Statisics Show 98.1% of Austinites suffer from faint hearts

Peter Wall · 2013-04-29 16:34:05

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/loca … ear/nXZLF/

Editor's note: The article linked-to is about our local daily's transportation editor taking a spin on a bicycle, on the invitation of Councilmember Riley and the Bike Program director Beaudet. They had to hook him up with a bike, because he doesn't own one. In the article, he cites a figure that only 1.9% of Austinites bike to work, and that biking isn't for the faint of heart.

Everyone, when posting links, please give a summary of what the linked-to content is about, rather than forcing readers to click the link -- especially since the link might break at some point in the future. Thanks.

rmonsees · 2013-04-30 13:39:35

I posted a comment on the article encouraging him for giving it a shot. The comments he made are the same I hear from everyone who is a non-cyclist. People are intimidated by the perceived inconveniences and dangers, mainly due to not understanding how easily it can all be made to work with planing and practice. I'm glad Chris Riley and Annick Beaudet made the effort to get him out there, and I hope they keep working on him.

MichaelBluejay · 2013-04-30 20:05:57

What I find kind of sad is that the transportation editor of the local daily doesn't own a bike. That ought to tell us something.

But the article really illuminates our problem as bike advocates: How do we encourage more people to ride bikes when the risk from biking vs. driving is so much greater 3 to 10x greater, and is it ethically okay to do so?

That was kind of crystalized for me back in the 90s when a well-known local transportation pundit asked me, "Bluejay, how does it motivate me to start riding a bicycle when every week you're talking on your radio show about cyclists who got hit by cars, often by hit-and-run drivers?" I knew then that making cycling safer would have to be a big part of my advocacy, and so I started BicycleSafe.com and wrote "How to Not Get Hit By Cars", and let anyone reprint it for free anywhere for noncommercial use. That article became popular and remains so 15 years later (not too long ago it was the cover story on Australian Cyclist magazine), but I can't pat myself on the back because the carnage in the streets is just as high as ever.

So my favorite kind of advocacy is geared towards making cycling safer, rather than directly trying to get people on bikes. But making cycling safer does get more people on bikes anyway, because it's the danger of biking that keeps them off of them more than anything. That's why efforts like Bike Texas' attempts to get a statewide 3-foot-passing law are so crucial.

Over the years, sometimes I've woken up in a cold sweat wondering whether I'd get hit while biking the next day. Now that I'm a parent, those fears have been replaced by my waking up and wondering whether it's my kids who are going to get hit the next day.

I don't think it's fair for us to downplay peoples' fears about cycling when biking is about an order of magnitude more dangerous than driving. On the other hand, we all want more biking and less driving, so it's a quandary. We're slowly trying to make the streets safer for cyclists, but if that's working, it doesn't seem to be reflected in reduced body counts, at least not yet.

rmonsees · 2013-05-01 11:52:25

Regarding the actual (as opposed to perceived) dangers, I agree that they should be reduced as much as possible through smart street planning and cycling infrastructure. I'm a bit skeptical of your statistics on the dangers of cycling. The main problem I see is the use of miles traveled per accident. People travel much greater distances in cars than they do on bikes, which skews the results considerably. The risk of being on a road is *time* related, not distance related. If you stand on a street corner not moving at all, your risk of being hit is a function of how long you stand there, and how many other vehicles pass through that intersection. Nothing to do with how far you travel. Similarly on a bike or in a car - the less *time* you are on the road, and the fewer other vehicles you encounter, the less likely you are to be in an accident.

Anecdotally, I've been cycling to work daily, 10 miles each way, for 5 years with no major accidents (a couple of minor spills due to wet streets). I would expect that if my risk was 10x, I'd have been a lot more banged up. My only major accident while commuting was on the rare day I needed a car - some guy rear-ended me at high speed, totaling the car. Luckily I only had minor injuries. I reduce my cycling risk by choosing the safest possible route, following the rules of the road, and anticipating what stupid things the drivers ahead of me might do.

