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Bicycling: The Safest Form of Transportation

• ill0gicity 10y ago
  Regardless of all the statistics, math, and you-live-longers in this I have to disagree. Maybe I'm just an incredibly lucky driver (zero collisions) and a disaster-magnet on a bicycle (40 year old woman driving an SUV (SF), 33 year old man driving delivery van (SF), drunk driver (Sunnyvale), 92 year old driving a van (Sunnyvale)), but I know where I feel safe. That said, I still love to ride my bike.
  • ill0gicity 10y ago
    Oh and let's be clear: extending your life and saving you money do not make you safer.
  • takk309 10y ago
    It would be interesting to see these stats for non-fatal accidents. One issue with bicycle safety analysis is that non-fatal crashes tend to be under reported. For example, in Montana a crash is reported to the State only if there is a fatality or the cost in damages exceeds $1,000. I have been hit by a car while on my bike and the damages only came to $700 (I had no physical damage).
  • phyzome 10y ago
    You have to separate out what feels safe from what is safe; our intuition isn't always up to the task of sorting that out. (There's the usual example of airplane travel being very safe, but people being scared of it.) I bet there's also some complexity here around incidents vs. injuries vs. deaths.
    • ZeroGravitas 10y ago
      Another complexity is that one thing that makes a big difference to cyclist's safety, is the number of people who cycle, so you can have a vicious or virtuous cycle of people taking up cycling and making it safer, or people giving up cycling and making it less safe.
  • rhinoceraptor 10y ago
    The most common types of car-bike collisions are some sort of scenario where the car fails to yield. If you know that, you can prevent a lot of them. For instance, never assume that a car turning left across your lane will yield.
    • endemic 10y ago
      Very accurate. Pretend that car drivers cannot see you, and act accordingly.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • mikeash 10y ago
    Looking at a single individual is completely uninformative for rare risks like car crashes. The average driver in the US has a very roughly 5% chance of being involved in a car crash each year. If you've been driving for 50 years (just an example, no idea how long you've been on the road!) then you'd expect to have been involved in two or three crashes by that time, but there's also about an 8% chance that you've never been in a crash.
• Sumaso 10y ago
  I used to read a lot of these articles, but the assumptions were just too silly for me. there is no assumption about amount of extra time it takes to ride the bike. Somehow riding a bike gains you money, when in fact its the cost of driving the car that should increase instead, and the riding of the bike should be some trivial number per mile (cost of bike maintenance). etc... The argument might be valid but its presentation is just silly.
  • rhinoceraptor 10y ago
    Riding a bike in dense urban areas is not much (or at all) slower if you are reasonably fit. Traffic lights will take away a lot of the advantage that cars have.
    • marcosdumay 10y ago
      Traffic lights stop bicycles too. And pedestrians.
      • rz2k 10y ago
        If traffic lights stopped bicyclists, I wouldn't think they are such a nuisance. Transportation in Manhattan used to be a solved problem with walking + subways. I applaud someone getting exercise, but I wish that during their recreation they wouldn't plow into pedestrians who actually need to get somewhere. </rant>
      • rhinoceraptor 10y ago
        Yes, but it's often the case that a cyclist will catch back up to a car that hits a red light.
