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Interestingly, there's some parallels between bicycle deaths and motorcycle fatalities. 126 male deaths, 16 female deaths (out of >800 total? I guess the deaths

Interestingly, there's some parallels between bicycle deaths and motorcycle fatalities. 126 male deaths, 16 female deaths (out of >800 total? I guess the deaths identified by gender are a smaller subset). The figures are similar for motorcycles, about an order of magnitude larger for men than women [1]. In part this is due to the larger share of riders being men. But even when we compare the rates, there are significant differences. This disparity typically indicates behavior-based risks. In aggregate, the majority of motorcycle-automobile collisions are the fault of the latter, but fatalities often result from risky behavior on part of the former - hence the gender disparity, since said behavior is much more prevalent among men. Some of the purported reasons don't measure up. This article claims that the prevalence of larger SUVs and trucks are resulting in more bicyclist deaths, and compares SUV and truck sales in 2019 vs 1994. But the fatality rates among bicyclists are not substantially different in 1994 than 2019. There's actually an overall downward trend the in rate of bicyclist deaths [2]. The same applies to the rising speed limits and greater prevalent of phones - these don't seem to correlate with any increase in fatalities. The overall trend from 1975 to the latest data is a downward trend from a fatality rate of ~0.4 per 100k people to 0.3 to 0.2. 1. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/gender https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/gende... 2. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearl...

asdff 6y ago
I can't find the study, but I remember hearing about it on NPR when the author was interviewed years ago. Basically, the authors tried biking with varyous appearances and measured how close cars typically got while passing. The findings were that if you wore a helmet, cars actually got closer to you. Cars also kept their distance when the author, a male, donned a blonde female wig. I think there are a lot of factors at play, part of it is risk behavior, but part of it is certainly subconscious perception by drivers.

asdff 6y ago

I can't find the study, but I remember hearing about it on NPR when the author was interviewed years ago. Basically, the authors tried biking with varyous appearances and measured how close cars typically got while passing. The findings were that if you wore a helmet, cars actually got closer to you. Cars also kept their distance when the author, a male, donned a blonde female wig. I think there are a lot of factors at play, part of it is risk behavior, but part of it is certainly subconscious perception by drivers.