Cycling is dangerous

"Ian" wrote in message able.rogers.com...
If you were statistically to compare the danger of driving versus bicycle
riding on a "per mile", "per trip", or "usage" basis, you would find
bicycling to be more dangerous than driving a car.

Not according to the largest risk-consultation company in America.
See http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/comparat.html


The 37,000 fatalities in cars versus 662 bicyclists, when calculated "per
mile", "pre trip", or "usage", I would imagine make bicycling look extremely
bad.

Example: 25 years of car driving, approx: 750,000 miles driven, one
fender-bender, no scratches, no anything. Bicycling, 25 years, 75,000 miles,
approx: 15 mishaps, amounting in numerous road rash incidents, a broken
nose, leg, arm, twisted ankles, stuff like that. That's a 150:1 that the
cyclist will suffer a form of injury versus driving a car.

You don't make clear what this "example" is. Is it a collection of
hypothetical numbers? Or is it your own personal experience? Or is
it the experience of one cyclist you happen to know?

If it's any of those, it's essentially worthless. One data point
tells nothing, because any other data point can be used as equivalent
rebuttal.

For another example, my experience is this:

Bicycling, roughly 48 years, no telling how many miles (well over
50,000), four countries, hundreds of cities, many long tours. One
on-road moving fall at about 3 mph which scraped my knee and tore my
winter dress glove and jacket. Oh, and I guess I fell a few times
when I was a kid. I have a dim memory of some scrapes or scratches on
my leg.

By comparison, I did catch my finger in a car door, and I've hit my
head getting into a car. The finger was definitely painful.

My motorcycle experience is similar - two parking lot falls at 3 mph,
no injuries. And my walking: One significant knee injury while
hiking.

My point? Any single set of experiences is too limited to be useful
for this evaluation. In fact, it turns out that cycling fatalities
are so rare that it's hard to reach good conclusions - except to
conclude that they're rare, of course!

- Frank Krygowski

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
om...

For another example, my experience is this:

Bicycling, roughly 48 years, no telling how many miles (well over
50,000), four countries, hundreds of cities, many long tours. One
on-road moving fall at about 3 mph which scraped my knee and tore my
winter dress glove and jacket. Oh, and I guess I fell a few times
when I was a kid. I have a dim memory of some scrapes or scratches on
my leg.

That's fantastic. Out of curiosity, do you wear a helmet?

Recently I rode too far and was over-tired coming home and ended up flying
over my handlebars after slamming on my brakes to avoid a head-on with a
slow-moving bus pulling out from the right, but didn't get a scratch
(somehow I managed to do some kind of cart-wheel move--don't ask me how I
got out of the pedals).

But the worst thing in my memory was a near-miss from about a month ago that
wasn't my fault: some guy ran a red light going about 40MPH. If I had been a
little quicker out of the stop light, I would have been spattered between
him and the car next to me, which he barely missed. This has made me very
cautious going through intersections. I like to wait for the traffic to
begin flowing before I go through. You really have to assume that some
driver is going to do something stupid.

Based on my experience I would guess that at least half of cycling accidents
are the fault of the cyclist, and perhaps half of the other half were
preventable by the cyclist practicing defensive riding. Is cycling
dangerous? If your riding skills aren't strong enough for what you're doing,
or you ride on the road with those crazy drivers it is.


Shayne Wissler

Garry Jones wrote in message ...
How do you meet that remark in a constructive manner?

I am trying to answer an fairly active recreational cyclist who has made
this claim in the Swedish cycling newsgroup.

Try:

"Cycling is dangerous. However wearing a helmet is an added measure of
safety."


I don't think he is correct and I would like some facts and data that
back up my thoughts about this. The cyclist who posted this says he
always wears his helmet, even when cycling to the local store for some
bananas. He is an active sky diver, but does not wear his helmet then
because he has time to protect his head with his hands if necessary when
landing.

Please point out to him that in many cases skydivers are spun around
enough to cause them to black out. Kind of hard to protect your head
with your hands when unconsious.

snip

Sadly the most important factor in this whole equation is whether or
not it will be enforced. Here in the US the only cycling laws that are
enforced are the ones that create a danger to other people. ie. Riding
on the sidewalk, going through red lights etc. If the law is not
enforced then it will have a small impact.


My $0.02
Andy

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...
Robert Chambers wrote:

Should car riders be mindful of the potential dangers? Certainly. Is
car riding "dangerous"? Not so much that people should wear protective
gear, apparently!

In my car I have seat belts and multiple air bags. These safety devices do
not encourage me to drive dangerously.

