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Old May 15th 19, 03:53 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
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Posts: 10,538
Default HOW DANGEROUS IS CYCLING? DEPENDS ON WHICH NUMBERS YOU EMPHASISE.

On 5/15/2019 8:41 AM, sms wrote:
On 5/14/2019 9:55 PM, James wrote:

snip

Certainly the crashes that result in injury seem to have increased
significantly more than the increase in participation, however "all
crashes" doesn't seem to have changed much at all.Â* Curious.

It seems as though the severity of the crashes has increased more than
the increase in cyclists.Â* It seems the infra created greater chances
of conflict.


Exactly. you would not expect the number of crashes to increase linearly
with increased traffic, you would expect it to increase at a greater rate.

A 75% increase may be worth a few more non-fatal crashes, and the fact
that fatal crashes went down also needs to be considered.


Fatal crashes dropped from one to zero where that "protected" bike lane
was installed. But fatal bike crashes are extremely rare, and thus it's
absolutely typical for one such crash to be followed by zero.

In my area, we've _never_ had two fatal bike crashes at the same
location. That means every one of this area's fatal crash locations
demonstrated the same result, with no change in infrastructue.
It's amusing when bicycle infrastructure is put in, cycling rates
skyrocket, and someone thinks that this is a bad thing.


Such a liar!

I'm not saying a 75% increase in riding is a bad thing. It proves that
enough "this is safe!" propaganda can lure cyclists onto a facility,
with many of them probably choosing that over the streets they used before.

But if that 75% increase comes with an over 700% increase in crashes,
that is a bad thing. The facility is NOT safer. Those cyclists are at
far greater risk than they were before.

Incidentally, I know a bicycle advocate in Columbus who objected rather
strongly to that "protected" bike lane design. She predicted quite the
crash rate would soar. But even she was surprised at the magnitude of
the increase.

--
- Frank Krygowski
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