On Apr 15, 10:45 am, ComandanteBanana
wrote:
On Apr 14, 10:27 pm, wrote:

Pat (who?), Jack May, and "donquijote" all manage to be very wrong,
although the first two come at it from a different direction than our
"banana" boy.

DonQuijote and ComandanteBanana are the same thing.

I'm aware of that.


No, you won't get killed riding a bike, despite what Jack and Pat
claim. No, the world doesn't have to be transformed to make bicycling
safe, despite donquijote's paranoid whining.

All three of you need to learn a lot about the real data. The fatality
rate from bicycling is infinitesmal. There are roughly fifteen
million miles ridden between bike fatalities. People who cycle
regularly have been shown to live longer than typical motorists. Many
researchers have found that the risk of cycling is less, per hour,
than the risk of motoring, or less than the risk of walking near
traffic.

Man, you need to go in the jungle more often... "Riding a bicycle in
peak-hour traffic is at best harrowing, and at worst downright
treacherous."...

I've trimmed the rest of your usual paranoid whining.

I've ridden your "jungle" since I was in my 20s, many decades ago.
Unlike you, I've never needed to whine about how terrible the world
is. Unlike you, I've had no trouble dealing with traffic. Unlike
you, I've taken the time to look for actual data on bicycling's level
of danger. And in doing so, I found that despite the prevalence of
"Danger! Danger!" worriers, cycling is an _extremely_ safe activity.

I've commuted by bike since 1977. I've cycled in hundreds of cities,
and in peak rush hour in many of them. I've ridden in at least eight
countries. I've done many self-supported tours, up to 4000 miles.
I've ridden for nearly 40 years. In all that time, my only on-road
injury was one skinned knee. Off road, add one incident where I
scraped my hands a bit.

You're unreasonably paranoid and obnoxiously noisy about it. If
you're afraid to ride busy roads, don't do it. Ride where you're
comfortable, and quit your wimpy whining.

- Frank Krygowski