JohnBrooking

Proposal: In general, all other things being equal, an experienced cyclist riding a bicycle in car traffic, using normal car lanes, riding legally and defensively, is in no more danger of having a collision than a car driver.

Caveats:

1. Excluding interstate highways and similar roads
2. "Legally" includes properly dressed and equipped for the conditions, including darkness (reflective material and lights)
3. This is saying nothing about personal safety in the event of a collision, only chances of getting into one in the first place.

JohnBrooking

Negative factors:

1. Bike is harder to see due to smaller size, and being less expected

Positive factors:

1. Bike is easier to maneuver due to smaller size

DogBoy

Oops, didn't read the whole quote before voting. I said disagree, because I was reading danger as danger of injury. If you intend it to be danger of a collision then I would change my vote to agree.

barba

This sub forum is a little danger obsessed IMO.

sggoodri

I think it is likely to be as safe per hour of travel, but probably not per mile. The longer travel time per mile increases the chances of a cyclist engaging in risk taking, which tends to be normalized according to activity time rather than distance covered.

sgtsmile

Which makes it the same as driving a car....

I-Like-To-Bike

Your guess is as good as mine or anybody else's guess with all these vague undefined bolded font parameters.

Anybody for guessing if the center of the moon is made up of green cheese?

europa

Are you trying to suggest that riding my tredly ain't safe?

genec

I agree in principal, but reality is another thing. Stupid actions by aggressive motorists tend to negate the principal.

And unfortunatly, the results to the cyclist, of even a minor fender bender, can be quite serious.

cooperwx

That would address the SAFETY portion of Advocacy & Safety, I think.

I-Like-To-Bike

The other portion is obsessed with Bike Lanes, Cyclist "Training" and/or Ideology

lima_bean

My feeling is that its much easier for me to avoid accidents and avoid other peoples mistakes in my bike than in my car.

sbhikes

All I know is I don't have people going out of their way to collide with me when I'm driving a car or motorcycle.

Keith99

Almost the same for me. Only difference is I was a little more careful and voted 'correctly'. However if we are talking about chance of injury I would reverse my vote.

cydisc

Anything is possible.

closetbiker

yeah, but it doesn't do too much for the advocacy part.

Not only is there little context in place with these concerns, there's not much discussed about how the best way we can behave to avoid things to be safer.

Reading many of these postings it seems there's just a bunch of people who panic and worry and are cyclings worse avocates because they would scare anyone off two wheels.

noisebeam

I hestiated and was going to vote agree, but didn't and voted impossible to generalize.

The reason is that one can apply safe driving principles to motor vehicles as well and drive a car with the care, alertness and situational awareness as one does when driving a bicycle. One can also avoid the more dangerous streets, take back ways, etc.

Al

caloso

I won't generalize beyond my own experience so I'll just say that on my routes, riding my bike compared to driving my car, I feel less likely to be in a collision on my bike than in my car. It's more maneuverable and I can see and hear better on my bike.

closetbiker

It is impossible to generalize, but cyclists are people just like motorists and are subject to the same mistakes that lead to injuries.

If someone is concerned that a cyclist is more vunerable than a motorist to injury, they should look closely at motorists and their injuries. They're not better off.

Commuters makes up only about 5% of all cyclists here and BC has a 2% level of commuter cyclists while at the same time all cyclists are involved in only 1% of traffic collisions.

I had an old Stats Canada report that showed for every 100,000 motorists, 10 died, while for every 100,000 cyclists only 1 died.

I'm sure everyone is well aware of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, a database of transportation crashes maintained by a branch of the US Federal government that shows the number of fatalities per 1,000,000 exposure hrs. for motor vehicles is twice that as for cyclists.

These numbers include all those (approx.) 80% of cyclists who were doing the most silly things on bicycles leading up to their injuries or deaths, like riding on the wrong side of the road, riding drunk etc. etc.

