tagaproject6

An irrational mind will never be persuaded by facts nor logic.

Seattle Forrest

Methinks 100 % of people die at the end of their lives. History has yet to find even one exception. None of us gets out alive.

silmarillion

Some of that is more of an advocacy thing than a safety thing. But still I have no argument with any of your points.

I feel safety is about lights at night (which is the law in some states) helmets, technique, riding styles and personal habits. Respecting the fact that a person on a bike is at the mercy of the seventeen year old kid behind the wheel of the car who just got their license 2 weeks ago. To be vigilant, not to take for granted that everyone is going to give them a wide margin, or even be sober for that matter.

Safety is proper equipment for the style of riding being done. If your out free-styling on your trick bike, it's probably wise to use headgear, elbow and knee pads and the proper hand armor to protect against falls.

Safety is wearing the corny colored clothing in low light times so you can be seen by automobiles. Using a superflash tail light to be well seen. Knowing how to use clipless pedals before venturing into traffic with them on.

Even knowing what to carry on your bike for those days you blow out your tire 45 miles away from home. Experience is a great educator. I always carry a small road rash kit on all my bikes. I could go on and on, but I think you get the feel for where I'm coming from...

genec

Those that get out alive are just not telling those left behind.

closetbiker

as with many things, it's how you do, rather than what you do that determines safety

Yup. Cycists can fall and scrape themselves up, but there is another inherent quality cycling has that is often overlooked and that is the quality of the improvement of health from riding.

It's a personal call, but I'd trade a bit of road rash for prevention of circulatory disease any day.

If some cyclists think banging the drum of fear is the best way to get people on bikes, I guess that's their issue, but when the automotive industry (that has a fatality rate twice that of cyclists per exposure hour) has done a pretty good job of selling the public on the benefits and safety of their product, I think some cycling advocates still have a thing or two to learn.

dougmc

Horribly clever, but my point was that people die only once (I'll ignore things like dying on the operating table and then being shocked back to life -- obviously you didn't really die), so you add up their odds of death over their entire life, not just looking at one year.

The odds of an individual being killed by a car in the US in a given year does indeed average out to about 0.01%. But I wasn't limiting myself to a given year, but instead looking at the odds of a car being what ends their life -- in which case the odds are around 1%.

Hippiebrian

It seems, strangely, that most everyone here and I agree on most points, except for the point that, here in safety and advocacy, the danger aspect of cycling, while actually small, is so emphasized that bicycling looks like something so death-defying I would never try it. I don't generally participate in activities where cameras are required to record people who are trying to kill me and where helmets are required because I'm going to get mangled. Luckily, I started cycling many years before I read any threads here so I know better.

All I'm saying is that I have a hard time with someone saying they are advocating an activity, which by definition is promotion, and then wants to emphasize every little thing that might be negative about it. It makes no sense to me.

buzzman

Great idea!!

Yeah, we should be just like the auto industry and have advertisements with people speeding through cities on bicycles without consequence, racing snowballs down mountains. We should do product placement of carbon fiber bikes in action movies where the hero leaps over bridges and onto the roofs of moving freight trains to sell our favorite bike. All of this, again, without ever showing the consequences because, after all, we wouldn't want to bang the drum of fear and give anyone the idea that it could be dangerous to do such things.

dougmc

Of course, the only particular value of this statistic is when you're trying to make cars look dangerous and bikes look safe(r).

It's not like most drivers go "you know, I've got an hour to burn, let's go spend it driving".

I should also mention that "deaths per exposure hour" statistics I'm familiar with are poorly sourced and most of the data used used is over a decade out of date -- but overall deaths caused by motor vehicles are way down in the last few years (the number of cyclists killed is down, but the motorists deaths are down even more.)

Just for the record, I'm not saying that cycling is particularly dangerous. I'm just asking people to stop abusing this particular statistic as if it was somehow relevant or timely. And yes, I'm aware of the futility of this request.

buzzman

It's a pretty small percentage of cyclists that ride with cameras every day. And it may be that they just want to record their ride- for the good and/or the bad of it. Or maybe, just maybe, their ride is different from yours- it could be particularly dangerous.

Look, if we took the average probability that anyone of us would have a heart attack in the next year and applied that average to each of us equally it might either scare us or give us comfort. But the reality is that each of us has our own unique individual risk. This is where statistical averages are useless. The obese smoking guy with a genetic predisposition to heart disease might be comforted by the statistic, while the heart healthy woman with low cholesterol and good genes would be freaked out.

So one individual might take statins or have to go on a diet. But another one doesn't need statins, doesn't need to go on a diet. Same thing with the camera. If you don't need it don't use it. Maybe your ride is different- ride your own ride let them ride theirs. But there are standard behaviors and protocols that can reduce every one's risk and it's worth it to know what they are- same thing with biking.

I don't put a lot of weight on statistics because there are so many variables to my riding. 1 week I may be commuting on the streets of NYC on my folder, the next week riding a 140 mile road ride on back roads in the mountains, or riding through a snow storm on the bike path in Boston on my hybrid commuter. Or in London on a bike share bike. Maybe if every time I rode I was on the same bike, at the same time of day, on the same roads, in the same weather, for the same amount of time, at the same speed my probability of accident would be more statistically measurable but that isn't how it is for me. Then maybe I could say- "oh, I don't need a helmet." or "I don't need a camera." But my rides are far less predictable. ( BTW, I don't ride with a camera on my helmet but there are certainly times I've wished I had one.)

