IIHS 2008 Fatality Facts - Bicyclists
 

Not sure if anyone else has taken not of these recently released 2008 stats from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety:

Bicycle Stats for 2008: http://www.iihs.org/research/fatalit.../bicycles.html

All other data sets: http://www.iihs.org/research/fatalit...8/default.html

A few extracts:

• 91% of bicyclists killed in 2008 reportedly weren't wearing helmets.
• 26% of bicyclists age 16 and older killed in 2008 had blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at or above 0.08 percent.
• 28% of bicyclists killed in 2008 were riding between the hours of 9pm and 6am, with another 21% killed between the hours of 6pm and 9pm.
• Deaths among bicyclists younger than 16 have declined 86% since 1975, while deaths among bicyclists 16 and older increased 91%. Deaths of bicyclists younger than 16 were 13% of all bicyclist deaths in 2008.
• More than 7 times as many bicyclist deaths in 2008 were males compared with females. At every age more male than female bicyclists were killed, and the rates of bicyclist deaths per million people were higher for males than females.
• The highest rate of bicyclist deaths per million people occurred for 45-49 year-old males.
• Many more bicyclists were killed in urban areas than in rural areas in 2008 (68% compared with 31%). In 1975, bicyclist deaths occurred equally in rural and urban areas.
• 38% of bicyclist deaths in 2008 occurred at intersections.
• 61% of bicyclist deaths in 2008 occurred on major roads other than interstates and freeways, and 35% occurred on minor roads.

NHTSA '08 data has also been released:
Summary Report which includes injury statistics for cyclists from '07 & '08

2007 @ 43,000
2008 @ 52,000
Change +9,000

The 2008 fatality data has also been added to the FARS encyclopedia:
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/People...lcyclists.aspx

Anyone notice that while we usually toss around the figure of about 40,000 motorists deaths annually, we totally miss the figure of nearly 6 million non fatal crashes, and the figure of nearly 2 million injury crashes annually. (1.6 million for 2008).

Thank you very much, for all the info. I bookmarked all the sites.

It'd be interesting if they had stats on whether these people had lights/reflectors or not. I bet the majority of these people were ninjas.

The stat isn't all that useful without knowing what percentage of hours that people spend bicycling take place at night; without that info, you could say that the hours between 9pm and 6am is 9 hours, which is 37% of the day, yet only 28% of the fatalities happened during that time. So that could actually be a safer time to ride than during the day, there's no way to know without some normalizing data.

What gets lost in many of these discussions is the body of people who ride bicycles as their primary means of transporation not so much by choice, but due to the lack of choice, i.e., low-wage earners, drifters and folks who have lost their licenses after being convicted of DUI offenses.

It's these street clothes-clad folks on garage-sale and department store bikes who, along with some of the urban ninjas to whom you refer, that can end up riding into traffic along the shoulder of a road, in the gutters, on sidewalks and into cross walks or streets on their way to or from work and often times from their respective watering holes in the evening that quitely get offed truly because they were invisible to the motorist. Now, couple that with the disproportionate number of distracted and impaired motorists who hit the roads at the same time and who frequent the same locations and you get what you get, especially if the guy on the bike is DUI.

Of course, the guy in the flanel shirt on the BMX bike that's way too small or the F/S dept. store bike picked up at Goodwill for $10 with the broken suspension fork and rear shock that has never touched a computer key board or walked into a bike shop and who may also have a DUI record just isn't going to have advocates which is why their is usually not much published or posted when they go down vs. when one of "our friends" in the cycling community is struck down.

So, if their bikes had reflectors it's only because they were on the bike when they found it at the Goodwill or where-ever and, as for lights, lights cost money and so do batteries: that's just not high on the priority list when the most you could afford to pay for your 'ride' was about $25 and it'll get stolen before too long anyway... so why waste the money.

And, in closing, remember that to the motoring public a cyclist is a cyclist. They really don't look at the guy on the dept. store bike in street clothes and make a huge distinction to a bicycle commuter who is wearing a helmet and all of the other accoutrements; they're just folks on bikes riding where they don't belong putting themselves and motorists at risk.

Just something to think about when looking at these statistics. Yes, we have some friends or acquantances in those numbers too... and they were doing all of the right things. But, at the end of the day they're reduced to a statistic and lumped in with the guy riding his clunker home at 2am after a few too many that rode into an intersection riding the wrong way in the right lane who was taken out by the motorist turning right off the cross street who never saw him until it was too late.

