While this might be a legitimate means of assessing risk as a statistic for an armchair analysis, in practical application I wouldn't trust this to assess my risk while actually riding my bike. In that case, risk, for me, would be evaluated on specific given circumstances. I fail to see how an awareness of that kind of statistical evidence impacts my individual safety as I weave through NYC traffic or ride down a traffic free dirt road in the country.

What I believe impacts my safety in those two situations is my awareness of potential dangers, capacity to cope with them and being prepared for the unexpected on both counts.

Reassurances based on per mile traveled like that may offer some consolation when traveling as a passenger on a commercial airline where you have basically 0 control over your fate once you've purchased your ticket and boarded the plane. The same is not true for bicycling.

People get hit by cars when walking or even standing on a sidewalk. People die in car crashes. People die in some many ways. If your number comes up it won't matter what you ride (if you believe that kind of mambo jambo...).

You don't even have to be outside to get hit by a car. How many stories have you seen about someone plowing through the wall of a building- usually either mechanical failure or operator error??

No, really, bicycling is objectively no more dangerous than driving and a little safer than walking in urban areas. It's also a lot safer than motorcycling and flying small private planes. I'm not making this stuff up:

http://cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2014.pdf

http://www.walk21.com/papers/Chu.pdf

http://www.bicyclinglife.com/SafetyS...SafetyQuiz.htm

The most important piece of safety equipment is UNDER your helmet. Be alert, anticipate, ride at a pace appropriate for conditions, observe proper etiquette and follow the law, etc. While anyone can be involved in an accident, your chances of a collision go up exponentially when you treat city streets as your own private training course, riding like you were fighting for the lead in the Tour de France, blowing through intersections, weaving between cars, never signalling your intentions, and generally being a knob. Share the road goes both ways. A few months back I was in my car on a crowded Minneapolis street where traffic had slowed to a crawl three lanes wide. A cyclist riding in the drops blew by between the lanes, cut in front of the car a few lengths ahead of me and made a left turn through slow moving but oncoming traffic onto a side street. There were a few honking horns and raised fingers. All I could think was "Wow, what an (idiot)".

One problem I have with bicycle stats is how do you collect them? Especially injuries or fatalities per mile or hour cycled. I can look out my downtown office window and see at least a hundred bicyclists that never registered with any survey.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=259395

I've read that your bed is the most likely place for you to die. That doesn't seem to scare most people from climbing in though.

you can get killed playing mini golf. 'nuff said?

Yeah, once a girlfriend and I were driving along a parkway in San Diego. We got passed by a car that I would guess was doing 90. They went over the crest of the hill.

A little past the crest I saw the car again, stopped still in the center divider.

That evening I heard that both occupants had died. A couple of days later the news said that authorities were still trying to figure out who those people were.

I am in absolute awe at your collection, Sir.

1996 Litespeed Classic
1988 Centurion Expert Ironman
1989 Centurion Master Ironman
1986 Schwinn Prelude(Beater)
1986 Raleigh Grand Prix(Beater2)
1985 Raleigh Prestige
1985 Raleigh Competition
1979 Raleigh Competition GS-1

2007 Suzuki GSX R1K (commuter) http://www.cehoward.net/pretty.jpg
2006 Honda CBR 600rr (racer) http://www.cehoward.net/630-8.jpg
My Warm Up http://www.cehoward.net/stclock.wmv / http://www.cehoward.net/situps1.AVI
72,Old,Dirty,&Fast

Sure, but statistical sampling is very robust. Accurate estimates can be made from samples that seem small to the non-statistician. Cycling is very safe. In the UK, which is far from the safest European country as far as cycling is concerned, almost thirty million miles are cycled for every fatality. One fatality for every thirty million miles. ​If people aren't reassured by those sort of odds, all I can say is that their anxiety is overwhelming their reason.

biking is unsafe, falling off is the most likely part.

For an accurate estimate to be made from a small sample the sample must be representative of the population. I have a hard time believing such surveys are representative. I really have no idea how they choose people to survey. But one of the surveys linked to qualified one of the stats with the term "Bicycle Club Cyclists". Makes me suspicious is all. Of course I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of the people I see riding (including me) are not "club" riders here in Phoenix.

Why thank you kindly sir!! :beer:..

However, the credit must go to our C&V area. I am a newbie, and I learned almost everything on what to get from the guys/gals in C&V. BTW, even the beater rides good..;)

What do curb cuts have to do with cycling? I've never seen a curb cut in the road, only on sidewalks.

Fourty years, eight cities of varying sizes, 2-5000 miles of traffic jamming per year, thousands and thousands of miles of loaded touring on county roads, and I have been hit once.
I was on a through street, she was at a stop sign, I had a white shirt on, blinking light on my right arm, was wearing an orange and yellow safety vest; she stopped, looked both ways, waited until I was right in front of her, looked me straight in the eye and accelerated. She drove 1/2 a block with me on the hood, dragging my bike beneath her car and told the officer she did not see me. I wasn't hurt, but there you go, idiots are out there.
There are all kinds of stats, but it seems intersections are where accidents usually occur, so avoid sidewalks (more intersections), be careful in residential areas (people go blind in their own territory) and follow the rules of the road. I think most people don't want to hit anybody else.