You'd have to define "safe" here as well. I don't think it's too "safe" if you make a mistake and have the potential to take several others to the grave with you too.

I don't think it's too "safe" to get around in a way that does nothing but decrease health as opposed to getting around on something that increases health.

And isn't that the perspective lacking here n the first place? People worrying about the 4% (or about 109,000) of deaths (almost half of which are automobile deaths) from the result of accidents as opposed to the millions of death due to diseases (in the USA - source: Time magazine cover story Dec 4/06) that cycling can do much to reduce.

I'd say it's risky not to ride a bike.

supcom

For the stipulations presented, there is no way to make an objective determination. The recorded statistics in the US, at least, do not include enough information regarding bike collisions to limit the data to this narrow subset. In addition, a high percentage of low speed collisions, where injuries are minimal, are not reported or included in the statistics.

That leaves us with individual opinions. However, my experience is that people regularly engaged in a particular activity tend to significantly underestimate the risks associated with that activity, whereas people not engaged in the activity tend to greatly overestimate the risks. So, the individual opinions expressed here would likely trend toward underestimating the risk of cycling (per mile, per hour, per lifetime, per whatever).

BTW, the question, as stated, did not impose similar constraints upon the motorist that was placed upon the cyclist. i.e., experienced, obeying traffic laws, and driving defensively. Nor, BTW, did the question define what "experiencd" or "defensively" entails. I, for example, many kids have been riding a bicycle for over 10 years by the time they are 16 years old. Would that make them more, or less "experienced" than a 45 year old cyclist who took had been riding for the past 5 years?

2manybikes

Keeping up with traffic speed in a car or on a motorcycle helps a lot.
Any slow moving vehincle on the road is going to run into problems with being passed all the time and people being impatient. This includes bikes, car, trucks, tractors, anything that is slower than the flow of traffic.

noisebeam

This is related to the idea I came up with several months ago here that driving a motorcycle in the manner one drives a bicycle can be safer than a bicycle. Of course no one does this so the statistics are such that motorcycles are one of the more accident prone vehicles on the road.

Benefits of motorcycle over bicycle:
-Rider can wear more effective head and body protection
-Brighter and more effective front and rear lights
-Slightly larger profile
-Added mass and larger tires make it less prone to accident from debris or bad pavement (at matched bicycle speeds)
-Power to accelerate out of dangerous situations
-Better stopping distance at matched speed

Disadvantages:
-Perhaps field of visions and/or hearing are less than on bicycle ?
-Power and speed capability can be used to with risk of a more severe accident
-Somewhat less maneuverable, especially at low speeds.

The idea is that if one doesn't use the speed/power (except for emergencies) the motorcycle could be safer than a bicycle. That of course would mean not riding over 25mph unless this decreases the chance of accident in proportion that counters severity if one does occur. For sake of arguement one could simply never drive it over 25-30mph and deal with the same SMV challenges as a bicycle presents. The other factor would be route choice - the assumption would be that the motorcyclist would choose the same routes as a bicyclists. (i.e. not use freeways, choose back routes vs. arterials)

Its up to the rider of course and that is the weak point. No one could have the discipline to ride a motorcycle in such a manner. But it could be done, in which case would a motorcycle be a safer vehicle choice?

Al

Helmet Head

Being slower cuts both ways in terms of safety. The number of interactions with same direction traffic is higher, but your ability to predict and avoid the more problematic crossing hazards is much better at lower speeds. It's probably close to a wash.

Similarly, and as pointed out earlier, the lower sensory cognitivity of a cyclist compared to a car is probably more or less balanced out by an improved ability to maneuver and avoid.

genec

Statistics are a funny thing... compare the milage covered by each of those groups of 100,000 and then tell me what the injury rates are.

TRaffic Jammer

I find I'm far safer feeling if I'm keeping pace with city traffic than say pokin' along. I find I'm having more fun when I'm faster though...