CB HI

https://khn.org/news/california-bike...-25-year-high/

In California, the 2016-18 rate of such accidents was at its highest for any three-year period since the mid-1990s. Nationally, the three-year death rate was at its highest since the mid-2000s.

Miele Man

Ah, but we haven't reached the mid-2000s yet. We have another 30 years to go to get there. LOL VBEG

Cheers

Leisesturm

I'm not sure why this is classified as news. All over the U.S. something similar is happening and for the same exact reasons. What are we going to do about it?

GamblerGORD53

The average DEAD cyclist is a helmet wearing MAMIL on a cilly fibre bike, pretending to race in a peleton. FACT.
They likely weren't at fault often, but dead right is still dead. There are more such riders, so that's what you get.
CF bikes DO ASPLODE on impact. NOT good.
My city of a million averages less than 2 fatals a year. Been truck accidents lately. The few I see on the highways are riding single file FRAP on shoulders.
Very few lane HOGS of any sort. The co-op bike club is lamely pushing this UNSAFE practice though...

Last summer I tour rode 3,900 miles in the NW, with NO helmet. I saw ZERO accidents of any sort. In SE Asia I saw or heard a couple dozen. I could just shrug off the few mishaps I had.

mackgoo

What has the number of cyclists done in the same period?

Leisesturm

Nothing. I know where you are going and forget it. Thanks to e-bikes, the number of cyclists is not declining exactly, but accidents have spiked 18% to 33% and there is nothing. Nothing at all like that kind of increase in the number of cyclists riding!

Leisesturm

It's not too late to delete this mass of contradiction and misinformation. Seriously, could you possibly get it anymore wrong? Make you a deal: clean this up a bit or I will have to do a line by line rebuttal and it won't be pretty.

livedarklions

This is a cold day in hell post coming from me, but I encourage you to have at it.

grizzly59

Out walking my dog I see tons of drivers staring at their laps as they drive through the neighborhoods. Usually way above the speed limit. It’s not just the teenagers, it’s 17-70, men & women, pretty evenly distributed. I’d guess the 80yolds don’t have smart phones.

Moe Zhoost

I wonder why the NHTSA used the statistic "# of fatal bike accidents per million residents" as the comparison metric. Since neither the proportion of cyclists nor the amount of participation (i.e. time riding) is uniform within all state populations, this chosen metric doesn't tell the whole story. Rates are generally better than raw numbers, but not much in this case, IMO. Here are the raw numbers for CA courtesy of the NHTSA FIRST System

Koyote

I think this news release was covered in another thread somewhere on bf. The "data" is meaningless; it would be somewhat more meaningful to report fatalities per million miles ridden, or some other similar stat which measure fatalities relative to the amount of cycling.

Oh, and I'll agree with other posters that this one, below, is a hoot. To the extent that I can even discern the points, they are hogwash.

I-Like-To-Bike

A&S Fear Mongering over Bicycling Safety is often based on hoot-able hogwash derived from wacky or biased (mis)interpretations of so-called "data" from "a study" or "a report" clicked and pasted out of context from somewhere on the internet.

That is, when the A&S Fear Mongering is not based on fabricated ½ donkey conclusion about the cause of many if not most bicycling collisions with motor vehicles derived from the posters own anecdotes and WAGs biased to meet the desired conclusion or explanation.

For example see the continual wailing about the fear of the alleged high level of bicycling casualties caused by alleged omnipresent texing drivers, as well as the assumption that texting drivers just must be the cause of most if not every bicycling-automotive collision that can't be pinned to some other driver misdeed.

Prior to the invention of the smart phone, similar patterns of fear mongering based on hoot-able hogwash passed off as conclusions based on "data" was often directed at the alleged threat of bike lanes to the well being of bicyclists.

berner

A couple of good posts there. It could be explicitly pointed out, once again, that statistics can be finagled to obfuscate whatever you want. Miles ridden would surely have something to do with fatality rates. More northern states with a shorter cycling season would surely have lower fatality rates than more southern stated.

