Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On Nov 24, 8:57*am, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 11/23/2010 4:46 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Um... Duane, you need to re-read. *When I say "I'm not at all
surprised," that answers the question "Are you surprised?" *See? *You
need to keep better track of what's being said.

I read what you said. *You said that you weren't surprised because
whenever someone says cycling is dangerous...
I asked specifically about cycling being less dangerous than walking.
You answered about cycling being dangerous in general. *My point is
that no one is going to think that cycling is less dangerous
than walking.

No sane person should. That's for Frank to do. Walking as an
activity, not crossing the road, is not dangerous. Crossing the road
as a pedestrian is dangerous if you do not take great care. It is
this small part of what's lumped together as the act of walking that
makes the walking stats look so bad.

Cyclists travel at far higher speeds than walkers, and for the most
part has the 80kg cyclist mixing it with 2 tonne machines, in almost
the same environment as where the pedestrians get clobbered.

The only thing that keeps cyclists alive in this environment (on the
road) is that they travel _with_ the vehicles whereas pedestrians
travel at right angles to them, and possibly don't pay enough
attention to their surroundings.

JS.

On Nov 24, 9:14*am, Dan wrote:

I'm finding myself way more relaxed at the ol' rbt than back when Frank
was responding to me ;-)

Relaxation is a state of mind.

You get to choose how to react. You can either react with patience
and calmness, or anger and frustration. I choose the former.

JS.

On Nov 23, 4:57*pm, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 11/23/2010 4:46 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:



On Nov 23, 9:16 am, Duane H *wrote:
On 11/22/2010 7:31 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On Nov 22, 3:53 pm, Duane H * *wrote:
... you just want to say that cycling
is less dangerous than walking. *Are you surprised that people
question that?

I'm not at all surprised, because whenever someone says cycling is
_not_ dangerous, it tends to draw arguments and statements that say
things like "Of _course_ riding a bike is dangerous!" *I'm not the
only author who has felt the need to write articles disputing the
"Danger! Danger!" hype.

You didn't answer my question. I asked if you're surprised that
people question that cycling is less dangerous than walking?

Um... Duane, you need to re-read. *When I say "I'm not at all
surprised," that answers the question "Are you surprised?" *See? *You
need to keep better track of what's being said.

I read what you said. *You said that you weren't surprised because
whenever someone says cycling is dangerous...

I'll try to simplify for you.

You asked "Are you surprised that people question that?"

I said "I'm not at all surprised."

That was where I answered your question - just before you said "You
didn't answer my question." I can't think of a simpler way to explain
that I did, indeed, answer your question.

*My point is
that no one is going to think that cycling is less dangerous
than walking.

Of course. Unless they look at data, that is. And we both know that
few people want to bother with that, right? You've certainly
resisted.

If you change your mind, try reading Pucher's paper, "Making Walking &
Cycling Safer: Lessons from Europe" that I've cited many times.
You'll love it because Pucher is both "Mr. Danger" and a facilities
fanatic. But you'll come across the data that he presents showing
walking over three times more dangerous than cycling per km.

Will people believe it? Probably no. People have lots of erroneous
beliefs. One of them is that bicycling is deadly. I think we should
work to overcome that false belief.

*You don't
want to do any study, you don't think it's useful, and you're
certainly not adding any value!

Then don't respond.

Sometimes my responses are not actually written for the person to whom
I'm responding. I'm aware that others read these threads, and may
learn even if the person posting does not.

In other cases, I hope to convince the poster to actually look up some
facts and learn. Occasionally it works.

- Frank Krygowski

On Nov 23, 5:19*pm, James wrote:
On Nov 24, 8:46*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Right! *10 killed in your area per year, so cycling is "dangerous."
In the US as a whole, we get maybe 700 cyclists killed in a year, so
people say it's "dangerous."

OTOH, we get about 3000 dying from drowning, yet people don't think of
swimming as being as dangerous as biking! *When was the last time you
heard about a mandatory water wing law?

How many per hour of activity?
How many hours of swimming versus cycling?

http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/comparat.html

- Frank Krygowski

On Nov 24, 11:09*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 23, 5:19*pm, James wrote:

On Nov 24, 8:46*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Right! *10 killed in your area per year, so cycling is "dangerous."
In the US as a whole, we get maybe 700 cyclists killed in a year, so
people say it's "dangerous."

OTOH, we get about 3000 dying from drowning, yet people don't think of
swimming as being as dangerous as biking! *When was the last time you
heard about a mandatory water wing law?

