bsut

https://mighkwilson.com/2009/10/which...or-possibility

"The real questions are, “What collective story do cyclists want to live by?” and “What kind of story will get us to where we want to be?” A story of limits and tragedy, or a story of personal growth and freedom?"

njkayaker

It's interesting (but not perfect).

I suspect that many more than "three times" the number of pedestrians and many more than "ten times" the number of automobile passengers than cyclists. If that is true, then the risk of brain injury is higher (maybe, eve much higher) when cycling.

Who knows how these fatality rates where calculated! I suspect that the fatality-risk in bicycling is a good bit higher because these "statistics" might be the number of fatalities per total US population. (If so, this would exaggerate the risk of automobile crashes relative to bicycle crashes.)

Anyway, it appears that driving is not very risky either.

Bicycle advocates appear to be arguing, at the same time, that cycling isn't risky and that it is risky (ie, that special laws are needed to make it less risky).

JohnBrooking

The author cited his source in the comments, in response to someone else asking the same thing:
Someone on another mailing list I'm on made an insightful (and inciteful?) comment regarding the "two stories" Mighk proposes, and programs of the League of American Bicyclists:

BFC = Bicycle Friendly Communities
LCI = League Cycling Instructor

danarnold

Excellent article! The criticism of helmet wearing and the 'need' for bike lanes is instructive in pointing out the former discourages cycling by giving cycling an inaccurately unsafe image; the latter by actually making cycling less safe.

One criticism I'll make is that even though the author demonstrates how bike lanes make cycling less safe, he wrongly repeats the error that bike lanes increase separation. At least two studies demonstrate the unanticipated result that bike lanes actually decrease separation between bikes and motorists.

The data verifies my own experience of riding on 40 to 50 mph roads that have bike lanes on some stretches, and no lanes where the road narrows. Dispite the narrowing of the road, cars routinely pass me at greater distances where there is no bike lane stripe than where there is one.

Roody

I think this article exposes the absurdity that's at the core of most cycling advocacy: Riding a bike is not only dangerous, it's essentially a serious activity that really isn't much fun. IOW, people cycle because it's "good for my health" or "good for society" or "good for the environment", not because it's enjoyable.

I have to admit that I'm guilty of this self-righteous priggery myself sometimes, but after reading this article, I'll try harder to push the joy of cycling.

RobertHurst

There is no corroboration that I'm aware of that any such 'study' was ever performed. What there was was a sidebar to an article about car fires in Design News magazine with a bunch of numbers listed, with no supporting data or citations whatsoever. If there was a study performed, there is no indication of how it was performed, and no raw data available, so no possible way to check the work. Just ask yourself a few simple questions about this so-called study: Does it pertain to bicyclists all over the world or bicyclists in the US? Does it include children in the data? Mmm, what year is that 'data' from anyway? Or is it from a number of years? Etc. There is no info available to answer even the most basic questions. IOW, it is not really data at all, just some numbers in a vacuum that may well have been cooked up by an overworked editor at Design News magazine for all we know, and really quite useless for anyone on a real truthfinding mission about the danger of bicycling.

I-Like-To-Bike

Another glaring statistical sore thumb/fabrication/made-up-of-whole-cloth-claim cited is "Competent cyclists will travel at least five times farther before a fatal crash." The likely source/"study" for this amazing claim is John Forester's infamous "study" designed to "prove" the effectiveness of his cycling program. That meta-analysis of a hodgepodge of cherry picked data sources is nothing more than an incredibly sloppy comparison of wildly different cycling populations (with no consistency in study measurements,) extreme in its WAG extrapolations, vague definitions and fabrications.

If that "source" is not the basis of this claim about the mystical safety record of an undefined population of "competent cyclists", then perhaps it was the author's imagination instead.

Mighk

Actually I wrote: "While many experienced cyclists feel bike lanes provide some improved passing separation..." [emphasis added]

Mighk

Here's Ken Kifer's assessment of the Failure Analysis Inc. numbers (about halfway down the page)
https://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm

About a quarter of cyclist fatalities involve intoxicated cyclists; at least as many involve unlit cyclists at night (and of course there's some overlap there). Then there's all the other cyclist-caused fatals: red light running, etc. So the risk for the competent cyclist is reduced by well more than half. In Florida only about 5% of fatals involved a law-abiding, daytime roadway cyclist.

Even if the FAI estimates are inflated 10-fold over reality, I think one death per 400,000 hours is still really good odds -- 45 years of non-stop cycling. Arguing over whether auto travel or bicycle travel is less fatal is pointless to me.

Mighk

And in case anybody's wondering, I am not anti-helmet. I just think we place way too much focus on them. I've been wearing bike helmets since the first Bell Biker hit the market, and have tested the effectiveness of my own helmet at a mountain bike event.

RobertHurst

Silliness. How can anyone analyze numbers in a complete vacuum, without making stuff up? How can we assess this chart without any inkling of whether or not children are included, if it pertains to international or domestic, what year or years or decades the numbers are from, how the data was collected, etc? It's totally useless without such basic information, except as a curiosity. Sorry folks. Nice chart though.

Where are you getting your numbers about Florida?

