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cyclist fatality statistics
On Dec 8, 1:37 pm, "gds" wrote: Wayne Pein wrote: I'm sure some of the fatalities involved getting hit from the rear, and most of those will involve unlit bicyclists, but I'm also sure the bulk are from turning/merging movements, and many of those will involve unlit bicyclists too. Alcohol/impairment will often be involved for one or both participants, and the percentage of children is another important consideration. WayneThat does seem to hold true. We have had two cycist fatalities within the past couple of weeks. The first involved a teenager riding a night on an unlit street with no lights. The driver was not cited. The second involved an impaired driver (at night) who swerved onto the shoulder and hit a cyclist. She was arrested! Had she not been imapaired would she have been charged (only) with "improper lane usage"? -bdbafh |
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#12
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cyclist fatality statistics
Wayne Pein wrote: Generally the higher the exposure rate (there are several ways to consider this) the higher the body count. This is true, there will likely be more fatalities if there is are more cyclists. But it's worth noting, the rise in fatalities is (almost?) never as great as the rise in cycling. This means that, if there are more cyclists present, the risk _per cyclist_ goes down. "Safety in numbers" is what it's called, and it's been very well documented. - Frank Krygowski |
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cyclist fatality statistics
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cyclist fatality statistics
"gds" wrote:
Mark Hickey wrote: Wayne Pein wrote: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...listsTSF05.pdf shows all by state. At 3%, Arizona is the 4th highest/worst. It is 2nd worst per capita. I don't doubt it, but not because the cycling here is more dangerous... it's simply because a lot of people ride. Compare the number of bikes you'll see in the Phoenix east valley on a given day to the number you'll see in a suburb of Baltimore or Chicago or St. Louis and it's easy to see that there are a lot more opportunities for accidents. Add in the fact that people ride here all year round, and it's even more of a factor. Wayne, that is interesting info and it is surprising to me that AZ ranks so poorly. There is some more data. ~1 third of the cyclist fatalities occurred during periods of darkness. At least here in the Tucson metro area there are vast stretches of roads with minimal or no lighting. From my memory of the 5 Tucson area fatalities as reported in the press it seemed to skew toward folks riding at night without lights. Mark, you are suggesting that because the per capita number of cyclists in AZ is very high that goes toward explaining the high per capita number of fatalities. That could be a contiributer. As we are talking about fatalities and not all accidents I think there is another big contributer. Road speeds here are very high. Most arterials in Tucson tolerate speeds of ~50 mph. The high speed on dry, straight roads may or may not result in more accidents but I'd think that once an accident happens that the chance of a fatality is higher because of the speed (and because average vehicle size out here is also pretty big). That could have something to do with it, to be sure. The roads are better than - well, pretty much the rest of the country, but I suppose that doesn't really help in the kind of accidents that tend to take us out (turning left from the opposite lane - don't ask me why that one springs to my dented mind). ;-) It would be hard to quantify how many more bikes there are on the roads here, but I'd have to put it at 10X plus compared to the northeastern urban areas I've lived in before. Mark Hickey Habanero Cycles http://www.habcycles.com Home of the $795 ti frame |
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cyclist fatality statistics
"gds" wrote:
wrote: This means that, if there are more cyclists present, the risk _per cyclist_ goes down. "Safety in numbers" is what it's called, and it's been very well documented. - Frank Krygowski And this is probably what Mark was alluding to when mentioning the large number of cyclists in the Valley. Clearly it is possible that by having hihg per capita cycling it can follwo that a state like Arizona can rank poorly when cyclist fatatlities are expressed as a percentage of total traffic fatalities or as a percentage of population and still not have such a high relative risk measure when properly measured as a percentage of all cyclists. That job of picking the correct denominator is always a tricky one. The hardest thing to work out of the numbers is what we really care about - what are the numbers for "recreational cyclists"? Subtract the eight year olds and the DUI bikes, and the overall fatality numbers change dramatically. On a related note, if you subtract those who ride bikes for transportation, but have no particular love of riding (doing it only because they don't have a better option), the numbers would almost certainly come down. This is a superset of the DUI riders, and (here in AZ) includes a lot of immigrants who (from my limited observations) aren't likely to enter any bike handling contests. Note: I'm not saying there's anything WRONG with riding a bike for transportation if you hate doing it... just that those riders are not as likely want to work on developing some of the skills most of us work on continually. Mark Hickey Habanero Cycles http://www.habcycles.com Home of the $795 ti frame |
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cyclist fatality statistics
Mark Hickey wrote: .... The hardest thing to work out of the numbers is what we really care about - what are the numbers for "recreational cyclists"? Subtract the eight year olds and the DUI bikes, and the overall fatality numbers change dramatically. They don't actually change all that dramatically. Due to the demographic revolution in cycling over the past 30+ years (more adults cycling, but far fewer children), the fraction of US cycling fatalities taking place among juveniles (say under the age of 16) has plunged from more than 2/3 (68%) in 1975 to less than 1/5 (18%) as of 2005. Likewise, though cycling while intoxicated is clearly not a very good idea, the portion of cycling fatalities who were considered DUI at the time of their demise is generally less than 20% overall--though among the 35-54 age group, this rises to ~35% according to FARS data. Riley Geary |
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#18
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cyclist fatality statistics
On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 13:48:05 -0800, frkrygow wrote:
Wayne Pein wrote: Generally the higher the exposure rate (there are several ways to consider this) the higher the body count. This is true, there will likely be more fatalities if there is are more cyclists. But it's worth noting, the rise in fatalities is (almost?) never as great as the rise in cycling. That's not what I've been hearing lately, from VDOT and some others. Bike/ped fatalities are increasing, in total and per capita. I haven't yet read the reports they're looking at though. Matt O. |
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cyclist fatality statistics
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