cycling deaths in the usa per year are less than in the 1970s despite more cyclists and more cars.

is there really a problem here?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

You may want to re-look/re-think your second sentence....

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz

ok after giving it some thought...

is there really a problem here? Is the risk of cycling actually increasing, decreasing or neither?

Before getting outraged and starting a bunch of annoying critical mass rides, perhaps we ought to know that.

perhaps we ought to also investigate if cities that started critical mass rides got safer for cyclists.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I agree we need to work with everyone to make it safer on the roads for cyclists and motorists, but critical mass rides do the exact opposite. All critical mass rides do is infuriate everyone who is driving and make riding a bike a more dangerous affair for everyone else.

There are roughly 700 cyclists deaths/year here in the US and 130 in Canada. It is very sad when someone dies but those are pretty low numbers and it doesn't seem like an epidemic that needs to be posted about on a daily basis.

and that's before incidents like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

In my view, it doesn't matter whether the risk is increasing or decreasing, because the results are often catastrophic for the cyclist. Therefore, we must continue to work until the risk is dramatically reduced from where it is now.

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Get Set Go Sports
Get Set Go Sports Website, Facebook Page, Blog

Can we agree on what level is risk is acceptable?

Currently in the USA each year, the % of our population that dies on a bike while NOT drunk is ~ .0002%, or 490 people. If you include drunk cyclists it is ~700.

Killed in car accidents 42,116*
Killed by the common flu 20,000*
Killed by murders 15,517*

Intentional Suicide - 33,300
Accidental Poisoning - 27,531
Accidental Falls - 20,823 (mostly old people falling down at home)

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

"In my view, it doesn't matter whether the risk is increasing or decreasing, because the results are often catastrophic for the cyclist. Therefore, we must continue to work until the risk is dramatically reduced from where it is now."

I don't think anyone would disagree with your statement but what I think Jackmott and others are trying to tease out is that we perhaps don't deserve "safe" roads as the OP suggested. I would argue that what we deserve is roads which exhibit a predictable level of danger on the basis of which we can all make the decision of whether riding outside is worth it to us. We, like everyone who steps out of their front door in the morning, have to account for the risk of freak accidents. We have to acknowledge the risk of someone's brakes failing, or someone having a heart attack at the wheel, or an opossum running out in front of us and throwing us into the path of a semi. We have to be honest that cycling is inherently more dangerous than sitting on the couch and face the risk/benefit analysis head on.

We should not have to account for the risk that someone is driving drunk, or speeding, or texting or too tired to stay awake. I will work as hard as possible to eliminate those risks but even if we were successful in eliminating them all, cycling on the roads will not be "safe". Cyclists will still die tragically and a certain level of google news stories will still show up every week. I don't know what that level is but it's not obvious to me that in a country as large as the US 380 is "too many."

Chances are of course that it is "too many." It is almost certain that a significant number of those deaths should never have happened. Rather however than make the blanket assumption that every death is the fault of someone else I'd prefer to target specific issues - lax sentencing in clear cut cases, dangerously narrow roads, outdated local laws, than raise the level of antagonism by making this an us vs. them war as critical mass seems to.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Do you also feel that too many people die while driving?

That too many people die while falling down at home?

everyone on this earth is going to die, no matter how hard you try.
theres lots of ways to do it
cycling is pretty low on the totem pole of risk factors.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

From NHTSA
In 2008, 716 pedalcyclists were killed and an additional 52,000 were injured in traffic crashes.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811156.PDF

Yah, lets not get all worked up, jack

Not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing - if the latter I think you need to reread my post as I think we're saying the same thing (or at least overlap).

The gloss I'm attempting to apply is just to acknowledge that when a death is caused by a drunk driver, a texting driver or anything else that could be avoided through education or prevention (i.e. something other than an act of god), then that death need not have happened and eliminating the chance of it happening again is a worthwhile goal.

I agree with you that cycling is inherently somewhat risky and that there is a certain level of risk, and its attendant consequences, that we should think of as acceptable. And it's not zero.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Frankly, I think Critical Mass is idiotic. It does more to piss people off at cyclists than it does to benefit us.

I think we need to work to get cell phone use behind the wheel banned and get harsher penalties for distracted driving ... for the benefit of ALL road users, not just cyclists. Beyond that, I fear that the more we raise a stink, the more likely that legislators will try to legislate us off the roads "for our own good." They're already trying to do it in a number of places around the US.

We need to be very careful about what we push because we probably don't have the strength to handle the push back that will inevitably come.

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Bob C.

The "science" on any matter can never be settled until every possible variable is taken into account.