MNebiker

Just to add to the hogwash factor:

I recently saw an article that blamed the increase of injury to pedestrians by ebikes on the fact that ebikes are silent . . . .

As compared to those noisy pedal bikes . . . .

Guess I'll have to clip some playing cards on the frame to make noise in the spokes.

Paul Barnard

Just a word of caution here. When you see the word "rate" relative to bicycle accidents, you need to hold it suspect, or at the very least understand the context within which it is used. In order to establish a real "rate" you'd need to know not only how many bicyclists are in the population, you'd also need to know the average exposure hours. In this case they based the "rate" off of the number of residents. To further cast shade on the matter, they admit that their are more cyclists in the overall population than in previous years.

"Alongside the surging popularity of bike shares and fitness cycling in California comes a sobering statistic..."

Maybe that's just me nitpicking the word "rate," but I think it is important to fully understand what the numbers mean. Based on the link, they are dealing with raw fatality numbers. That's really about the best we can do since bicycle accident data isn't well developed.

livedarklions

Can you link the article? I'm guessing it's full of howlers like that.

MNebiker

Sorry - it was just something I ran into a few weeks back while searching for something else and I didn't even think it was worth noting the source. I just laughed a bit and went on.

BTW - Regarding injury rates and severity of injury; Here is an article from Reuters that I thought was interesting.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN1YT0MV

livedarklions

Interesting article, and while the escooter pattern is pretty much what i would expect, the higher injury rate for ebikes is a bit surprising. If I had to guess, it's partly a mismatch between speed and skill level. Pedal bicyclists who can maintain 20+ mph have to ride a lot to get and maintain that ability, while anyone can hop on an ebike and start going that fast even if they haven't ridden a bike in decades. That might be a better explanation for hitting more pedestrians than some supposed stealth mode. Also, if ebike riders skew older, they're more likely to break bones when they fall.

TheDudeIsHere

Same guy that posted a video on youtube boasting about doing 45 on a tour bike?

On a downhill!

GamblerGORD53

^^^^^^^
And I'm still waiting for somebody riding something faster there. SIX YEARS and counting. LOL hahahahahaha
Sturmey Archer still rules the roads after 117 years. Primitive technology DeFAILeurs, not so much.....
Thanks for the 6 more views. LOL

Leisesturm

I blame myself. I let life get in the way and prevent me from debunking your earlier post in its entirety. Now you come out with this. Defaileurs ... really. The default derailleur topology is a front double with 8/9/10/11 ... 12(!) speed rear end. Done right you can have 14 or more unique ratios for under $100 and up. There are still many, many triple front ends with the same rear configuration in use. Sturmey Archer tops out at ... 8 speeds? Retail price? Weight? Seriously? 1x8. "Medieval Jim, absolutely Medieval". The 14 sp Rohloff costs more than full carbon hybrid 2 x 8's. And until 28 mph Class 3 e-assists came along to strike up the Fear and Loathing in the Luddite Fringe of Cycling Humanity I read post after post (especially in the Tandem threads) recounting supra 45 mph explorations. Now anything over 15mph is regarded with horror and shock. And scorn ... shame ... censure. It's all getting to be a bit much. I am far from ready to retire my heart and lungs to decay and degeneration, but a Trek Allant+ 8s is one sweet bike. I want one. But I may have to settle for a Juiced Bikes CCS2. It is a mistake to think that e-assist equals the end of aerobic capacity. E-assist increases the distance(s) and/or speed(s) that you can cover using your existing level of fitness. How can that be a bad thing? Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way ...

CliffordK

So, is California trying to catch up with Florida? I think they're still way behind!

One of the confounding issues is the difficulty to count bicycles, and the more bicycles, the more accidents.

I've found it difficult to find good data about individual accidents.

My belief was that the average dead cyclist were the commuters that don't bother with safety gear, lights, etc. Perhaps not a lot of road experience.

Of course, the cyclists that do "training" put a lot of miles on the road.

JoeyBike

Anybody who cares to LOOK will see the same. Few motorists are paying attention to the task at hand.