Marc

Curb cuts mean more cars turning, crossing lanes, and stopping suddenly when they realize that their turn has just come up. It also means more cars entering traffic from parking lots and stores...sometimes making a wide left turn across traffic.

Here's a link to a comprehensive bike accident study done this year for my state: http://www.policyinstitute.iu.edu/Pu...ril%202012.pdf

It's the most comprehensive study that I've personally seen, although there are still a lot of holes that need to be filled. One of the things that reading it will point out, though, is how safe biking is in an absolute sense. In a state with a 6.5 million population, bicycle fatalities ranged between 7 and 19. For the entire state, in one year.

Figures 5 and 6 have very interesting statistics for suburban, exurban, urban, and rural accidents. According to Figure 5, you are 4 times more likely to be involved in a collision in an urban area than in a suburban or exurban area. However, if you look at fatalities, these percentages flip - you are 4 times more likely to die in a suburban or exurban collision than in an urban collision. Rural collisions are roughly half as dangerous as suburan/exurban, and still twice as dangerous as urban collisions. This almost certainly is in large part due to the speed differential on county roads vs. local/urban roads.

Good points Marc.

I ride a lot to work and notice that when I am going straight and there is, say a gas station to my right I see a lot of people look left, look right and then go. They look through you. Scary really.

I'm glad you said it
 

I'm glad you said it. Triggering road rage is a self-defeating thing to do. A little respect goes a long way... drivers have to get somewhere too and, in my experience, the vast majority of them make great efforts not to hit bicycles even when the cyclists are actng recklessly.

Off the top of my head, this is what I remember. I could be wrong.

A large fraction, like half, of bike accidents are of the cyclist falling off his bike without colliding with a pedestrian or other vehicle. My conclusion: the cyclist's skill has a big effect on this risk.

Of the car-bike collisions, half of them are the cyclist's fault. Many are predictable situations, such as riding on the sidewalk and passing over a driveway. The most common way for a cyclist to cause a car-bike collision is to ride in the wrong direction. Conclusion: knowledge, skill, and compliance with laws has a huge effect on cycling safety.

If we could normalize bike injury statistics for cyclist skill, I think we would find that skillful cycling is extremely safe, compared with most other modes of transport.

I've been cycling for transportation since 1975, and I'm pretty happy doing it. I've been injured a few times, but not permanently. The worst was a concussion. I now teach skills in cycling in traffic. I feel that now that I know how to share a lane when appropriate and when to take a lane to myself, drivers treat me with respect and help protect my safety, generally speaking. Of course there are exceptionally bad drivers out there, and I think I'm pretty good at anticipating their antics.

Take a skills course. It will pay off.

dont be a *****

Cyling is as safe as you make it. Ride on the wrong side of the road, ride on the sidewalks, blow through lights and stop signs, let yourself get crowded into the curb, ride with dark clothes and no lights at night, ride too close to parked cars, etc, and you increase your chances of being hit. Ride safely and predicatably and you're less likely to get in an accident than if you drove to work.

Here's some interesting statistical data:

http://www.baycitizen.org/data/bike-accidents/

Green Dot = Cyclist at Fault
Blue Dot = Driver at Fault
Red Dot = Unknown

Click on the green dots, and you'll quickly see a pattern..."Wrong Side of the Road" & "Traffic Signals and Signs".

The data for most studies that involve bicycle fatalities and serious injuries are collected from state agencies (e.g., Highway Patrol) and from hospital stats of emergency room visits. You're right, though, most less serious injuries are probably never reported anywhere. In the last eight years, I've crashed on my bike three times, and each time it was pretty minor, so I told my friends, but not anyone who counts that sort of thing.

Stats to back that up?

I think it also really depends where you live. I used to commute 30 miles regularly in Salt Lake City, and never once feared for my life. In Chicago, I feel unsafe biking on designated bike lanes and on the Lakeshore drive path, due to the bike/pedestrian/car traffic.

Here are some interesting stats. It depends on how you measure. Interesting read, though. Unfortunately, the author of the pages I'm linking to was killed by a drunk driver.

http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm

To be fair though you would also have to normalize for skill for the other transportation options. I know the risks vary a lot for motorcyclists depending on years of riding experience and even if they are riding a new-to-them motorcycle.

I've been riding to class for the last three years and most of the @#$!! things were my bad - dropping a skinny tire into a gutter, losing grip on a bald tire, et.all - but there has only been one bike-on-car incident where I slightly clipped a car that pulled out of a driveway into my path and scraped my arm along its hood. I do live in a cycling friendly city, though.

So what did I learn? Be a f@#$ing person. Don't run red-lights; I saw a car barely miss a girl who ran every single red light on a stretch of road. Don't ride on sidewalks when you can. I burnt half my pads off when I almost collided with a guy riding full blast down a sidewalk. Check your surroundings - front, back, and sides. Signal. Be ready on the brakes.

Life is dangerous. Deal with it.

These stats, as you say, may be "interesting" but, for the most part, are useless. Kifer's original stats are from 1978 and his most recent are 1992. That's 20-35 year old information. And you may note a pretty drastic change in the profile of the type of cyclists killed occurs during the 14 years between '78 and '92.

His conclusions are based on conjectures founded on scanty old info. To use that as a basis for how safe it is to ride a bike in 2012 probably has as much value as reading Tarot cards.