
Bicycling: The Safest Form of Transportation - TheLarch
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safest-form-of-transportation/
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Brendinooo
I'm pro-biking, but if you live in areas that aren't friendly to bikers, I
don't think these comparisons are as apt.

For example, there's a coffee shop I like that's nine miles away. (The closest
coffee shop is a little over two miles away, but I really like this place). In
order to get there, the best way is to take a four-lane split highway with a
speed limit of 55 MPH (~89 km/h). There are signs that say to 'share the
road', but let's be honest: I'm safer in the car than on the bike for that
route. I've biked that way twice and probably won't do it again without taking
a longer, alternate route. A dedicated bike lane or trail would change the
impression here dramatically.

Time matters too. A half-hour round-trip becomes almost two hours. If we trust
his conclusion, I lose around 5 minutes of life driving while gaining 234
minutes of life - roughly a 4 hour swing. But 1.5 of those 4 hours are already
given back to the ride, and I have to trust that I'll be able to cash out the
other 2.5 hours in the future, versus 90 minutes that I can have today with a
reasonable amount of confidence.

Plus, what is safe? I've been in two car accidents and I can recall three good
bike spills. I was unhurt in both car wrecks and I have scars from all three
bike crashes.

The cost comparisons aren't useful for people who live in an area that
requires car ownership. If you have to own a car, a lot of those per-mile
costs are fixed.

Biking certainly _can_ be safer. In a dedicated bike path it's a lot harder to
die due to a collision. But I think this article doesn't accept the reality
for a lot of areas.

~~~
kennywinker
I think bundled up in his assumptions are things like "if needed, change where
you live to enable this lifestyle".

If you've not read mmm before, he's a pretty radical life hacker type. Lots of
insight into the assumptions we all make about how we should live, but he also
does things many people just don't want to do.

Maybe you'd be happier if you moved just a few blocks away from a good coffee
shop, and could bike there and maybe get rid of your car entirely. Maybe you'd
be far less happy. It's worth asking yourself those types of questions,
though, right?

~~~
Brendinooo
Absolutely worth asking those kinds of questions!

But such an outlook would require a softer headline. "How bicycling can be the
safest form of transportation" would do a lot better.

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Sumaso
I used to read a lot of these articles, but the assumptions were just too
silly for me.

there is no assumption about amount of extra time it takes to ride the bike.
Somehow riding a bike gains you money, when in fact its the cost of driving
the car that should increase instead, and the riding of the bike should be
some trivial number per mile (cost of bike maintenance). etc...

The argument might be valid but its presentation is just silly.

~~~
panglott
The extra time it takes to ride a bicycle can be minimal. When I drive to
work, it takes about 20 minutes; when I cycle it takes about 30. In urban
traffic a car tavels only about twice as fast as a bicycle on average, and
bicycles are easier to launch and park. I find that trips of 2 miles are less
are faster by bicycle, and that's the most common kind of trip.

Most people who insist on riding bicycles for commutes organize their lives
around that: living in a place close to work, for example. The author is a
person who took up cycling and never stopped; in that case, bike commutability
is something he probably planned for when choosing a home, work, and career.
People who have organized their lives around driving everywhere have different
considerations.

What his argument boils down to is that bicycles have similar or lower
accident risk, much lower operating costs, and traveling by bicycle improves
your health—and health is extremely valuable.

~~~
r00fus
My problem with bike commuting is sweat. So when I used to commute (7mi), I
showered after arriving at work, and after my ride back.

It really made my day, but seriously it added non-negligible time to my
commute. Showering @ home is easier, showers at work can be occupied, and the
2nd shower after coming back was an extra 15m too.

~~~
panglott
I only have the sweat problem in July and August where I live, and it's easily
fixed for me by simply wiping off my arms and face with a damp towel when I
come in. It's quick and works surprisingly well.

Everyone's situation is different of course. Bicycle commuting is frequently
oversold; The sweet spot for cycling is 2 miles or less or 2-5 miles, which
accounts for a lot of trips, but lots of people live farther than that from
work.

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ill0gicity
Regardless of all the statistics, math, and you-live-longers in this I have to
disagree. Maybe I'm just an incredibly lucky driver (zero collisions) and a
disaster-magnet on a bicycle (40 year old woman driving an SUV (SF), 33 year
old man driving delivery van (SF), drunk driver (Sunnyvale), 92 year old
driving a van (Sunnyvale)), but I know where I feel safe. That said, I still
love to ride my bike.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
The most common types of car-bike collisions are some sort of scenario where
the car fails to yield. If you know that, you can prevent a lot of them. For
instance, never assume that a car turning left across your lane will yield.

