Originally Posted by
livedarklions
My favorite Forester misuse of statistics is his habitual claim that only 5% of car bicycle crashes occur from the rear of the bicycle. That could more naturally be cited for the effectiveness of FRAP in preventing cars from striking the bicycle from the rear.
Back in 2012 the League of American Bicyclists did a study (of sorts, reported
HERE) in which they found that 35% of the fatalities were due to "struck from behind" types of events. I think there were plans to do further investigation into on-road bike accidents, but I never saw any more results. One piece of information I would have loved to see was whether or not the cyclist was equipped with a rear-view mirror. This sort of information is rarely, if ever, reported. My hypothesis is that riders who use rear vision equipment are less likely to be hit from behind. In the absence of supporting evidence, I always ride on the road with some kind of rear-view mirror.