www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
Basic Skills for Cyclists 10 Cycling Humor and Tales 11 Bicycling Surveys and Statistics 12 Links to Other Cycling Sites 13 Comments on This Page Is Cycling Dangerous? And it also leads to calls for mandatory helmet laws and for separate bike paths. Some of this fear stems from our own fears of driving cars in traffic among aggressive drivers. But for those who obey the traffic laws, cycling is actually safer than traveling in an automobile. Fearmongering Is a Major Problem Parade, the magazine which comes with the Sunday newspaper, published an article on April 11, 1999, that said One friend of mine is terrified of flying. The other day I saw this friend riding his bicycle in traffic without a helmet. Per miles traveled, bikes rank among the most dangerous forms of transportation. By relying on his "intuitive" assessment of risk, my friend made questionable choices. Opening a book by chance in the library recently, I found an article discussing how we misperceive danger. Fearmongering websites discussing bicycle safety have sprung up everywhere which distort the evidence. There are some published statistics which seem to prove that riding a bike is dangerous. John Pucher and Lewis Dijkstra wrote (in 14 Making Walking and Cycling Safer: Lessons from Europe), "The neglect of pedestrian and bicycling safety in the United States has made these modes dangerous ways of getting around. Pucher and Dijkstra could have used other government statistics instead which make bicycling appear 30 times safer, but they used pessimistic figures in order to argue for the construction of bicycle facilities. My Purpose in Writing This Web Page There is absolutely no way that I can furnish definite proof that bicycling is a safe activity. Those of us who bicycle on a regular basis while following the traffic laws know that it is a safe activity from years of experience, but we are also aware that other cyclists have frequent accidents, we assume due to different behavior. Nor can I do anything to reconcile my various sources of statistics. However, I think I can easily establish that cycling is much less dangerous that what the fearmongers insist and that it has compensating benefits which are more important than the risks involved. I think you will agree when you finish reading this that bicycling is very far from being the dangerous activity that the fearmongers like to make it appear. Why Fear Is Dangerous To some extent, this fear of cycling actually leads to additional deaths. Cycling Deaths Among Children In the 70's, the majority of cycling deaths happened to children. The 1978 NHTSA statistics show clearly the connection between age and death: Fatal Bike Accidents Age Group 1978 1992 1-9 238 109 10-19 422 219 20-29 92 98 30-39 43 117 40-49 16 83 50-59 17 58 60-up 21 93 Unfortunately, I don't have any information about the percentage of adult cyclists on the road in 1978. It could be true that more children rode bikes than adults in 1978, but I doubt it. First, most children ride bikes for only about ten years. Third, the cycling boom among adults had started in the late 60's; I certainly remember seeing more adult cyclists then than I do now. But even if more children were riding bikes than adults, I'm sure the adults were riding many more miles. During this period of time, thousands of adult cyclists were crossing the United States every year on the Bikecentennial trail. Climbing Adult Cycling Fatalities More recent statistics, such as the 1992 figures above, show a surprising change. The proportion of adults getting killed has risen dramatically even though the total number of deaths have dropped. In the early 70's, 2/3rds of the deaths were to children 16 or younger, now 2/3rds are to people older than 16. One important change has been our attitude towards drunken drivers. However, I also believe that there has been a decline in the amount of time that children spend cycling during the same time; I'm afraid that we're raising a generation of couch potatoes. None of these declines can explain the large increase in the number of adults killed while cycling; My experience in traveling by bike around the country tells me that we have a new generation of cyclists who no longer obey the traffic laws, so I think that their behavior is responsible for most of this change. The Importance of Vehicular Cycling You see, those of us who began riding in the 60's and 70's had a strong belief that bicycles should be operated as vehicles. As a result, we adopted the behavior of riding in traffic in a safe, visible, and predictable manner as operators of vehicles, according to the law. The effect of vehicular cycling can be seen in the following statistics from John Forester's Bicycle Transportation (2nd ed, 1994, pg 41): Accidents per Million Miles Child Cyclists 720 College-associated Adults 500 League of American Bicyclists 113 Cyclists' Touring Club of England 66 However, during the mid-80's, there was a shift in the message going out. Many of these newer riders did not learn that they had an equal right to use the road. At the same time, mountain bikes were introduced, making sidewalk riding more practical and making useful road speeds more difficult due to their heavy tires. Now I frequently see adult bike riders riding on the sidewalks, on the wrong (left) side, through red lights and stop signs without even looking, and at night without lights, all violations of the traffic laws and all behavior that they would not do when driving cars. It's quite ironic to see some well-dressed, responsible-looking adult wearing a helmet for safety and ignoring every law and safety rule. It's disgraceful behavior too: Andy and Barney used to arrest even the little kids in Mayberry who rode their bicycles on the sidewalk. Why Sidewalk Cycling is Dangerous People wonder how riding bikes on sidewalks can be dangerous. First, there is a greater chance of minor collisions with cyclists and pedestrians due to poorer visibility and restricted room and also a greater chance of falling down. However, the likelihood of a collision with a motor vehicle also increases. These accidents occur at intersections and driveways, the former more deadly. Unwilling to dismount and often unwilling to wait for the light, the bike rider starts across the intersection parallel to the main road, completely hidden from a turning motorist until the last second, when it's often too late for the motorist to stop. A study of these risks was made in 1994 and showed that sidewalk cycling is almost twice as dangerous as cycling in the street, and cycling against the traffic on the sidewalk is over four times as dangerous as cycling in the street. For a good discussion, see 15 The Dilemmas of Bicycle Planning. Pedestrians are safer than sidewalk cyclists because 1) they are moving more slowly, 2) they can look behind more easily, and 3) they can jump to one side. However, even if these sidewalk cyclists were as safe as pedestrians, they wouldn't be very safe, since seven times as many pedestrians are killed each year as cyclists and since pedestrians have more fatalities per mile of travel than cyclists. But not only does the cyclist have full rights to the road, but the cyclist is also safer on the road than the motorist. To show that accidents are avoidable, here is a list of the most serious kinds of bike-car collisions, the ones most likely to result in death, from a recent study ( 17 Crash-Type Manual for Bicyclists by Carol Tan): 1. In the first, the cyclist pulling out of a driveway has the responsibility of looking both ways and making sure that doing so is safe. Half of these accidents happened to very young children and most to children. In the second, a cyclist turning left in traffic needs to look behind and then move into the correct turning position or lane when it is safe to do so. If the rider is unable or afraid to get into that position, he can ride to the curb, dismount, and walk across. Fear of the third kind of collision, when the cyclist gets struck from the rear, encourages people to ride bikes on sidewalks or on the wrong side of the road. But the cyclist does not have to be the na...
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