And now here is my question, has wearing a helmet on a bicycle ever killed
or seriously injured someone? In other words, except for the helmet, they
would still be alive today.

Matthew

On 15 Oct 2003 11:09:52 -0700, (Frank Krygowski)
wrote:
Not according to the largest risk-consultation company in America.
See http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/comparat.html

That chart is found on an anti-helmet website. How about a neutral
site, not about bicycling at all? Yes, you'll say that it was done
by an independent company, but an independent company can be biased
or wrong easily enough; and an anti-helmet site would post only data
by such a company. It's even easy enough for such a company to
gather broken data by accident, not knowing about bicycling.

Even by that chart, hunting is safer; and the much-cited sleeping,
showering, etc, falls under "Home Living, active & passive
(sleeping)", which is much safer, though anti-helmet people put
those items forth as being more dangerous because more accidents
happen per year.

And, even comparing cycling to passenger cars using the data from
that chart, since you believe it is so incredibly dangerous to
drive, then, it is more than half as dangerous to bicycle; still
reason to wear safety equipment, if you believe it should be worn in
cars.

What does this category mean:
Living (all causes of death)
Apparently, living an hour at all is many times more dangerous than
bicycling AND passenger cars.

Also, that chart only shows fatalities, not injuries; injuries do
matter.

My point? Any single set of experiences is too limited to be useful

Just as a generalized statistic, covering all riders of all ages who
ride at all styles in all environments, is not applicable to an
individual riding with his own style in his own environment.

- Frank Krygowski
--
Rick Onanian

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:33:04 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:



But the worst thing in my memory was a near-miss from about a month ago that
wasn't my fault: some guy ran a red light going about 40MPH.

Somehow, drivers have come to believe that the yellow light means
"Floor it, it's about to turn red" and the red light means "You have
about ten seconds to get through the intersection". When I was
stationed in Texas, the first thing I was told was to count on that
when driving, and wait a few seconds after the light turned green
before heading into the "no-man's land" that is an intersection when
the lights change. If you watch some lights now, there's a brief
period when the light is red in ALL direcitons to compensate for this,
as though engineering could compensate for stupidity.

A neighboring state had an informal quiz on traffic laws. One of the
questions concerned merging into a freeway. Half the respondents said
it was the responsibility of those merging to blend smoothly into
traffic. The other half said it was the responsibility of those on
the freeway to get over and "make room" for those merging. It's my
observation in my travels that those people frequently meet at
on-ramps. My favorite thing is a solid bumper-to-bumper stream of
cars moving along an on-ramp as though they've become a train and
everyone will get out of their way.

It's become a much more dangerous world, with more and more drivers
driving as though they'd been pithed.

Garry Jones wrote in message ...

How do you meet that remark in a constructive manner?

I am trying to answer an fairly active recreational cyclist who has made
this claim in the Swedish cycling newsgroup.

I don't think he is correct and I would like some facts and data that
back up my thoughts about this.

Tom Kunich used to post statistics from a company called, I think, Failure
Analysis. It was a comparison of death rates for common activities (and some
uncommon ones), including riding a bike,driving/riding in a car, swimming,
sleeping, skydiving, exposure to cosmic rays, etc. The statistics were
compiled for the use of the insurance industry.

Unfortunately, i don't have the information handy, but you might contact Tom,
or someone else might have it.

The stats showed that the risk of death per hour of cycling was slightly
less than the risk of death per hour of driving or riding in a car.
In other words, it's about as dangerous as something that most of us
(well, many of us, depending where you live) do every day without even
thinking about danger.

Skydiving was one of the most dangerous in risk of death per hour.

When someone tells me cycling is dangerous, I reply that it is about as
dangerous as riding in a car, something that many of us do every day.
The person is usually surprised to hear this. It may not change anyone's
mind, but it makes them think a bit.


The cyclist who posted this says he
always wears his helmet, even when cycling to the local store for some
bananas.

That does him no harm, though it probably does no good either.

He is an active sky diver, but does not wear his helmet then
because he has time to protect his head with his hands if necessary when
landing.

Oh, THAT is ridiculous. He's just kidding himself. If he's falling out
of the sky and about to land on his head, interposing a HAND is going to
protect his head? (I can't imagine a helmet would help much in that
kind of accident, either.) He just doesn't want to admit that skydiving is
in fact more dangerous than most other activities, because then he'd
no longer feel OK about doing it.


Stella

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Ian wrote:

If you were statistically to compare the danger of driving versus
bicycle
riding on a "per mile", "per trip", or "usage" basis, you would find
bicycling to be more dangerous than driving a car.

