PatrickGSR94

Some calculations and figures put together by a cycling education instructor from Florida:

"The League of American Bicyclists, using data from the National Household Transportation Survey (NHTS), has reported that American bicyclists rode over 8.9 billion miles in 2013. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports 743 bicyclist fatalities and roughly 48,000 injuries due to crashes with motor vehicles for that year. From these and some other sources we can estimate the risks of bicycling.

"First, let’s ask if that 8.9 billion number is reasonable. They also reported that we took about 4 billion bike trips per year. If 10% of the American populace is responsible for those trips, then those cyclists rode about 121 times per year (or ten times per month) at 2.25 miles per trip. Pretty reasonable, actually. Perhaps even low.

"A number of national studies have found at least a quarter of bicyclist deaths involved a cyclist intoxicated with alcohol or drugs. In metro Orlando we found that number to be 37%. Another 28% of metro Orlando deaths involved sober bicyclists who violated basic rules of the road, such as running red lights, or failing to yield when entering the roadway. With these numbers we can reasonably estimate that half of bicyclist fatalities involve an intoxicated cyclist and/or one violating the law.

"If we apply all 743 deaths to the 8.9 billion miles traveled, the average bicyclist travels over 12 million miles per fatal crash. Removing the half of cyclists who were intoxicated or violating the law, that rate doubles to 24 million miles. If you biked 100 law-abiding miles every day of your life, it would take 657 years to cover 24 million miles.

"The roughly 48,000 injuries applied to the 8.9 billion miles works out to over 186,000 miles between crashes, and if we assign cyclist fault to half of those it's of course twice that (372,000 miles). Ride 5,000 miles a year (way more than most people) and you go nearly 75 years between motorist-caused injury crashes. There are of course many crashes not reported to law enforcement, but the injury severity of those crashes tends to be low. We could double the number of injury crashes and get back to 186,000 miles between injuries for law-abiding cyclists.

"About 20% of cyclist injury crashes are classified as "incapacitating," meaning serious enough to require a trip in an ambulance. That works out to 927,000 miles between serious injuries, regardless of fault, and 1.8 million miles between serious injuries just from motorist-caused crashes."

B. Carfree

But, but, but don't we need segregated facilities?

Sadly, far too many "advocates" spend a lot of energy convincing people that cycling is so dangerous that it can't possibly be done until we build a new and entirely separate road system. I these people would spend some time riding, they would see how relatively safe cycling is. I suspect if we put the same energy into a campaign showing how safe cycling is, we would finally have enough bikes on the road to have a measurable risk of bike on bike crashes. As it stands, I see more deer and cats than cyclists.

kickstart

But with infrastructure its even safer, and there's even more cyclists. even taking safety considerations out of the equation, infrastructure makes the cycling experience more enjoyable for the overwhelming majority of people.

Being a pedestrian is also safe, ergo, we must conclude sidewalks are a waste too?

jon c. 

My non cycling colleagues certainly seem to think it's a lot more dangerous than it is. And I do sometimes wonder if some cyclists don't unwittingly contribute to the misconception that it's more dangerous than it really is.

kickstart

Of course some do,
Look how much effort some expend trying to make riding a bicycle in a bike lane, shoulder, sidewalk, or MUT seem like its playing Russian roulette........Even though everyone else knows otherwise.

ItsJustMe

IMO, it all comes down to how people behave on the roads. If there is an actual need for segregated facilities, it's because car drivers can't obey the rules in place, because those rules DO allow for safe cohabitation of the same facilities.

gregf83 

I ride about 10,000 miles/yr (about the same as I used to drive). Based on the above data I have roughly a 1% chance of a serious injury per year. That's not bad but it's much higher than my probability of a serious injury in a car.

In my circle of friends I know 3 or 4 people who've been hit by vehicles while riding a bike resulting in various injuries, some serious. My father in law had a serious injury while riding a motorcycle which was hit by a vehicle. I don't know anyone who was injured in a car accident.

Anecdotal I know but cycling doesn't feel as safe as driving. I think it's a good idea to improve cycling specific infrastructure to encourage more people to ride.

Every day I ride over a bridge where the bike paths tacked onto the side of the bridge were clearly an afterthought. I'm used to it but for a new rider they pathways across the bridge are awful. Newer bridges in the city have much improved infrastructure for cyclists and in general the local communities appear to be paying more attention to cyclists which is a welcome change.

kickstart

Yet in places were mode share is higher, traffic volumes lower, and driver education superior there's a demand for infrastructure by cyclists.