~~~
endemic
Very accurate. Pretend that car drivers cannot see you, and act accordingly.

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krupan
"lift heavy things without fear of injury"

In my experience bicycling did the opposite of that for me. I love biking (way
more than I like lifting heavy things, incidentally), but it does nothing to
teach you how to lift properly, nor does it really even build the right
muscles. Learn the hip hinge if you want to lift heavy things without fear of
injury.

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crispyambulance
Bicycling is a great way to get around and traffic would be better for
everyone, even motorists, if more and more people decide to bicycle.

People get skewed impressions about how safe/unsafe cycling is because they
imagine worst case scenarios for cyclists. To be clear the worst-case outcomes
for cycling accidents are truly awful and very fatal... getting right-hooked
and run over by a garbage truck, getting hit from behind or T-boned by a car
travelling at highway speed.

But fatal bike accidents are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of typical
bad bike accident outcomes however are little more than road-rash, a broken
collarbone or a concussion and frequently these are the fault of the cyclist.
A "totaled" bike amounts to something less than the deductible cost of auto-
insurance in most cases.

Fatal car accidents are ALSO rare but fender benders (IMHO) have been getting
MORE common as a result of mobile phones. Sadly a "fender-bender" can do
massive financial damage--- $500 for each popped airbag + $1000++ whatever
auto-body damage was incurred. Of course "fender benders" easily extend into
"totaled car" when enough damage is done, even if everyone is unscathed.

~~~
soperj
" frequently these are the fault of the cyclist " \- citation needed.

~~~
crispyambulance
Most bike accidents are just ordinary mishandling of the bike resulting in a
fall. Of course these things ARE NOT tabulated anywhere, there's no way to
give a citation for this but those of us who ride a lot know it is reality.
Who is going to file a police report because they fell while getting out of
clips or because they hit a road defect the wrong way?

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intopieces
Living in San Jose and seeing many, many people ride in bike lanes in the
wrong direction, I wonder how safe it is. It terrifies me every time I see it.
I want to honk and wave and tell them but I'm afraid it'll only cause an
accident.

~~~
maxerickson
This lack of understanding happens all over the US. I don't see how it
happens. Many of the people doing it clearly think that a bicycle is
contraflow like a pedestrian.

~~~
ringwalt
In Manhattan, it's mostly bike couriers who go the wrong way. When I cut
across one short block the wrong way because it's convenient, there have been
a few pedestrians who've called me out on it. So someone who's on a bike all
day should know the "right" way by now. There are also frequently bikers on
some busy avenues when there's a bike lane a block over, which is also just
laziness or failure to plan ahead.

~~~
maxerickson
Sure, I'm an occasional rule breaker and I know the traffic rules well enough.

I'm talking about people like the person I saw slowly riding a 3 wheel cargo
bike up the wrong side of one of the busier streets in this small town.

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mikeash
There's a lot of silliness in here, as other comments point out already. There
is _one_ good argument in here, that cycling gives you a net increase in
lifespan because of the exercise. Once you count that, I'm pretty sure the
risk when cycling becomes negative.

The trouble with that idea is that if you really want to minimize risk, you
should drive for your transportation, and get your exercise from something
safer than cycling.

Not that I see the risk of cycling as unacceptable. But if someone is going to
argue that cycling is a net gain, the argument had better work!

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foxyv
Using national odds and figures to make personal decisions is a deadly trap.
If your area/commute isn't average then this statement has to be re-evaluated
dramatically. Saying "Bicycling is that safest form of transportation" using
this data is true only in a special situation.

His argument that the risks of cycling are exaggerated does hold some water.
People are pretty bad at assessing risk.

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randomgyatwork
I loved riding my bike, did around 1200km a year. Last summer I slipped in the
rain, demolished my ankle, was non-weight barring for 12 weeks... That costs a
lot of money.

I know this is personal experience, and not representative of everyone, but
one accident on a bike costs a tun.

