4 ms·

eBikes are sincerely a great alternative to cars for me. I've been using an electric bike (Stromer ST1) for about 3 years now in LA and Boston. It makes perfect

eBikes are sincerely a great alternative to cars for me. I've been using an electric bike (Stromer ST1) for about 3 years now in LA and Boston. It makes perfect sense for these cities. The total cost of ownership is way below a car, due to the low cost of Uber, other people with cars, insurance and gas. In high traffic and hard parking cities like LA and Boston, I get to my destination faster. And though a bicycle is almost 7x as dangerous per mile ridden, I travel much less—maybe 1,000 miles a year instead of the 15,000 I did by car. While the weather is a problem in Boston sometimes, some gloves and a warm coat tide it over well. Besides, who wants to drive in a snowstorm? Overall, the experience holds up to close scrutiny. Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles. And in LA, I nonetheless still owned a $1,000 Toyota with a $50/mo insurance and low hundreds in parking tickets to keep it outside. While that ownership was only a small part of time, it was necessary. eBikes I think can really effectively complement ride sharing and car sharing. It will save everyone money. And as more people adopt them, the danger of biking will decline through changes in infrastructure like bike lanes and lower speed limits. Ironically, probably the least persuasive thing is pointing out how the Chinese adopt eBikes. Americans don't want to emulate Chinese anything. It needs to seem cool, organic, high class. Besides, a $3,500 eBike won't break when you come to a fast stop the way a $500 eBike conversion will. Better to keep it safe and expensive than mass manufactured and dangerous.

csours 10y ago
Only 7x dangerous? I assumed it was like 100x... Is that 7x incidents or serious injury? It would also be interesting to see it expressed in hours rather than miles.
- loeg 10y ago
  I would also guess it is much higher than 7x on a per-mile basis.
- fulafel 10y ago
  Walking must be practically suicidal by that measure.
  - csours 10y ago
    You don't usually walk next to traffic; where I live, if you bike anywhere for transportation it is next to dangerous idiots driving death machines (Texas).
jean_claude 10y ago
What's your source on the claim that bicycling is 7x more dangerous than driving a car? Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists. Fatalities Per Mile Motor Vehicle Travel.................... Bicycle Travel 42,000 killed........................... 813 killed 2.56 trillion miles..................... 21 billion miles 0.016 fatalities per million miles...... 0.039 fatalities per million miles Data from Traffic Safety Facts 1997 and The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking Pulled from http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages...
- cb18 10y ago
  most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders Similar things can be said for driving, in that motor vehicle accidents are concentrated in certain segments of the population, (and people having unlucky interactions with those segments.) Though this niggle of the statistics is more of an issue with bicycling statistics because the bicyclists who know more or less what they are doing get lumped in with the accident rates of people like the "DUI bicyclist" riding home after dark with no lights into oncoming traffic, or terrible tragedies of people driving carelessly through neighborhoods and running over little kids on their bikes. Then consider, even if we had statistics showing moderately higher injury/death rates for comparable travel styles with a bike opposed to a car, the overall mortality rates in the bike vs car cohorts would no doubt be reversed because of the physical activity vs sitting factor, and likely lower stress levels of the cyclists. Physical activity tends to reduce stress.
- nl 10y ago
  Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists. Unsure about deaths, but it turns out that more experienced cyclists are actually more likely to be injured, even taking into account that experienced cyclists generally ride more. I can't find the paper now, but [1] shows a similar finding: accidents were associated with.... cycling experience (curvilinear association) [1] https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1356866 https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1356866
kgermino 10y ago
Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles. Where are you getting that from? Car specific taxes generally don't even come close to paying for roads, especially the roads bicycles are likely to be using. In the US its actually far more likely that you're subsidizing them than the other way around.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  I think most of the cost of local roads is paid for from regular taxes. Not to mention that the capital and maintenance cost of roads depends very heavily on the weight of the vehicles using it. cough trucks cough Freeways are very expensive because the DOT requires them to be able to carry commercial trucks[1]. [1] Santa Clara country, paid to extend HWY85 out of their own pocket and as a result, trucks are banned. Last time I drove it, it was still seemed in good shape after mumble twenty years. Compare with HWY880 though Oakland CA. Always being worked on, always broken up.
_ph_ 10y ago
The question is also, how dangerous would biking be, without the car related accidents? If there were proper biking zones, not bike paths, lanes, but streets reserved for biking and pedestrian purposes, how dangerous would biking still be? And that does not take into account the health differences because of the beneficial effects of biking.
masklinn 10y ago
> Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles Why would you think that? The usual estimation for road wear is a fourth power law: scaling of road damage is axle load raised to the fourth power. You on your bike may be 100kg on 2 axles, or an axle load of 0.05T. A model S has an axle load of 1T (2T over 2 axles), which means a Model S generates 160000 times the road wear a bike does. Incidentally, a loaded 18-wheeler (36T, 5 axles) generates ~1 billion times the road wear a bike does (and ~6700 time the tesla's)

