wrote:
Cathy Kearns wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
wrote:


Think of it this way--riding at night is more dangerous
than riding during the day, regardless of the rider.

I looked at all those graphs and didn't come up with this. There wasn't
anything in that research that said why riders in the dark were more likely
to be injured or killed. It didn't divide out the well lighted folks versus
those riding unlit. It didn't divide out those riding in expected places
versus those riding the wrong way down the sidewalks.

True, these things are not in the stats. There
is some guesswork involved if we want to draw
such conclusions based on what is available.

My guess is that night riding is so much more
statistically deadly than daytime riding (about half
of cyclist fatalities occur at night, while only a small
percentage of cyclist rider-miles/hours occur at
night; and this is true even though almost no children
ride at night, and children always make up a substantial
portion of total cyclist fatalities), that this could not be
explained by the special type of rider and riding we
tend to see at night, that there must be something
more to it.

Keep these things in mind:

First, "Much more statistically deadly than daytime riding" means
little. The dangers of daytime riding are constantly being
exaggerated. The true danger of fatality (or serious injury) is
miniscule, on the order of one fatality for 3000+ person-years of
riding. "Much more than miniscule" could still be negligible.

Second, in the US at least, it really is a completely different
population riding at night, and a very bi-modal one. Instead of the
bell curve of competence that you see in the daytime, night riding
seems to consist of a few dedicated cyclists fitted out with decent
lights and expensive equipment, plus a large number of ex-drivers who
need to find another way home from the bar. And yes, that's based on
personal impression. I can't prove it because...

.... Third, there is little or no good data on night cycling - for
example, on whether those cylcists killed at night were using legal
lights. It's a question that's essentially never asked. And given the
low number of fatalities or serious injuries, it would need to be asked
and properly recorded in almost every incident to gather enough data
points for decent conclusions.

That last one is not going to happen soon. Why? Because society has
enough to worry about with the real dangers. We'll be very lucky
indeed to _ever_ get meaningful data about something so minor as to
cause just 300 fatalities per year in a population of nearly 300
million!

Scroll about halfway down this page
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/causes.html to see the "pedacycle"
[sic] listing, just 2% of the motor vehicle deaths in the US. That
makes cycling deaths roughly 1% of accident deaths in the US, or less
than 0.005% of all deaths. Night cycling deaths, then, are about
0.002% of all deaths.

IOW, don't hold your breath waiting for the grant money to come in.
Just accept the fact that cycling - even at night - is reasonably safe.

We would prefer if every fatality were
the result of some clear mistake on the part of the
cyclist--that way we could persuade ourselves that
accidents will be easily avoidable as long as we
make no silly huge mistakes, that we can steer our
own fate as long as we ride visibly predictably and
follow the traffic laws.

Well, follow the traffic laws and otherwise use decent common sense!

Unfortunately, the statistics do not support this.

??

I suppose it's unfair to ask, since my internet access will be very
limited for many weeks, and my files of data are not with me. But I
don't know what statistics you're using!

The general rule of thumb is that of serious bike crashes involving
cars & bikes, roughly half are the cylcist's fault.

Some say that number is inflated, since "winners write history." But
OTOH, it's likely that many of the "motorist mistake" ones could have
been avoided with more cyclist sense and skill. IOW, use decent common
sense - including planning ahead for bad scenarios.

It's not that hard. And it's not that dangerous!


BTW, about an hour ago I rode out at night in this very crowded city to
pick up some "One Hour" film. Generator headlight working beautifully,
new bike running very smoothly, it was a joy.


- Frank Krygowski