~~~
soperj
Accidents in cars can be equally catastrophic.

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Bartweiss
This is disgustingly sloppy. I'm not opposed to rough approximation, but every
number present here has crippling, unaddressed confounders.

\- The per-hour evaluation is obviously bad. Per-mile numbers are present and
more sane, but a vague handwave at 'unnecessary driving' is used to justify
focusing on the prettier, less sensible number.

\- Driving at 70 MPH versus biking at 12 MPH is a ludicrous point of
comparison. If you're traveling at 70 MPH, you're almost certainly driving
somewhere that you couldn't realistically bike. Driving 4 hours to a family
gathering is reasonable in a way that biking 20 hours _on the highway_ is not.

\- The risk numbers are only appealing because of this absurd conflation.
Americans get killed in cars because of drunk/distracted/sleepy drivers, and
because highway speeds are life-threatening. At city-commuter speeds, a driver
can likely survive a head-on with a bus.

\- The bicycling numbers are similarly absurd. The audience for this piece,
and the group most likely to cycle for their commute, is an audience living in
dense cities. Boston and San Francisco are far, far more dangerous cycling
locations than residential, sidewalk biking included in these values.

\- The cherrypicking here is fundamentally dishonest. This is a 2013 piece
that uses 2010 bicycling risk numbers. Why? _Because 2010 was the safest year
for bicyclists in two decades._

I could go on, but suffice to say that "that’s the worst case" is simply a
lie. It is far better than the _best_ case, because these are complete
incomparables.

~~~
Retric
Taking parking into consideration it's often faster to bike < 5 miles in a
city than drive that distance. For longer distances Trains and then Aircraft
win.

~~~
jrockway
The car turns out to be pretty useful for traveling long distanecs. I've both
driven from NYC to Montreal and taken the train. The train takes 12 hours.
Driving takes 6 hours.

Now, if you happen to be traveling on a route that 400,000 other people travel
every day, trains might win. Tokyo to Kyoto is a 2h 19m train ride, while the
drive is 6 hours.

Europe does a little better than the US, but not as well as Japan. Paris-
Frankfurt is 4h by train, 6 hours driving.

(Everything is always 6 hours apparently!)

~~~
Drup
According to the internet, NYC-Montreal by car is 595 km Paris-Marseille, in
france, by car is 774.92km

Paris-Marseille in train is 3h17. The trains are comfortable, you arrive in
the middle of the city and you don't have to park.

Conclusion: get yourself a better train network.

Edit: Just saw you took paris-frankfurt as an example, which seems to be a
particularly poorly optimized route. :/

~~~
Bartweiss
Comparing an American highway map to a train map is telling.

The highways are a neat, practical grid, and we cut the landscape to enable
that. The traintracks, coming later, had to circumvent both natural features
and the highways occupying the best routes. Plus, without a culture of train
travel, express routes are pricy and most trains stop constantly to fill up
and scrape together a profit. Worse, even our express trains simply have slow
top speeds.

The one thing I'm proud of is our train system for _freight_ , which is
actually quite efficient.

~~~
jrockway
The rail system predates the interstate highway system by almost a century.
The reality is that the highway system was built by the government, and the
rail system was built by private companies. The government had better planning
tools than the private companies (eminent domain), and ended up with a better
system.

~~~
ghaff
Furthermore, if you look at old maps of many cities, you'll note that many
current highways either are adjacent to still-used railroad tracks or use the
right of ways of railroad lines that no longer exist.

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cameldrv
I love cycling, and I wish I lived in a place where it was more practical and
safer. As great as it is for the environment, traffic, and health (mental and
physical!), if you know a decent number of people that cycle a lot, you will
see a continuous stream of injuries among your friends.

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SCAQTony
Though very amusing and quite charming, I would hate to be driven to the
hospital on a gurney bed attached to a bicycle or have the fire department
arrive on tandem bikes with fire ladders.

~~~
thrownblown
what about first-responders on bicycles, especially in a disaster zone where
roads may compromised?

I had a friend who was a bike messenger in new york while he was going to
school for paramedics and during 9-11 he got downtown before the second
building fell