csours 10y ago

Only 7x dangerous? I assumed it was like 100x... Is that 7x incidents or serious injury? It would also be interesting to see it expressed in hours rather than miles.

loeg 10y ago
I would also guess it is much higher than 7x on a per-mile basis.
fulafel 10y ago
Walking must be practically suicidal by that measure.
- csours 10y ago
  You don't usually walk next to traffic; where I live, if you bike anywhere for transportation it is next to dangerous idiots driving death machines (Texas).

jean_claude 10y ago

What's your source on the claim that bicycling is 7x more dangerous than driving a car? Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists. Fatalities Per Mile Motor Vehicle Travel.................... Bicycle Travel 42,000 killed........................... 813 killed 2.56 trillion miles..................... 21 billion miles 0.016 fatalities per million miles...... 0.039 fatalities per million miles Data from Traffic Safety Facts 1997 and The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking Pulled from http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages...

cb18 10y ago
most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders Similar things can be said for driving, in that motor vehicle accidents are concentrated in certain segments of the population, (and people having unlucky interactions with those segments.) Though this niggle of the statistics is more of an issue with bicycling statistics because the bicyclists who know more or less what they are doing get lumped in with the accident rates of people like the "DUI bicyclist" riding home after dark with no lights into oncoming traffic, or terrible tragedies of people driving carelessly through neighborhoods and running over little kids on their bikes. Then consider, even if we had statistics showing moderately higher injury/death rates for comparable travel styles with a bike opposed to a car, the overall mortality rates in the bike vs car cohorts would no doubt be reversed because of the physical activity vs sitting factor, and likely lower stress levels of the cyclists. Physical activity tends to reduce stress.
nl 10y ago
Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists. Unsure about deaths, but it turns out that more experienced cyclists are actually more likely to be injured, even taking into account that experienced cyclists generally ride more. I can't find the paper now, but [1] shows a similar finding: accidents were associated with.... cycling experience (curvilinear association) [1] https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1356866 https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1356866

kgermino 10y ago

Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles. Where are you getting that from? Car specific taxes generally don't even come close to paying for roads, especially the roads bicycles are likely to be using. In the US its actually far more likely that you're subsidizing them than the other way around.

Gibbon1 10y ago
I think most of the cost of local roads is paid for from regular taxes. Not to mention that the capital and maintenance cost of roads depends very heavily on the weight of the vehicles using it. cough trucks cough Freeways are very expensive because the DOT requires them to be able to carry commercial trucks[1]. [1] Santa Clara country, paid to extend HWY85 out of their own pocket and as a result, trucks are banned. Last time I drove it, it was still seemed in good shape after mumble twenty years. Compare with HWY880 though Oakland CA. Always being worked on, always broken up.

_ph_ 10y ago

The question is also, how dangerous would biking be, without the car related accidents? If there were proper biking zones, not bike paths, lanes, but streets reserved for biking and pedestrian purposes, how dangerous would biking still be? And that does not take into account the health differences because of the beneficial effects of biking.

masklinn 10y ago

> Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles Why would you think that? The usual estimation for road wear is a fourth power law: scaling of road damage is axle load raised to the fourth power. You on your bike may be 100kg on 2 axles, or an axle load of 0.05T. A model S has an axle load of 1T (2T over 2 axles), which means a Model S generates 160000 times the road wear a bike does. Incidentally, a loaded 18-wheeler (36T, 5 axles) generates ~1 billion times the road wear a bike does (and ~6700 time the tesla's)