How many per hour of activity?
How many hours of swimming versus cycling?

http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/comparat.html

Demographics?

JS.

On Nov 24, 11:09*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 23, 5:19*pm, James wrote:

On Nov 24, 8:46*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Right! *10 killed in your area per year, so cycling is "dangerous."
In the US as a whole, we get maybe 700 cyclists killed in a year, so
people say it's "dangerous."

OTOH, we get about 3000 dying from drowning, yet people don't think of
swimming as being as dangerous as biking! *When was the last time you
heard about a mandatory water wing law?

How many per hour of activity?
How many hours of swimming versus cycling?

http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/comparat.html

Again, we're focused on fatalities. How many serious injuries? Are
the trends the same? Got data?

JS.

On Nov 24, 11:09*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 23, 5:19*pm, James wrote:

On Nov 24, 8:46*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Right! *10 killed in your area per year, so cycling is "dangerous."
In the US as a whole, we get maybe 700 cyclists killed in a year, so
people say it's "dangerous."

OTOH, we get about 3000 dying from drowning, yet people don't think of
swimming as being as dangerous as biking! *When was the last time you
heard about a mandatory water wing law?

How many per hour of activity?
How many hours of swimming versus cycling?

http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/comparat.html

Apparently passenger cars are twice as deadly as bicycles, however
I've received far more injuries from bicycling than driving, and I
drive for a similar number of hours as I cycle each week.

JS.

On Nov 23, 7:34*pm, James wrote:
On Nov 24, 11:09*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:



On Nov 23, 5:19*pm, James wrote:

On Nov 24, 8:46*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Right! *10 killed in your area per year, so cycling is "dangerous.."
In the US as a whole, we get maybe 700 cyclists killed in a year, so
people say it's "dangerous."

OTOH, we get about 3000 dying from drowning, yet people don't think of
swimming as being as dangerous as biking! *When was the last time you
heard about a mandatory water wing law?

How many per hour of activity?
How many hours of swimming versus cycling?

http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/comparat.html

Apparently passenger cars are twice as deadly as bicycles, however
I've received far more injuries from bicycling than driving, and I
drive for a similar number of hours as I cycle each week.

OK, James, for you cycling is very, very dangerous. Drivers really
are out to kill you, as you said. Besides, you could fall over at any
moment and die. You've been ever so brave to ever ride at all! But
now, you've proven your bravery, so that's done. For your own good,
you should give cycling up. You can't be too safe, you know!

(Is that what you wanted to hear?)

- Frank Krygowski

On 11/23/2010 8:49 AM, Simon Lewis wrote:
Duane writes:

On 11/22/2010 7:31 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Nov 22, 3:53 pm, Duane wrote:
On 11/22/2010 3:25 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

There is legitimate discussion on whether "per mile" or "per hour"
analysis is more useful. But both are used, and are useful for
certain types of comparisons.

Maybe but "per hour" makes more sense to me but that's not my point.
If you want to use "per miles cycled" to "per miles cycled" to
do comparisons across gender, across geographical areas etc, this
makes sense. But to compare per miles cycled to per miles walked
doesn't make sense to me.

And yet, there have been people who have posted here, saying that
cycling is obviously dangerous because there are more fatalities per
mile for cycling than for riding in a car. At this point, I don't
remember exactly who made that argument and whether you were in the
discussion. But can I assume, then, that you'd discount any such
claim that cycling was more dangerous than motoring?

I've never said that cycling was more dangerous than anything.
I don't see the point of the exercise.

I say that cycling is not without danger and that danger can be reduced
by increasing cycling presence. One of the ways to increase cycling is
to provide better facilities. I've posted a few links to stats supplied
by Velo-Quebec that show this correlation. I don't remember
what your response was.


You are arguing with someone that makes the following claims:-

A protective shell around the head does not protect the head.
Cycle lanes do not make it safer to cycle.

And numerous other nutty claims.

In short Frank is two cents short of a farthing ...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3286/2333943088_f633021146.jpg

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 11/23/2010 10:34 AM, SMS aka Steven M. Scharf wrote:
On 11/23/2010 6:49 AM, Simon Lewis wrote:

You are arguing with someone that makes the following claims:-

A protective shell around the head does not protect the head.
Cycle lanes do not make it safer to cycle.

And numerous other nutty claims.

In short Frank is two cents short of a farthing ...

He's just being the devil's advocate to stimulate discussion. He doesn't
actually believe the claims he makes.

Project much?

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.