On 9/9/19 2:55 pm, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 00:18:22 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/8/2019 11:38 PM, James wrote:
On 9/9/19 10:00 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Also, other data has shown that the usual hit-from-behind deaths
happen on rural roads, to unlit night cyclists.

Hang on a moment, just above you said "I wouldn't call hits from behind
"such a common mode of death for cyclists" because _all_ cycling deaths
are tremendously rare", and now you claim there are "usual
hit-from-behind deaths".

Isn't "common" and "usual" saying practically the same thing?

Pay attention to the context. If we discuss the tiny group of
hit-from-behind deaths, we can say what's usual within that tiny group.
That doesn't make it common in any sense.

I recently came across some numbers. The average annual bike deaths
(10 year average - 2017) in the U.S. was 729 per annum. The average
number of deaths from falling out of bed is 737 annually.
https://www.indy100.com/article/kim-...ng-bed-7552691
Then I read that in 2009 there were 4 billion bicycle trips made
https://www.bikeleague.org/commutingdata
This appears to mean that one would have to take some 5,486,968.449
trips before one is in danger :-)

The question arises... "is bicycling really dangerous?"

I guess if everyone who slept in a bed (and didn't fall out and die),
got up and rode a bicycle, the two statistics might be comparable.

Exposure counts.

Riding a bicycle is obviously more dangerous for all people than getting
out of bed, which is likely only dangerous for the old, wobbly and fragile.

--
JS