On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 2:14:18 PM UTC+1, duane wrote:
On 13/05/2019 6:27 p.m., Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 5:33:52 PM UTC-4, Andre Jute wrote:
On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 5:31:26 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 3:59:57 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
Here's my analysis of US national bicycle safety, published in 2010.* Nothing significant has changed since then.

***
HOW DANGEROUS IS CYCLING?
Surprisingly, cycling can be argued to be "safe enough", given only
that one is willing to count the intangible benefits of health through
exercise, generally acknowledged as substantial. Here I shall make no
effort to quantify those health benefits because the argument I'm
putting forward is conclusively made by harder statistics and
unexceptional general morality.

In the representative year of 2008, the last for which comprehesive
data is available, 716 cyclists died on US roads, and 52,000 were
injured.

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The most convenient way to grasp the meaning of these statistics is to
compare cycling with motoring, the latter ipso facto by motorists'
average mileage accepted by most Americans as safe enough.

Compared to a motorist a cyclist is:
11 times MORE likely to die PER MILE travelled
2.9 times MORE likely to die PER TRIP taken

By adding information about the relative frequency/length/duration of
journeys of cyclists and motorists, we can further conclude that in
the US:

Compared to a motorist, a cyclist is:
3 to 4 times MORE likely to die PER HOUR riding
3 to 4 times LESS likely to die IN A YEAR's riding

Source:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=htt...Wt7vubH xju7Q

It is the last number, that the average cyclist is 3 to 4 times less
likely to die in a year's riding than a motorist, and enjoys all the
benefits of healthy exercise, that permits us to ignore the greater
per mile/per trip/per hour danger.

***

Andre Jute
* A complete version is at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!ms...ch/qOFCNhQ1428 . I used the best national figures available then, referring to 2008, but just about nothing has changed since then.

My experience shows nothing of the kind.

You can't argue with the official national numbers, Tom.

Though I DO have motorists acting in a threatening manner quite often after some 40 years of cycling I have been hit by ONE car. And that at a very low rate of speed so that I was more sore from contact from the ground than damage by the car.

In the random nature of statistical calculation, if there is one chance in a million of your being hit, and you're hit today, that does mean you can't be hit tomorrow as well

I watched Andrew's video on "taking the lane" and you can SEE that in these cases these drivers were breaking the law in every case and in all but one I don't think that any actions taken by the rider would have prevented it other than by being more observant and FAR more willing to modify their speed to allow these obviously stupid drivers to go regardless of right-of-way.

These numbers that I'm offering don't differentiate the causes of the incidents leading to the fatalities.

I think that the "dangerous" bicycle statistics come entirely from people that do not know how to ride correctly, ride on the wrong side of the road against traffic, ride on sidewalks veering out into traffic in an unpredictable manner and the like. This is somewhat similar to cars being made to look far less safe than they are because of the dangerous driving habits of a very few.

Sure, but again, these are the national official figures I'm working with, and they're a compilation of actual deaths on the road, not a sample, not anyone's opinion of the danger, but the hard facts of dead cyclists, 700 and some dead cyclists.

I made the original post because Frank Krygowski understated how safe cycling is, even as he screeched that other people were shouting "Danger! Danger!", as he still does in the forlorn hope of shutting up conversation.

Andre Jute
Numerate

With regards to statistics. I think British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said it best: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

The problem with statistics seems to be that one can pick and choose which ones to use to support their position.

Cheers


Like touting that the accident rate went up drastically (whatever
drastically means) but not mentioning that cycling participation
(whatever participation means) went up 75%?

That's politics, not statistics, and a pretty low class of politics at that.. A more sophisticated trick, much practised by the Climate Alarm Mob, is choosing a reference period to favour your "preferred narrative" rather than the objective general truth the numbers point to when compared to longterm cycles. Even more sophisticated is using log-log graph paper to either highlight or de-emphasize a huge change, and simply outright crookery is taking the graph and the scale away to leave only the misleading trend lines.

That sort of film-flam is easily seen through, and easily fixed by demanding that all results be normalised to an agreed reference, like the easily understood "fatalities per 100 million kilometres" that James uses, and insisting on seeing the raw numbers rather than the graph.

In any event, if "participation" increased 75% from some non-negligible base, I would expect the accident rate expressed on some agreed reference to fall because of your next point:

Assuming the statistics were well formed, it would be interesting to
compare the rate of increased cycling to the rate of increased
accidents. Most white papers that I've read regarding participation
indicate increased participation reduces percentage of accidents.

James's numbers claim that one in seven Australians cycle over two hours a week, but that the fatalities remain stable, whereas less serious incidents have increased. He thinks it possible that the increased cycling is by people "without ninja skills" taking up bicycle commuting. Another possible explanation is that drivers see more cyclists and therefore have perceived a need to come to terms with them, hence the average incident seriousness has been lowered. Maybe there's the small beginnings of a cycling culture (which has attitudinal advantages among even non-cyclists, as in The Netherlands) in Australia. I won't be betting my own money on it just yet, but one in 7 Australians cycling is, if true, at the very least a pointer to an amazing future for the Big Country.

Andre Jute
Potential