I know pretending there's one answer for all questions is a popular dodge for those against infrastructure, but there's a time and place for everything. Just because most roads don't need infrastructure, doesn't mean there's no need or advantages to having it in some locations.

PatrickGSR94

I've grown up knowing quite a few people around my age (when we were all younger) that were very prone to car crashes. Some people seemed like they were involved in a crash twice or more per year. My dad was injured a few years ago, and his truck totaled when another car spun out across the interstate median and smashed into the front of his truck.

There's the "feeling" of safety, and there is actual safety. I'm trying to convey that the stats seem to indicate cycling is actually safe, despite how it may feel. Of course you can't just go out doing whatever the heck you want all willy-nilly. You have to be smart and conscious about it.

On the other hand, as someone I know has put it several times, "cycling is a relatively safe activity, even when done poorly".

ItsJustMe

I think there's a place for separated infrastructure for efficiency's sake. When there are so many bicycles on the road that they actually start to seriously impact the viability of driving a car around (like, 100x more bikes than we typically have even in a "bicycle friendly" city in the US). Separated infrastructure can then start taking the specific needs and advantages of bicycles into their design. As you say, there are a few isolated spots where it may be necessary, though most of them that I've seen need bike specific infrastructure additions because they didn't consider bicycles into the original design in the first place.

kickstart

Sure it is, but is that a reason to not do more to make it even safer, convenient, and enjoyable for a greater range of people through education and choices....

kickstart

More infrastructure leads to more cyclists, which leads to more infrastructure, which leads to more cyclists, which leads to more.......

They go hand in hand, discouraging one discourages the other.

CliffordK

I always wonder about calculating mileage.

Say 1% of the population puts on an average of 1000 miles a year.

That would make it:

1% of 300 Million is 3 Million x 1000 miles = 3 Billion miles for those One-Percenters, making up about half of the riding.

The other 99% of the population does the other half of the riding (averaging about 10 miles a year?)

B. Carfree

I should just fix it for you and substitute traffic law enforcement every place you put infrastructure. Davis, which had a bicycle modal share much higher than any of the segregated cities has ever had before it put in any segregated infrastructure, showed that enforcement works. They also conveniently showed that when the enforcement portion is replaced with infrastructure, the former cyclists don't return to their bikes in comparable numbers. Oh yeah, and PDX keeps adding segregated infrastructure and keeps not seeing any increases in modal share from the days when they added only bike lanes.

Just listen to the howls from motorists when automated traffic enforcement facilities are proposed. They know intuitively that driving is a major hassle when one has to follow the law. The relative hassle between cycling and driving is key to modal share.

While I'm hassling you, let's drop the straw man argument that people opposed to segregation are opposed to bike lanes (and decent rideable shoulders). Those are proven to work for all riders in an American environment. Segregation? Not so much.

B. Carfree

Interesting. My circle of friends drives very little and rides a lot. I don't know of any friends who have had any more than road rash cycling injuries. However, I have a number of former friends who have been killed in car crashes and several who have been maimed. Just anecdotal, of course, but I wonder if people aren't somewhat programmed to forget injuries/fatalities for motorists but remember every scratch that happens on a bike because they just "knew" that riding a bike was dangerous and any injury/death proves it to them.

CrankyOne

A cyclist in the U.S. is about 5 to 10 times as likely to be injured or killed per mile ridden as someone in a car.

A cyclist in the U.S. is about 9 times as likely to be injured or killed as someone in The Netherlands per mile ridden, about 7 times as someone in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, and about 5 times as likely to be killed or injured as someone in France or Germany.

From: Bicycling: Relatively Safe | streets.mn

I guess it depends on your definition of safe. The way Europe does things sounds a lot better to me.

kickstart

I rather have lots of bike lanes rather than few segregated lanes, but ideally I would like to see a bit of everything infrastructure wise plus education and enforcement. There does seem to be some opposition to bike lanes from some quarters, and some who claim to not be opposed have safety expectations that make them virtually impossible to fit into most environments..

Infrastructure isn't just for safety and placating motorists, its also about convenience and ride experience quality.