        • roninb 10y ago
          Most cyclists in my area (a significant portion of the transient population is college students) tend to forget that bikes must also follow the rules of the road. My small city is seeing a huge increase in bike paths between the downtown parks, the universities, and other cultural landmarks, closeby. From what I've seen (which is, of course, anecdotal) it's done pretty much nothing. Cyclists still ride on the road next to the bike lanes and still ignore most traffic signals. I'm all for less pollution and staying in shape, but I can't really get behind building infrastructure for a community who are making the road significantly more dangerous. Not to mention the... interesting(?) conversations you'll have if you ever try to argue against specific[+] dedicated bike lanes or mention that cyclists compulsively break the law under the guise of "safety." [+] as in, "Since Smith is 2 lanes each direction with a dedicated turn lane and is parallel to and has the same speed limit as Mimosa, while Mimosa cuts through several residential neighborhoods, has the same speed limit but is one lane each way with no dedicated turn lane: Why not Smith St. instead of Mimosa Ln.?" perhaps they have a problem with my runons, not my ideas :P
• deleted 10y ago
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• Bartweiss 10y ago
  This is disgustingly sloppy. I'm not opposed to rough approximation, but every number present here has crippling, unaddressed confounders. - The per-hour evaluation is obviously bad. Per-mile numbers are present and more sane, but a vague handwave at 'unnecessary driving' is used to justify focusing on the prettier, less sensible number. - Driving at 70 MPH versus biking at 12 MPH is a ludicrous point of comparison. If you're traveling at 70 MPH, you're almost certainly driving somewhere that you couldn't realistically bike. Driving 4 hours to a family gathering is reasonable in a way that biking 20 hours on the highway is not. - The risk numbers are only appealing because of this absurd conflation. Americans get killed in cars because of drunk/distracted/sleepy drivers, and because highway speeds are life-threatening. At city-commuter speeds, a driver can likely survive a head-on with a bus. - The bicycling numbers are similarly absurd. The audience for this piece, and the group most likely to cycle for their commute, is an audience living in dense cities. Boston and San Francisco are far, far more dangerous cycling locations than residential, sidewalk biking included in these values. - The cherrypicking here is fundamentally dishonest. This is a 2013 piece that uses 2010 bicycling risk numbers. Why? Because 2010 was the safest year for bicyclists in two decades. I could go on, but suffice to say that "that’s the worst case" is simply a lie. It is far better than the best case, because these are complete incomparables.
  • Retric 10y ago
    Taking parking into consideration it's often faster to bike < 5 miles in a city than drive that distance. For longer distances Trains and then Aircraft win.
    • kkylin 10y ago
      I wish that were true here in the US: the train is a reasonable option only in certain regions, e.g., the northeast corridor.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      It's pretty tough to find a trip in the US where trains win over cars. Rush-hour commuting in certain big cities is one case. Some trips in Amtrak's northeast corridor are another. But for the most part, our trains go slower than cars, stop more often, and often take less direct routes. And that's assuming you can get there by train at all. Huge parts of the country simply have no passenger train service.
• mikeash 10y ago
  There's a lot of silliness in here, as other comments point out already. There is one good argument in here, that cycling gives you a net increase in lifespan because of the exercise. Once you count that, I'm pretty sure the risk when cycling becomes negative. The trouble with that idea is that if you really want to minimize risk, you should drive for your transportation, and get your exercise from something safer than cycling. Not that I see the risk of cycling as unacceptable. But if someone is going to argue that cycling is a net gain, the argument had better work!
• crispyambulance 10y ago
  Bicycling is a great way to get around and traffic would be better for everyone, even motorists, if more and more people decide to bicycle. People get skewed impressions about how safe/unsafe cycling is because they imagine worst case scenarios for cyclists. To be clear the worst-case outcomes for cycling accidents are truly awful and very fatal... getting right-hooked and run over by a garbage truck, getting hit from behind or T-boned by a car travelling at highway speed. But fatal bike accidents are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of typical bad bike accident outcomes however are little more than road-rash, a broken collarbone or a concussion and frequently these are the fault of the cyclist. A "totaled" bike amounts to something less than the deductible cost of auto-insurance in most cases. Fatal car accidents are ALSO rare but fender benders (IMHO) have been getting MORE common as a result of mobile phones. Sadly a "fender-bender" can do massive financial damage--- $500 for each popped airbag + $1000++ whatever auto-body damage was incurred. Of course "fender benders" easily extend into "totaled car" when enough damage is done, even if everyone is unscathed.
  • soperj 10y ago
    " frequently these are the fault of the cyclist " - citation needed.
    • cujo 10y ago
      I'm assuming grandparent is assuming injuries incurred due to bike mishandling. It's fairly common amongst the training crowd to take spills resulting in road rash or a broken collar bone due to poor roads or just mishandling. Taking a hit from a motorist often results in more traumatic injuries.
    • crispyambulance 10y ago
      Most bike accidents are just ordinary mishandling of the bike resulting in a fall. Of course these things ARE NOT tabulated anywhere, there's no way to give a citation for this but those of us who ride a lot know it is reality. Who is going to file a police report because they fell while getting out of clips or because they hit a road defect the wrong way?
  • 10y ago
• SCAQTony 10y ago
  Though very amusing and quite charming, I would hate to be driven to the hospital on a gurney bed attached to a bicycle or have the fire department arrive on tandem bikes with fire ladders.