Did women use helmets as much as men? Or perhaps, in general, women behave (i.e. ride) in a safer manner than men.

The stats on death would be a lot more meaningful if we knew some information about the average bicycle rider that may not have been killed. How many are male? How many are wearing helmets. What time of day do most people ride?

Go do some reseach if it's important to you....

Example: http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/faqs/answer.cfm?id=36

There is tons of data out there, but you'll have to do some analysis to parse it down to what you're specifically looking for. Moreover, it will be spread out over a wide number of years and most likely it won't be all that current.

Ken Kifers page looked at this extentively many years ago before he too became a statistic: http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm

Be careful when you pull from sources whose primary reason for being and future livelihood is tied to cycling as they will pump up the numbers by using over-ambitious assumptions for ridership and the like.

Example: How many miles did you (in the generic sense) ride last year. No, really. How many miles did you ACTUALLY ride? Not how many would you like to believe you rode, or did you plan to ride, or do you estimate you rode based on calculating some flawed average.

Some folks will actually know and cite those numbers, particularly the folks who do, in fact, ride a lot of miles and keep track of their training, trips or commute mileage. However, the further you delve into the recreational riders the less reliable the data becomes. Therefore, survey data is also suspect and to be taken with a grain of salt as, once again, the average person who likes to take surveys will inflate numbers for miles ridden, etc... and many of the types of riders we've talked about begin represented in these statistics aren't the recreational / commuter types who end up being included in surveys.

I wonder about this... for instance if the "department store cyclist" is riding on the sidewalk... does the motoring public really care at all? Or is the motoring public more "offended" by the "lycra clad helmet wearing cyclist" that is cycling along in the right tire track at 22MPH, when that motorist expects to move along at 40MPH?

Does the motoring public care at all if they are not "impeded" in any manner... if say that driver can just zip along at will (in spite of posted speed limits), is that driver "happier" than say the driver that is moving at or below the speed limit and is "co-operating" with a variety of other road users, such as crowds of crosswalk using pedestrians and the occasional lane taking cyclist...

Does the motoring public care what we as cyclists wear? If I move at 18MPH in a Hawaiian shirt and cut-offs, is there any difference in their mind than if I move at 18MPH clad in helmet and kit? (actually apparently there is a difference as noted by a couple of British studies that have shown closer passing to helmet wearing male cyclists)

28% of bicyclists killed in 2008 were riding between the hours of 9pm and 6am, with another 21% killed between the hours of 6pm and 9pm.

So, 51% were killed during the first half of the day (6am - 6pm) and 49% were killed during the second half of the day (6pm - 6am).

And what does this tell us?

... and how were the cyclists riding at the time of death?

some examples from fatality files

* A 22 year old male cyclist dressed in dark clothing and with no lights or reflectors on his bike entered an intersection on a yellow light and was struck by a half-ton truck. The cyclist had his feet on the handlebars at the time

* This three year old was playing on a construction site when he followed on his tricycle behind a truck which was moving from the site of one house to the next. He was directly behind the truck when it stopped but because of the child's size and his location behind the truck, the driver could not see him in any of his mirrors. He commenced to back up over the child.

*Cyclist tried to jump curb to get onto pedestrian crosswalk going over a bridge. In doing so he hit a passing truck with his arm and fell under it and was crushed.

* A youth was operating his bike on sidewalk adjacent to a busy roadway with his brother on the handlebars and was among a group of pedestrians. Apparently his bike slid on some gravel on a driveway and he fell onto the roadway into the path of an oncoming truck. The driver did not see the incident as it would have occurred after his position in the truck had passed the cyclist.

* A well known racing cyclist made a swinging left turn through a stop sign and into the path of a motor vehicle. The cyclist made no attempt to stop or slow down before making the turn. General negligence.

What do YOU think.... but bound your answer by addressing cyclists riding in the road not on sidewalks or bike paths.


Again, what do YOU think the data suggests based on what you know about the habits of cyclists and motorists, traffic volume at the different times and the environmental differences?

Just how many deaths involved motor vehicles?

and, in countries that have mhls which are enforced, how many cyclists die wearing helmets, and has this changed from before the helmets were used?

In the past, this FARS database has been criticized for grossly undercounting the number of cyclist fatalities who were wearing helmets. It appears that many cases where the helmet status was either unknown or unreported were coded in the database as 'no helmet', see:
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1174.html

Although the accuracy of the data is reported to be improving, there may still be considerable bias toward undercounting of helmet wearing among cyclist fatalities.

