Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Don't fall into that trap. Yes there are putzes who ride bicycles. Yes there are bicyclists who run stopsigns and stoplights. But that pales in comparison to the putzishness that you observe everyday by motorists. How many times have you seen a motorist who tries to beat a yellow from a block away? The motorist is probably speeding, ends up running the red (often long after it's turned red) and is endangering everyone around them. They speed. They drink and drive. And they manage to kill 45,000 people a year...every year...for decades...but no one notices them.
To put it in perspective, there is this
There are 4 million people in Colorado. Say 2/3 of them drive so that's 2.7 million drivers. That means that 0.02% of them are likely to die in an automobile accident in any given year.
There are 1.2 million (
) adult cyclists in Colorado. That means that 0.0008% of them are likely to die in a bicycling accident in any given year. Who is the more dangerous to have out on the roads...bicycles or cars?
I fully agree that bicyclist should obey the rules of the road. I also think that motorists should obey the rules of the road. We shouldn't
need laws to ban texting and cell phone use. We shouldn't need laws that require motorists to pass bicycles at a safe distance when it is safe to do so. But motorists have shown over and over again that they can't be trusted to police themselves any more than bicycle can.
I generally agree with your post but this stat is very misleading. There are nowhere near 1.2 million cyclists living in CO. There may be 1.2 million who own bikes and get them out of the garage once or twice a year but you can't compare that to drivers most of whom drive every day multiple times per day. The number of serious cyclists (let's say people who ride more than 10 times per year) is MUCH less than 1.2 million and if you take out mtn bikers is a tiny number.