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Old January 28th 18, 02:09 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
John B.[_3_]
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Posts: 5,697
Default bike shedding most boring trend

On Sat, 27 Jan 2018 14:34:42 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/27/2018 12:56 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
AMuzi wrote:

One of our customers, an old friend, was
riding just in front of that mayhem, inches
from death. The tourist he had just passed
was killed.


Cycling sure seem more violent in the US.
I don't know what the stats are.


Stats vary, but the U.S. risk is very frequently overstated.

Very roughly, U.S. cyclists suffer one fatality every 10 million miles
of riding. In Britain, it's closer to one fatality in 20 million miles.
In Germany, perhaps one per 50 million miles.

So yes, the U.S. is more dangerous. But it's really a comparison of one
negligible risk against another negligible risk. How long will it take
you to ride 10 million miles?

Also, those figures are grand averages. We've had posters here who have
bragged about riding drunk (or on LSD), riding with no lights at night,
using ramps to fly through the air as they enter intersections from
sidewalks, etc. Those nut cases are part of the grand average. Competent
riders should have much lower risks.

We also have many people who are too innumerate to understand the above
numbers, or to use them in context. It's not unusual to hear, when
giving evidence of negligible risk, "But what if that one person is
YOU??" (I've come across this not only with bicycling, but - believe it
or not - with the issue of risk from a tree falling when a person walks
in a forest! Danger!! Danger!!)

The fact is, people are very bad at evaluating a negligible risk of a
disastrous outcome. This is why so many are terrified of flying
commercial airlines.

In France,
I hear that in the process of getting a driver
license a not insignificant part is spent on
how to respond to cyclists sharing the road.


There are groups that are trying to improve that component of driving
education in America. I'm part of one such group.

But as I understand, it's much more difficult overall to get a driver's
license in Europe than in the U.S. Here, it really is astonishingly easy
- in fact, stupidly easy.


But regardless, bicycle deaths amount to about 2% of highway deaths.
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/pe...facts/bicycles

--
Cheers,

John B.

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