Maybe for someone in Arizona or Southern CA, where the weather is more consistent and if you do the same commute every day or the same road ride it's hard to imagine how varied other people's rides are- but they are.

closetbiker

Isn't it ironic?

buzzman

Ah! Now we may be at the "root of the issue". How do we get people jazzed about riding bikes, thereby increasing ridership, while getting them to ride safely and responsibly? Because if we use the automobile industry as the model they have succeeded wildly at the former and failed miserably at the latter (IMO).

Hippiebrian

You're gonna hate this answer, lol, but riding bicycles is already safer than driving. The auto industry failed miserably at safety because a 2000 pound vehicle traveling 75 mph is inherently dangerous. Moving a 20 pound vehicle at most (for most of us) 25 mph is not. While we would have to remind people to use lights and ride on the right side (left side for you Brits) of the road, we would not have the basic danger factor to deal with.

buzzman

I totally agree.

This is why I give little or no credence to the "biking is as safe as or safer than driving a car." I'm going to get on the same roads, next to a bunch of automobiles but without the benefit of thousands of pounds of glass and steel and airbags and seat belts and windshields and windshield wipers and heaters and air conditioners and loud horns and bright lights.

The vehicle I'm on requires the skill of balance, manual dexterity and strength and, depending on the distance and speed at which I intend to travel, a relatively high degree of physical fitness and, no matter how tired I may get, mental acuity. Now let's say I decide to visit family 50 miles way- a trip in the car that takes me roughly an hour. On the bike I'll be on the bike for about 3 hours. Again, if I take the same roads, obey speed limits and traffic laws I'm subject to many of the same risks but the means of conveyance of a bike has more risk simply by it's nature. To imply otherwise seems ludicrous. It's only by applying general statistics (and who gathered them? and how accurate could they possibly be?) as they apply to all cyclists, all over the world that I would conclude I am just as safe on the bike as in a car for the same trip- but it's a nice illusion to have.

buzzman

Yeah, and if your 2000 lb vehicle moving at 75 mphs hits my 20 pound vehicle moving at 25 mph head on we both share the same risk of injury, right?

genec

Try comparing apples to apples... if both bike and car are moving at 20 MPH, and both hit a solid object, (or worse, oncoming traffic also moving at 20MPH) who is more likely to survive?

Or to put this another way... the 75MPH you describe is likely done on a road that the cyclist is excluded from anyway. But even then, with airbags, your level of survival in a modern automobile is still quite good.

genec

The "danger aspect" of cycling is so emphasized because the operator is the key to the safe use of the bike... there is no inherent safety on a bike.

On the other hand, with a motor vehicle you are protected by seat belts, crash zones, air bags, and the design of the road which also includes crash zones, guard rails, and even cement barriers that guide the vehicle back to the roadway.

Cyclists operate in an environment designed to guide and save the motor vehicle operator. The cyclist in the motoring environment is a stranger in a strange land... granted that doesn't mean that the "stranger" cannot operate in that strange land, but you have to do so with the understanding that you are pretty much on your own for your safety and are likely operating at the edges of the environment.

Hippiebrian

You all are right. Everyone should approach cycling with extreme caution, as it is a deadly passtime. Stay in your cars, where you are safe.

Seattle Forrest

Gotcha. That's a good way to look at the data, actually.

silmarillion

So there you go Brian. You need to break out the chalkboard and the abacus, and design the perfect OSHA bike!!

Seriously, I agree with the others on this too. Cycling is NOT inherently safe. It's the rider, and the knowledge he has either shared or earned on the road is really what keeps him/her safe.

I want to be safe. I want others to learn from my close calls and bad experiences. I definitely do not post these things here to scare people out of the sport I love so much. (I'll have to remember that phrase the next time I climb up Hogpen Gap in the N.Georgia mountains.) Last time I started up that climb I told my buddy "man I hate this dang hill"

Anyway, you are at your own devices, and you can simply tell others that the overall feel they may get from this forum would probably be scary, but educational..

Actually I have to admit I'm a bit envious that you guys get all the awesome riding weather, and the cool places to ride...

genec

Or fix the environment so that people in cars have no more priority than people out of cars.

Hippiebrian

I agree, safety needs to be taught, but with that, we need to actually PROMOTE cycling! If this were strictly a safety forum I'd almost (but not quite) agree with everyone, but the first word in this is advocacy, which by definition is promotion, and I don't see any of that here. No one talks about how much they love cycling, how it's been a positive influence in their life, how, like I've said all along, paying attention and not riding outside of your abilities while following rules (sometimes) makes cycling a fun, safe activity. Riding safely is the key, granted, however cycling has far more benefits than dangers. If it didn't, we wouldn't do it. All I ever read about in an advocacy thread (this and others) here is how peoepl are getting hit, helmets are necessary, people are using cameras to catch all of the horrible drivers who are trying to kill us (I know most don't but you'd never know that reading here).

Where the heck is the advocacy?

closetbiker

I'm sure if the pharmaceutical industry developed a drug that replicated the positive results that regular cycling produces, they'd know how to market it.

I'd bet it'd be the biggest selling drug in the world.

AlmostTrick

I'm pretty sure the long list of possible side effects it would come with would scare some into thinking it was much too dangerous to risk trying!

closetbiker

No way.

When people buy lotto tickets, they don't think of all those tickets that don't pan out, they only think of the one that does.

It doesn't matter if the odds are a million to one or ten million to one, if you're only concerned about one thing, that's what you'll see.