Go find out and get back to us on that.... :thumb:

it's common sense.

Almost all deaths to cyclists are due to collisions with motor vehicles and when cyclists put on helmets (as they do in many countries and areas that enforce laws) they continue to die.

It may be true that in the area that this information is from that 91% of cyclists were not wearing helmets when they died, but that's tremendously misleading because the assumption is the lack of helmet was the cause when the lack of helmet is simply an association.

That in 91% of cyclist fatalities in New Zealand, cyclists were wearing helmets, and that the number of fatalities has not changed from when cyclists did not wear helmets is an example that we should consider when doing our best to inform the public to make the best decisions we can to keep cyclists away from death

Yes but what % brushed their teeth before getting killed?

im sure we could bias the statisics to say that brushing your teeth reduces motor vehicle accidents between the hours of 6am and 9am

28% of bicyclists killed in 2008 were riding between the hours of 9pm and 6am, with another 21% killed between the hours of 6pm and 9pm.

Nighttime or sunset in your face time, for alot of riders. I am sure that there are other factors which can be used to adjust and make this data more informative, but I was always warned that evening/shortly after sunset is a tough time for riders.

roughstuff

some stats can teach us some things (I hadn't previously been aware just how many cyclists who died were impaired while riding) but mostly, it's more of a behavior thing than anything else.

People do some awfully silly things when riding a bike. Children often don't know better.

More examples from the previous link

* A cyclist in his thirties was travelling northbound around a curve in the roadway. Without looking up he crossed the centre line and an oncoming motorist tried to avoid him but was unable to do so. It was dark and the cyclist had no illumination and only one reflector which was on the back of his bike. The cyclist was impaired by alcohol at the time

* A 12 year old boy was riding his bike on the shoulder of the Fraser Highway against traffic in the late afternoon of a mid-January day. It was reasonably dark. A truck pulled over onto that shoulder of the road to pass a vehicle turning left and stuck the cyclist.

* A male in his early twenties was riding his bicycle downhill at a speed of about 60 kilometres in city traffic and collided broadside with a vehicle that passed in front of him. It was dark and the cyclist had no headlights or reflectors on his bicycle.

* Two young children (age six) were riding their bikes on a street that had a 8% downgrade. They approached an intersection which was controlled by a stop sign in their direction, the road being a "through" street. One girl went into the intersection and was narrowly missed by oncoming traffic. The second girl then entered the intersection and was stuck and killed

It's a data set that supports some degree of trend analysis... that's about it. Some of the data is interesting, some is eye-opening such as the DUI numbers but none of it is conclusive of anything in and of-itself short of the demographic data on the decedents and the like.

Debating the numbers, collection methods and the like is both interesting and perhaps entertaining, but rarely does it stimulate thought when the ones debating are deeply rooted in given position or set of presumptions and biases.

If a certain number piques your interest, by all means explore it...

My only point in offering a subequent response to some of the early posts was to make sure those looking at the data remind mindful that a lot of the cyclists contained in these numbers are not what the cycling community -- particularly the ones who have access to a keyboard and who frequent internet discussion boards -- usually think of first when they hear a cyclist has been killed or look at this type of widely reported fatality data... noting that it's what everyone else will pick-up and feed off of, e.g., the IIHS (yes, it's simply their analysis of what the NHTSA reported in June).

another stat that I found surprising (and illuminating) is that (in my province of BC) per collision with motor vehicle, pedestrians died at 5 times the rate as cyclists did.

I would have expected the rates to be similar or the same.

Just as surprising was that the death rate per collision between 2 motor vehicles and a bicycle and a motor vehicle, were almost exactly the same.

I would have expected cyclists to die at a higher rate than motorists.

One more (BC) stat that I liked. Although cyclists make up 2% of traffic volume, cyclists are involved in only 1% of traffic accidents.

Research and accurate interpretation of raw data must not be important ifyou can speculate about/fabricate the safety data for all sorts of cycling sterotypes and/or reference the log books of a relative handful of alleged "recreational / commuter types" who wouldn't dream of cycling on anything less than equipment with a fine LBS provenance.

Oh please.... :roflmao2:

Spend more time reading what people write instead of reading into it what suits your fancy.

Perhaps you should spend more time editing your posts and toss the guesswork about cycling stereotypes and their equipment and guesswork about who/what was or wasn't included in raw safety data, and leave in the parts (if any) that support your position.