provincial auto insurer who studied all collisions between cars and bikes for 3 years and over 6,000 collisions. I don't think that report is online but a booklet that uses much of that information is https://www.bikesense.bc.ca/ and it points out that - Several studies in North America have found that the primary fault in bicycle/motor vehicle collisions is approximately equally shared between cyclists and drivers. Most common problem with cyclists is riding without due care and attention and most common for motorists is failure to yeild right of way.

Keep your eyes open to avoid the people acting like dummies in cars and don't ride like a dummy and chances are, you'll be fine

*I should also add the amount of pedestrians hit and killed each year to go along withthe car/bike and car/car collisions. About 1700 car/pedestrian collisions resulting in about 60 deaths a year to the pedestrians.

I wonder how it is that pedestrians look at bicycles on the road and worry about their well being while not considering the same for themselves. *

cooker

There's more than the direct accident rate. The positive effects of cycling on health-related life expectency likely override any potential collision risks. As well, there are quality of life benefits, if you enjoy cycling, enjoy improved health due to cycling, and enjoy the money saved.

Keith99

So I guess running with the bulls is even safer! Worldwide per per capita very very few are killed or injured running with the bulls. Which leads to what this kind of use of statistics is...

Dahon.Steve

Equally important but missing from the statistics are all those cyclists who are left brain dead, blind, disabled and mentally incapacitated from cycling. I want to know all the numbers of all those who can no longer function period.

I suspect when you add all those cyclists who are lost arms, legs, eyes, hands and other body parts, you'll come to a very hard realization that cycling is an inherently dangerous activity. The cost of broken families from a lost one is also not taken into consideration in any of these stats. Quite frankly, not getting killed is only one aspect the cyclist face and permanent disability is hard reality we cannot ignore.

The stats regarding the motorist are well known and there is not much we can do about this. However, the stats regarding ALL the serious disabling injuries regarding cyclist is important to me because this is my form of transport. I want to know all the stats, the good, bad and ugly regarding cycling accidents because knowing that only a small number die in comparison to walking does not make me comfortable at all.

I suspect, if one could accumulate all the stats regarding the human toll of suffering, the cyclist pays a huge price.