How Safe Is Cycling?

theodp writes "With new bike sharing programs all the rage, spending tens of millions of dollars to make city streets more bike friendly with hundreds of miles of bike lanes has become a priority for bike-loving mayors like NYC's Michael Bloomberg and Chicago's Rahm Emanuel. 'You cannot be for a startup, high-tech economy and not be pro-bike,' claimed Emanuel, who credited bike-sharing and bike lanes for attracting Google and Motorola Mobility to downtown Chicago. Now, with huge bike-sharing contracts awarded and programs underway, the NY Times asks the big question, How Safe Is Cycling? Because bike accidents rarely make front page news and are likely to be dramatically underreported, it's hard to say, concludes the NYT's Gina Kolata. UCSF trauma surgeon Dr. Rochelle Dicker, who studied hospital and police records for 2,504 bicyclists treated at San Francisco General Hospital, told Kolata,'Lots of my colleagues do not want to ride after seeing these [city biking] injuries.' On the other hand, Andy Pruitt, the founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and an avid lifelong cyclist, said the dangers were overstated, noting he's only broken his collarbone twice and hip once in four decades of long-distance cycling. So, is cycling safe, especially in the city? And is it OK to follow Mayor Emanuel's lead and lose the helmet?"

Comments

How safe?

[nospam007]

Google is your friend, it can show you every last killed and injured biker.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/Bicycles
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811743.pdf

OTOH there are 89 car related deaths each and every day in the US, those too do not make the front page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Re:How safe?

[Beardo the Bearded]

Okay, when I did an analysis of US stats last year, I found that cyclists are:

1% of traffic
2% of traffic injuries and fatalities

You're more likely to get seriously hurt when you get into an accident on a bike. That's just obvious, since you're cruising around in nothing but skintanium. There's no way -- none -- that a bike is going to come out ahead in a collision with a motorized vehicle. A fight with someone that's got 20 pounds on you is one-sided, so imagine a fight against someone that's got 2 tons on you and is made out of steel. This is why, when I bike, I assume that I never ever, under any circumstances ever, ever think that I have the right of way. A bike never has the right of way. I say this because of the laws of physics -- if a delivery van blows a stop sign and t-bones you, he can hose down his van and get back to work tomorrow. If you're really, really lucky and you have good medical care, you might be able to pee on your own in a couple of months. So whose fault is it? Who cares? As the cyclist, you're always "all in" when you're biking, so you always assume that every accident is your fault.

I started biking to school 17 years and 90 pounds ago. I bike to work 4/5 days a week unless it's snowing. (I don't bike when it's snowing; it's too dangerous with the cars out there, and on Thursdays I jog in.) In all that time, I've been hit one time. A woman on a road bike that was drafting behind me. A car was approaching the intersection (they have a stop) but they were approaching a little too fast for my liking. I hit my brakes, and they're tuned to stop my bike from full speed to stopped in about 2 meters. She couldn't stop nearly that well, and she rear-ended me. She tacoed her wheel and broke one of my rear lights. A lot of close calls, drivers that don't pay attention, but I pay enough attention for both of us.

Ironically, I do have a spinal injury, but I was hours away from the closest car when I got it.

Re:How safe?

[emj]

While I'm sure it's a good book I don't think you summary is right in anyway. First of all most bicycle accidents leading to serisou injury (at least a day in hospital) happen only to the cyclist, with no one else involved. The biggest cause of accidents is bad infrastructure and maintainance, i.e. gravel on the bicycle lane, or other surprises such as tight curves .

It's of course possible that things are completely different here in Sweden, and it's also possible to blame this on the cyclist saying that bad judgement is the cause of these accidents, but you have to put it in a perspective you do not have the same types of problems in car lanes, no one would dig a hole in the middle of the road without giving motorist lots of warning and protection. This happens quite often in bicycle infrastructure.

These are stats from Sweden
27% can be related to operation and maintenance
20% to road design
27% to cyclist-bicycle interaction
15% to the behaviour and state of the cyclist,
11% to the interaction of the cyclist with other road users

Re:How safe?

[JoeDuncan]

...effectively the injury/death rate is mostly effected by poor decisions by the cyclist, not the car.

This is incorrect. In any study regarding bike-car collisions I have seen, the overwhelming majority of them are caused by motorist negligence. Take a look at this study by the City of Toronto based on police reports:

http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/

It shows something like @83% of bike-car collisions were caused by the motorist, not the cyclist. This basic finding has been replicated in many other cities as well. I can't find the link at the moment, but IIRC it was like 90%+ caused by motorists in NYC.

An important distinction

[gweilo8888]

It will show you every last *reported* injured biker. That's a very big and important distinction. Equally important is how many of those injuries were on public roads. Whether or not some kid on an off-road course injured himself is of little importance.

Re:only?

[frinkster]

he's only broken his collarbone twice and hip once

Only? That sounds like proof of concept rather than a proof of overstatement.

If you were to see the actual quote, you may feel differently:

Dr. Pruitt cites his own example. Now 62, he was a bicycle racer and has been riding for the past four decades. He covers 5,000 to 10,000 miles a year.

In all that time, he has had four serious crashes. He broke his collarbone twice while racing and had two crashes on a mountain bike, breaking a hip one time and spraining a wrist the other.

This is a worthless data point.

context

[themushroom]

He broke his collarbone twice while racing and had two crashes on a mountain bike

Okay, you get the win on this one. Slashdot description is deceptive; thanks for the clarification these injuries were not in the street use the article is about.

Re:Please

[spike hay]

Motorcycle helmets actually offer good protection, while bicycle helmets don't. For any impact over about 10 mph, they are not going to signifcantly reduce the peak accelerations your brain experiences (it's your brain sloshing that does the damage). I guess they can prevent lacerations, but that's about it. Helmet advocates always quote a study from the 1980s (funded by helmet manufacturers) that showed an 84% reduction in brain injuries, but other work has not borne this out. (example)

Wearing a helmet is applying a different standard to risk than we do in many other situations. Cycling is actually slightly safer per mile than walking, yet we don't make peds wear helmets. Just the same, we could make drivers wear helmets just like race car drivers do. That would actually prevent a huge number of deaths. But we don't. So why are cyclists singled out to wear the safety yarmulkes?

As an additional point, helment laws are actually terrible for cycling safety. After Australia made helmets mandatory, cycling went down 1/3 overnight. Fewer cyclists means drivers are less likely to expect them. In addition, there is evidence that cyclists wearing helments engage in riskier behavior as a form of risk-compensation.