The big picture is that about half of car-bike collisions in the US these days involve kids, drunks or crazies and about half involve a law-abiding adult rider. When the kids are removed the cyclist victim is more likely to have been riding lawfully than not at the time of the collision. That also translates into some tens of thousands of law-abiding cyclists rammed into and run over every year in this country, most of whom I'm sure considered themselves 'competent.' Another way to look at it -- considering the obvious trend of red-light and stop-sign running and general lawlessness among adult cyclists, it would seem that these riders are just as likely if not more likely to be involved in a collision while respecting the law than while breaking it. There is no epidemic of light-runners getting hit like there is of lawful riders hit by left-turning motorists, for instance. Lawfulness and absentmindedness have proven to be a very dangerous combination.

Note that I am not arguing we should all go out and break the law. I'm just saying that it's clear that lawful and predictable riding is not, by itself, a very effective collision-bane. Riders in traffic need a level of awareness far and above that required to ride lawfully down the street.


Agreed, the risk of dying while riding or driving is miniscule. The risk of injury while riding, not miniscule. Those hoping to trumpet the safety of bicycling will not want to examine the injury statistics or bring them up.

randya

A much better, more positive approach to vehicular cycling than John Forester brings to the table

big thumbs up!



still, I think the motorist education component is a noticeable omission...

crhilton

The author points out that competent cyclists are at 5 times less risk than average cyclists. If this can be well demonstrated the cycling community as a whole would do well to:
1. Adjust advertised risk figures for competent cyclists only. People who are actually researching risk are going to quickly become competent.
2. Focus on quick, free, and readily available training. One afternoon a month sort of things that anyone can get in on for free at their local bike shop. The sort of thing that teaches you the minimum bits about riding, and riding in traffic to give users confidence and get them from average and close to competent. I'm also assuming he's right that it's *easy* to learn to be a competent cyclist.

randya

you really are a one-trick pony, eh?

I-Like-To-Bike

Very big assumptions indeed. In addition we will all have to assume our own definition of a "competent cyclist," since none is provided, and we will have to "assume" what "learning" it presumably takes to become one of this very special group.

Mighk

I've been collecting data on, reading on, and analyzing the risks of cycling for about 15 years, and quite frankly, I'm done. I'm not interested in following anybody down that cul de sac and going round and round any more. Like hitting one's own head repeatedly with a hammer, it feels wonderful when you finally stop.

From now on I'm all about helping people to ride, from wherever they are on the cycling proficiency ladder.

I-Like-To-Bike

You are too generous to this warmed over dish of Foresterisms. Like Forester, and almost all of the rest of that group that parrot his theories on cycling behavior and safety, the author of the cited article focuses on "crashes" not the results and pooh-poohs overtaking accidents as inconsequential:
"The problem with this strategy is that bike lanes can only affect about six to eight percent of crashes between motorists and cyclists; the ones involving overtaking motorists."

Surprisingly one of his VC comrades. Khalil Spencer, posted a response to that article that was not a zombie like repetition of the Forester brand "fear of of the rear" mantra.

Kudos to Khalil. Most VC zealots take it as an article of faith that cyclists are unduly concerned (Phobias! Superstition! Taboos!) about overtaking traffic without ever questioning the rationale or truth of their own claims about relative risk.

crhilton

Any chance you'd care to mention what a competent cyclist is. I have a good idea in my head, but it's better to have a definition. In defining that I believe you'll define the necessary learning: It will be what a competent cyclist does and knows that an average cyclist doesn't.

I'm also interested to know if you have suggestions on how one finds, or gets these sort of things started, in his area. I've long thought about trying to get minor educational programs going at an LBS. It provides advertising for me (the LBS telling new bike purchasers about it). However, not being LAB certified (and not wanting to put people through their ridiculously long classes -- also unable to get the local LAB people to respond to an e-mail) I'm unsure of the legal side of this. I imagine the bike shop would have the same question.

randya

yes, I saw the comment from Khalil and agree that, while overtaking crashes may be small in number/percentage, they are often the most devastating in consequences.

I guess what I was most impressed with was that the author avoided all the negative, condescending rhetoric that John and his sycophants often use.

I-Like-To-Bike

That's very noble of you, and you deserve praise for your efforts to help cyclists improve their proficiency even if there is no evidence that it has any effect on reducing their already low cycling risk.

Who knows? You may even make your trainees safer or enjoy their bicycling more.

I-Like-To-Bike

You are quite right, the stories are written to be in sharp contrast to each other; the choice is easy as it was meant to be.

Story one is an almost completely negatively drawn caricature of a VC bogey man, -the so-called incompetent cyclist with the added unlikely negative feature of promoting MHL laws.

Story two is written in praise of the Noble Bicycle Driver confident in the shining armor of Vehicular Cycling Knowledge.

Tough choice, eh?

randya

point taken.

it's a bit deceiving because it's not written in the classic John Forester style.

I-Like-To-Bike

True, the author (and OP) doesn't come out and directly insult the reader with pompous declarations of made up facts and expert guesswork, but rather, chooses to use a fallacious argument of False Dichotomy (AKA Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation) in his two "stories" of doom or possibility in order to lead readers to the correct choice.

crhilton

Actually he specifically points out that those aren't the only two stories but uses them as contrasts and points to which side he likes better. Hardly false dichotomy. He shows which points of each story make it good or bad at bringing in new cyclists.

Roody

Not that there's anything wrong with that, since the piece is an essay of political persuasion rather than a scientific article. (And of course there's also nothing wrong with your pointing out what you view as distortions--with probably the same level of inaccuracy and subjectivity that the author had.)