You need to compare on a per hour of use basis, since per mile or per trip
(which still has a per mile of comparison component to it) doesn't
normalize
for differences in exposure to danger.

Say I ride 15 miles in one hour. The car covers that distance in perhaps
10-30 minutes. So while I'm pedaling home from my ride, still exposed to
being run down by someone, the car user is sitting on the sofa watching
TV, with his danger of being in a car accident being nil.

Pretty much the same for that one trip: by car, 15 minutes; by bike, 60.

Not a fair comparison.


SMH

Per hour of use weighs unfavourably against the car. That one hour for a
motorist can mean multiple trips, many miles, many lights, stop signs, many
other drivers, I do not agree that it normalizes to the extent that it
produces a fair comparison.

I tend to believe comparing cars to bikes to be like comparing apples to
oranges, they are 2 totally different beasts with more different about them
than they have in common. Why not compare biking to walking?

In article ,
says...
Garry Jones wrote in message ...

How do you meet that remark in a constructive manner?

I am trying to answer an fairly active recreational cyclist who has made
this claim in the Swedish cycling newsgroup.

I don't think he is correct and I would like some facts and data that
back up my thoughts about this.

Tom Kunich used to post statistics from a company called, I think, Failure
Analysis. It was a comparison of death rates for common activities (and some
uncommon ones), including riding a bike,driving/riding in a car, swimming,
sleeping, skydiving, exposure to cosmic rays, etc. The statistics were
compiled for the use of the insurance industry.

Unfortunately, i don't have the information handy, but you might contact Tom,
or someone else might have it.

The stats showed that the risk of death per hour of cycling was slightly
less than the risk of death per hour of driving or riding in a car.
In other words, it's about as dangerous as something that most of us
(well, many of us, depending where you live) do every day without even
thinking about danger.

Skydiving was one of the most dangerous in risk of death per hour.

When someone tells me cycling is dangerous, I reply that it is about as
dangerous as riding in a car, something that many of us do every day.
The person is usually surprised to hear this. It may not change anyone's
mind, but it makes them think a bit.


The cyclist who posted this says he
always wears his helmet, even when cycling to the local store for some
bananas.

That does him no harm, though it probably does no good either.

He is an active sky diver, but does not wear his helmet then
because he has time to protect his head with his hands if necessary when
landing.

Oh, THAT is ridiculous. He's just kidding himself. If he's falling out
of the sky and about to land on his head, interposing a HAND is going to
protect his head? (I can't imagine a helmet would help much in that
kind of accident, either.) He just doesn't want to admit that skydiving is
in fact more dangerous than most other activities, because then he'd
no longer feel OK about doing it.

Of course if your chute doesn't open, having a helmet on will make not
any difference to your survival.

However, having a couple of friends who are skydivers, they tell me
that most non-fatal injuries come when they misjudge their distance
from the ground and don't flare at the correct time, causing them to
either hit too fast (if they flare too late) or fall backwards (if
they flare too soon). The other common problem is with excessive
winds at ground level, making it difficult to control their approach
speed. In any of those more-likely cases, a helmet would probably
help about as much as it would on a bike because you're falling down
or being dragged over the ground at some semi-reasonable speed.

--
Dave Kerber
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In article
e.rogers.com,
says...

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Ian wrote:

If you were statistically to compare the danger of driving versus
bicycle
riding on a "per mile", "per trip", or "usage" basis, you would find
bicycling to be more dangerous than driving a car.

You need to compare on a per hour of use basis, since per mile or per trip
(which still has a per mile of comparison component to it) doesn't
normalize
for differences in exposure to danger.

Say I ride 15 miles in one hour. The car covers that distance in perhaps
10-30 minutes. So while I'm pedaling home from my ride, still exposed to
being run down by someone, the car user is sitting on the sofa watching
TV, with his danger of being in a car accident being nil.

Pretty much the same for that one trip: by car, 15 minutes; by bike, 60.

Not a fair comparison.


SMH

Per hour of use weighs unfavourably against the car. That one hour for a
motorist can mean multiple trips, many miles, many lights, stop signs, many
other drivers, I do not agree that it normalizes to the extent that it
produces a fair comparison.

An hour on the bike for me also probably means many trips and lights,
though fewer miles. I wonder what the result would be if you compared
injuries per trip, with each time you left your driveway and returned
counting as one trip.

I tend to believe comparing cars to bikes to be like comparing apples to
oranges, they are 2 totally different beasts with more different about them
than they have in common. Why not compare biking to walking?

It would probably give roughly the same relative results as comparing
bikes to cars, since the relative speeds are roughly comparable.

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.