  • thrownblown 10y ago
    what about first-responders on bicycles, especially in a disaster zone where roads may compromised? I had a friend who was a bike messenger in new york while he was going to school for paramedics and during 9-11 he got downtown before the second building fell
• randomgyatwork 10y ago
  I loved riding my bike, did around 1200km a year. Last summer I slipped in the rain, demolished my ankle, was non-weight barring for 12 weeks... That costs a lot of money. I know this is personal experience, and not representative of everyone, but one accident on a bike costs a tun.
  • soperj 10y ago
    Accidents in cars can be equally catastrophic.
• Brendinooo 10y ago
  I'm pro-biking, but if you live in areas that aren't friendly to bikers, I don't think these comparisons are as apt. For example, there's a coffee shop I like that's nine miles away. (The closest coffee shop is a little over two miles away, but I really like this place). In order to get there, the best way is to take a four-lane split highway with a speed limit of 55 MPH (~89 km/h). There are signs that say to 'share the road', but let's be honest: I'm safer in the car than on the bike for that route. I've biked that way twice and probably won't do it again without taking a longer, alternate route. A dedicated bike lane or trail would change the impression here dramatically. Time matters too. A half-hour round-trip becomes almost two hours. If we trust his conclusion, I lose around 5 minutes of life driving while gaining 234 minutes of life - roughly a 4 hour swing. But 1.5 of those 4 hours are already given back to the ride, and I have to trust that I'll be able to cash out the other 2.5 hours in the future, versus 90 minutes that I can have today with a reasonable amount of confidence. Plus, what is safe? I've been in two car accidents and I can recall three good bike spills. I was unhurt in both car wrecks and I have scars from all three bike crashes. The cost comparisons aren't useful for people who live in an area that requires car ownership. If you have to own a car, a lot of those per-mile costs are fixed. Biking certainly can be safer. In a dedicated bike path it's a lot harder to die due to a collision. But I think this article doesn't accept the reality for a lot of areas.
  • kennywinker 10y ago
    I think bundled up in his assumptions are things like "if needed, change where you live to enable this lifestyle". If you've not read mmm before, he's a pretty radical life hacker type. Lots of insight into the assumptions we all make about how we should live, but he also does things many people just don't want to do. Maybe you'd be happier if you moved just a few blocks away from a good coffee shop, and could bike there and maybe get rid of your car entirely. Maybe you'd be far less happy. It's worth asking yourself those types of questions, though, right?
    • Brendinooo 10y ago
      Absolutely worth asking those kinds of questions! But such an outlook would require a softer headline. "How bicycling can be the safest form of transportation" would do a lot better.
• krupan 10y ago
  "lift heavy things without fear of injury" In my experience bicycling did the opposite of that for me. I love biking (way more than I like lifting heavy things, incidentally), but it does nothing to teach you how to lift properly, nor does it really even build the right muscles. Learn the hip hinge if you want to lift heavy things without fear of injury.
• foxyv 10y ago
  Using national odds and figures to make personal decisions is a deadly trap. If your area/commute isn't average then this statement has to be re-evaluated dramatically. Saying "Bicycling is that safest form of transportation" using this data is true only in a special situation. His argument that the risks of cycling are exaggerated does hold some water. People are pretty bad at assessing risk.
• intopieces 10y ago
  Living in San Jose and seeing many, many people ride in bike lanes in the wrong direction, I wonder how safe it is. It terrifies me every time I see it. I want to honk and wave and tell them but I'm afraid it'll only cause an accident.
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    This lack of understanding happens all over the US. I don't see how it happens. Many of the people doing it clearly think that a bicycle is contraflow like a pedestrian.
    • ringwalt 10y ago
      In Manhattan, it's mostly bike couriers who go the wrong way. When I cut across one short block the wrong way because it's convenient, there have been a few pedestrians who've called me out on it. So someone who's on a bike all day should know the "right" way by now. There are also frequently bikers on some busy avenues when there's a bike lane a block over, which is also just laziness or failure to plan ahead.
      • maxerickson 10y ago
        Sure, I'm an occasional rule breaker and I know the traffic rules well enough. I'm talking about people like the person I saw slowly riding a 3 wheel cargo bike up the wrong side of one of the busier streets in this small town.
• cameldrv 10y ago
  I love cycling, and I wish I lived in a place where it was more practical and safer. As great as it is for the environment, traffic, and health (mental and physical!), if you know a decent number of people that cycle a lot, you will see a continuous stream of injuries among your friends.