Being from Houston, I notice about 9 out of 10 cyclist basically riding without a helmet. My n=1 experience makes me wonder if the focus should be on better/more biking lanes or education/safety enforcement similar to seat belt laws in Texas. I feel like there's a lot of angles to address this issue and there are ways we can do it without making it into an "us" vs. "them" confrontation just yet.

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"The solution is to just go faster"

I am not ageeing or disagreeing with you, but there is a big difference in the numbers you are using.

How many people ride a bike on the road? Or even better how many hours per week are people riding you bike on the road? That is what you need to know before you know if 490 or 700 deaths are "too many". Most people would say 1 is too many, but yes there is risk in everything. As long as people are involved there will be accidents.

Anyone can catch the flu, fall, get poisoned, or murdered at any point in time. Even though you can take steps to prevent those things.

You could argue only those who suffer from depression (or maybe other mental illness) will commit suicide, and only those in cars will die in a car accident. So those are a little better.

Plus I would say that a certain (probably very high) number of car vs. bike fatalities are intentional. Not that they are trying to kill the person, but harassment that had unintended results.

You don't have to wear a helmet on motorcycle in Texas. Do you really think everyone is going to wear a helmet on a bicycle?

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

According to this article, cycling safety has more to do with participation numbers than anything else.

http://www.grist.org/...umbers-for-cyclists/

I do think we're moving in the right direction and as a fellow Vancouverite I don't see much value in the Critical Mass rides. If you really want to make riding in the city safer, do as the above article suggests and ride your bike at times other than Friday evenings, and by yourself - not with a huge traffic-stopping crowd.

The idea is that the more of us there are out there riding on a regular basis, the more drivers become aware that yes, they need to be paying attention. Critical Mass doesn't train drivers to leave space while passing or check their blind spots, it just pisses them off and makes them less likely to support cycling infrastructure projects.

I also know for a fact that at least in Vancouver, a lot of the people who attend CM rides show up drunk, stoned, or both. While I have no problem with a few beers or even a few joints, the proper place for that is sitting in a chair or on a couch, not on a bike.

I agree that Critical Mass doesn't send the right message to the non-cycling public. In fact, some participants may even be led to believe it is OK to ignore traffic laws.

I look around at cyclists in my city and think "Wow! There is so much that cyclists can do to reduce their risks on the road".

The top 3 list:
-WEAR A HELMET FOR GOD'S SAKE (the most recent cycling death in my city was a helmet-less cyclist. Accidents happen. Protect yourself.)
-Wear bright clothing
-Have front and rear lights on your bike which you actually use (turn on 30 minutes before sunset and keep on until 30 minutes after sunrise)

That's one way of thinking about it. Another would be I would bet that 600 of those were completely avoidable by

A. paying attention while driving
B. Not drinking and driving
C. Having dedicated bike lanes....

etc etc. The point is, for the most part (and not in all cases), these deaths truly could have been avoided very easily.

Lets not forget that the 700 figure killed and the 52,000 figure injured likely includes all the clowns you always read about who were riding a bike at 2 am wearing all black and were drunk/stoned/both when they were run down while riding down the center line of the road.

When I read these stories in the news, I wish that there were a distinction between "cyclists" and any clown who happens to be on a bike.

I read somewhere recently that if you look only at people who were riding in daylight, sober, and obeying the rules of the road, the rate of cycling fatalities is actually very small compared to the 'overall' number.

I think there are more adult cycling deaths now. Most of those killed in the '70s were children. Now there are less children riding bikes and more adults.

I was a child riding a bike in the '70s and I'm still riding, but my n=1 indicates that the streets are more dangerous now for a cyclist.

Post: cycling deaths in the usa per year are less than in the 1970s despite more cyclists and more cars.

is there really a problem here?



probably would be if you were one of those cylist dead huh!

I absolutely disagree with the critical mass approach. They tend to be militant and disruptive and often operate in contravention of the traffic rules during their demonstrations. Several of their demonstrations have turned very publicly violent, with clashes between police and activists captured and shown on YouTube and other media.

This portrays the cyclist as the underdog militant, a fractured population sperate from the society of road users at-large. This couldn't be farther from the truth.

Cyclists belong on the road. They are written into road use laws.

What we need is better formal education within the existing system. This starts with a revamp of driver education. I've said this before, but the current driver's test includes questions about alcohol use, towing trailers and using a child seat. Not every motorist will tow a trailer, some don't drink (none should) and not every one will need to use a child seat since they don't have kids. Every motorist will encounter cyclists in the traffic environment and they are not trained in what to do.

What if, when we trained pilots, we didn't teach them what to do when they saw a cloud?

Driver education needs to include a block of instruction on "sharing the road" and this knowledge needs to be tested on driver's license exams. That is the right way to begin addressing the problem within the framework of society and law.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com