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"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

"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 article seems focused on the commuter experience. Most people consider their commute by time not distance. "It takes me 35min to get to work" not "I am 5 miles from the office". To me that backs up the idea that the per-mile numbers are nonsense. If I am comitted to cycling to work, and don't want to commute for more than an hour, I'm going to live within ~12 miles of my workplace. If I'm driving to work, I might be as far as 70 miles (depending on traffic). A comparison per-mile doesn't match up with reality. I'm riding 24 miles per day on my bike or I'm driving 140 miles. For non-commute journeys, this makes less sense as I can't choose to live closer to everywhere. I can choose to live closer to work though.

marcosdumay 10y ago
Do you move every time you change your job? And does rent price not ever get in those calculations? After you rent that home 24 miles away from work, you'll have to decide each day if you want to make that distance by bike or car. The standard measure of transportation safety is accidents|deaths|injuries / (passenger * distance). There are very good reasons for this that don't change just because a transport modality is slower. Really, the worst thing people can do about their safety is just putting their fingers on their ears and yelling while refusing to listen to reality. Let's have a honest assessment of cycling, because if it isn't as safe as we want, there are plenty of ways to improve it. But nobody will go fixing things if everybody denies that a problem exist.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  You can have a mixed commute. Bike last mile to the train station / bus, then bike/walk the last mile to work or similar. I would think the bus / train is safer than a car or a bike.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    I've certainly had a mixed commute, and I appreciated it a lot. Living in a place with harsh winters and bad traffic, it was far safer and more practical than an all-exercise trip to work.
- kennywinker 10y ago
  While the standard measure makes sense for a lot of cases, a more wholistic view is required when making life decisions. Taking my own life as an example: when I owned a car, my travel habits were different. I went farther more often, without good reason to. Not owning a car, I now travel less distance. With the same job and a car, I drove x miles/year. Riding a bike, I ride y miles/year. If x * deaths/mile is greater than y * deaths/mile, the smart choice would be a bicycle. Even if as a mode of transport it technically has a higher rate of deaths/mile. You're right, you can't really say biking is the safest form of transportation. It's less safe per mile, according to the stats. But it could turn out to be a specific person's safest transportation choice.

marcosdumay 10y ago

Do you move every time you change your job? And does rent price not ever get in those calculations? After you rent that home 24 miles away from work, you'll have to decide each day if you want to make that distance by bike or car. The standard measure of transportation safety is accidents|deaths|injuries / (passenger * distance). There are very good reasons for this that don't change just because a transport modality is slower. Really, the worst thing people can do about their safety is just putting their fingers on their ears and yelling while refusing to listen to reality. Let's have a honest assessment of cycling, because if it isn't as safe as we want, there are plenty of ways to improve it. But nobody will go fixing things if everybody denies that a problem exist.

mahyarm 10y ago
You can have a mixed commute. Bike last mile to the train station / bus, then bike/walk the last mile to work or similar. I would think the bus / train is safer than a car or a bike.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I've certainly had a mixed commute, and I appreciated it a lot. Living in a place with harsh winters and bad traffic, it was far safer and more practical than an all-exercise trip to work.
kennywinker 10y ago
While the standard measure makes sense for a lot of cases, a more wholistic view is required when making life decisions. Taking my own life as an example: when I owned a car, my travel habits were different. I went farther more often, without good reason to. Not owning a car, I now travel less distance. With the same job and a car, I drove x miles/year. Riding a bike, I ride y miles/year. If x * deaths/mile is greater than y * deaths/mile, the smart choice would be a bicycle. Even if as a mode of transport it technically has a higher rate of deaths/mile. You're right, you can't really say biking is the safest form of transportation. It's less safe per mile, according to the stats. But it could turn out to be a specific person's safest transportation choice.