Bikes: safer than cars, not as safe as flying
We've all heard that flying is safer than driving, right? That doesn't mean people aren't afraid to fly, but on a purely statistical level, people who are should be more frightened about getting into a passenger car. But what about biking? A 1993 study has been revived by Grist (and I caught wind of it on Treehugger) that shows that biking fits between flying and passenger cars in terms of fatalities per million hours activity. You can see the entire list at either of the two links above, but for our purposes, we'll note the following:
On-road motorcycling 8.8
Living (all causes of death) 1.5
Passenger cars 0.5
Bicycling 0.3
Flying (scheduled domestic airlines) 0.2
The reason Grist uses these numbers is that, while outdated, they're apparently the only ones that can be found in a peer-reviewed journal. I'm sure bike clubs around the world would like to have more recent statistics, but for now we'll settle for authenticity over currency. I highly recommend the Grist article, as it gets into all sorts of reasons why biking is so good for us and the planet, and it points out that the U.S. still has a long way to go to make biking safer.
[Source: Grist, Treehugger]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rgseidl 1:29PM (11/02/2007)
Does the number for bicycles include only on-road fatalities or also those of mountain bikers that threw caution to the wind?
I wonder to what extent accidents involving cars and bicycles are caused by the fact that there are few bicycles on US roads, so drivers don't really expect them there. Nor are they taught to really look out for them and for pedestrians in driver's ed.
The Netherlands - which is chock full of bike lanes and where driver trainign is far more rigorous - nevertheless suffered a 20% year-on-year increase in fatal bicycle accidents in 2006, most of them involving children. However, that was from a base 10 times smaller (relative to total population) than in the US. Plus, Dutch riders rarely wear a helmet.
http://bicyclesafe.com/
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
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dan 1:49PM (11/02/2007)
I suspect the bicycling numbers are for "all cycling," not "cycling on roads." There is so little bicycling as transportation in the US that most of the bicycling occurring here is probably recreational cycling on car-free trails and low-traffic neighborhood sidewalks.
I'd be surprised if the stats didn't shoot up when restricted to on-road cycling.
On the other hand, if these stats *are* for on-road cycling, I'm surprised and impressed.
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Tony Belding 2:15PM (11/02/2007)
Those statistics are fatalities per hour of activity, not per mile travelled. Which is the more relevant basis of comparison, I wonder?
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Karkus 4:28PM (11/02/2007)
Yep, the per mile vs per hour issue is key here.
I'm glad to see that per hour biking is safer, but I must say that I have seen statistics that show biking per mile is more dangerous than driving cars.
I commute by bike and mtn bike also (about once per week each), and am interested in the mtn/road difference. To me they both seem about equally dangerous, although the causes of death are way different.
I've heard of mtn bike deaths from falling off cliffs (several in Moab) and one heart attack.
Road bike fatalities are mostly car related.
Mtn bikers almost certainly crash more per hour, but unless you fall off a cliff, the chance of dying is pretty small. Collision with a car, while less frequent (I've only had one in about 3000 days of biking on roads), are much more likely to be fatal.
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Scatter 7:59AM (11/03/2007)
Yeah the metric does seem an odd choice which will swing it in favour of cycling. Surely these stats don't need to come from a peer reviewed journal? Some government department like your DoT should publish these every year no?
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