CrankyOne

As well, subjective safety is about as important as actual safety. As @kickstart implied, most people feel a lot safer on protected infrastructure. People are much more likely to ride if they feel safer (and if riding is less stressful, more pleasant, etc.).

Rotterdam is a good example. It has very low bicycling and this is attributed to its poor infrastructure (which is actually quite good compared to almost anything in the U.S.). They have a painted (or line of colored cobbles) bike lane on nearly every street. What they lack is more protected infrastructure.

Increases in bicycling in the U.S. and elsewhere always, from everything I've seen, followed the implementation of infrastructure. We've seen this in Davis, Portland, Minneapolis, NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, Indianapolis, and elsewhere. Also in Barcelona, Stockholm, Seville, Padova, and Cambridge.

gregf83 

Safe is a relative term. It's safe enough for me but it's not as safe as driving or flying and it could be safer with better infrastructure and more respectful drivers. Europe provides some good examples of better conditions for cycling.

B. Carfree

No, that's not correct. I lived in Davis as it reached its height of cycling modal share and watched the decline as well as a modest partial recovery. The golden years involved next to no cycling-specific infrastructure other than one bike path (with a second added during the golden years) and a few bike lanes. During the great decline, from the mid-80s to the mid-00s, segregated infrastructure went in all over town. It was built, and people returned to their cars.

Also, in Seville they built quite a lot of segregated infrastructure. Unfortunately, as is not just typical but looks to be the existing standard, they underbuilt it. As a result, their cycling share has been stuck at 6% for the past four years with no signs of moving forward. PDX has seen a similar situation in which they switched from bike lanes to segregation about seven years ago. Not coincidentally, PDX has also been stuck at 6% for four years or so.

Meanwhile, Munich has apparently seen a large surge up from its 6% plateau that coincided with their removing their segregated side paths and replacing them with 7-foot wide bike lanes. So, if by infrastructure you mean bike lanes (out of the door zone), then I agree with your statement about infrastructure being critical to success. However, since you usually insist that the only infrastructure that works is segregated, I'm assuming that's what you mean here.

CliffordK

6% of people regularly cycle commuting sounds HUGE.

I would think quite a few people just don't want to ride, or think it is just too far to ride.

Portland would probably do better if they would just ban the rain in the winter.

Covered bike paths?

Putting a $5 per gallon tax on fuel would likely increase the numbers of people cycling.

jeichelberg87

How do you know more infrastructure leads to more cyclists?

CrankyOne

Seville had a modal share of about 2% in 2006. They began building infrastructure in 2007 and bicycling modal share as since climbed to about 6-8%. What modal share does not show however is the significant increase in bicycling for school trips and daily errands. Any way you look at it though they've seen a significant increase in bicycling.

Bicyle Infrastructure in Seville | streets.mn

I agree with you on the similarities between Seville and Portland. Both have stagnated and in both cases due to poor infrastructure. Both built infrastructure and grew in to it but never went farther. Both attracted the 'Enthused and Confident' riders and maybe the most enthused 5% of the 'Interested but Concerned'.



In the case of Seville they have a few problems. They built a lot of two-way cycletracks instead of one-way, most are 2.5m wide which is very narrow for two-way, they did not design junctions properly so these can be harrowing, and much of it was paint that has since worn off. PDX built a lot of painted bike lanes but has very little protected infrastructure.

Both of these saw fairly significant increases due to infrastructure and it aligns with their infrastructure. They built 7% infrastructure and got 7% ridership.

More on Davis & Munich if I get time later.

Jim from Boston

I once read a post on BF, with which I agree, that non-cyclists see street cycling as dangerous from the point of view of a car driver, and indeed, a bicycle does appear as a vulnerable vehicle from the driver’s seat of a heavy duty enclosed car. Yet for me and probably most cyclists, we usually feel pretty safe if attentive to our surroundings.

(Even though I was seriously hit from behind on a very peaceful, wide, low volume, residential street. Nonetheless. I still ride, with heightened "Spidey sense" and particularly rearview mirrors. A rearview mirror is my immediate recommendation to non-cyclists who express such anxieties).

kickstart

Countless sources are available that show the correlation if one chooses to look. If one wants to believe otherwise there are a few sources that will support that too.

I'm on the road 60+ hours a week in the Seattle metropolitan area, its self evident and undeniable.