MichaelBluejay · 2013-05-01 12:21:26

No, using miles-traveled rather than time traveled is the *proper* way to do the comparison. If you bike instead of drive, then you're biking X miles instead of driving them. (Maybe a little extra distance with a different route, but the difference is negligible.) If it took you 30 minutes to drive to work, there's no way you could bike it in the same 30 minutes. If you do insist on comparing the risk per minute than per mile, then you've got more minutes to account for to bike the same distance, so the risk works out the same as if you'd compared distance-to-distance in the first place.

If you dispute this, then let's see the math that shows that a typical work commute from A to B is *not* appreciably more dangerous by biking instead of driving.

CharlesDuffy · 2013-05-01 13:27:20

I've seen studies to the effect that when people choose their home and workplace, the amount of commute time they consider tolerable is constant, regardless of transportation mechanism.

Thus, while in the short term distance may be appropriate in determining safety, in the long term (in which folks select their home and workplace with their transportation mode in mind), time is a reasonable fit.

rmonsees · 2013-05-01 13:47:42

If I took the same route via bicycle as I would by car, I might agree with you. A better measure might be "vehicle exposure" as a measure of accident risk. The more people in vehicles you encounter, the higher risk that one of them is going to do something unwise, and not in your favor. On the same road, a cyclist will be passed by more motor vehicles than a motorist would be, due to the speed difference. But if a cyclist chooses low traffic roads, vehicle exposure may be less than a motorist for the same distance.

MichaelBluejay · 2013-05-01 15:34:25

CharlesDuffy wrote:

I've seen studies to the effect that when people choose their home and workplace, the amount of commute time they consider tolerable is constant, regardless of transportation mechanism.

And that's irrelevant. No matter how far away from their job someone chooses to live, biking is 3-10x more dangerous than driving that same distance. If biking is 3-10x more dangerous per mile, it's 3-10x more dangerous per 3 miles, per 7 miles, per 12 miles, etc. The distance doesn't matter.

rmonsees wrote:

But if a cyclist chooses low traffic roads, vehicle exposure may be less than a motorist for the same distance.

And yet the numbers still show that biking is 3-10x more dangerous than driving. Presumably cyclists are already avoiding the busiest roads to the extent that they can -- that's certainly what I see.

Come on -- does it not seem obvious that being in a steel cage with a seatbelt has got to be a lot safer than being completely unprotected on an open-air bicycle?

Jack · 2013-05-01 16:59:16

MichaelBluejay wrote:

No, using miles-traveled rather than time traveled is the *proper* way to do the comparison. ***
If you dispute this, then let's see the math that shows that a typical work commute from A to B is *not* appreciably more dangerous by biking instead of driving.

Various ways of doing the risk calculations are explored here: http://www.boycottbell.com/cached/www.k … /risks.htm

Jack · 2013-05-01 17:01:31

One might also consider the relative risk of killing someone else by one's choice of riding vs. driving.

Jack · 2013-05-01 17:14:47

One might also consider that bicycling to work can very significantly reduce one's risk of death from all causes (and "all causes" includes any risk of death from bicycling to work):

BICYCLING TO WORK
.

Information on bicycling as transportation to work was available for 783 women and 6171 men. Among these 6954 subjects, 2291 died during follow-up. The same tendencies were found in men and women when mortality rates were compared between those who cycled to work and those who did not, but the estimates were not significant in women. The average time spent cycling in those who did cycle to work was 3 hours per week. The analyses are presented for the whole group, with adjustment for sex. Bicycling to work was inversely related to years of education. Among the less educated subjects (<8 years of school), 27.8% used the bicycle to work, in the middle group (8-12 years of school) 24.5% cycled, and in the most educated group (≥12 years of school) 20.3% cycled. After adjustment for age, sex, and educational level, the relative risk in those who cycled was 0.70 (95% CI, 0.55-0.89). After additional adjustment for leisure time physical activity, body mass index, blood lipid levels, smoking, and blood pressure, the relative risk was 0.72 (95% CI, 0.57-0.91).

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article … eid=485349

So, why the focus on risks of cycling when risks are easily reduced by best practices, risks aren't so high to begin with, and, even including the risks, the cyclist is more likely to live longer as a result of cycling than to die from cycling?

CharlesDuffy · 2013-05-01 17:49:58

MichaelBluejay wrote:

CharlesDuffy wrote:
I've seen studies to the effect that when people choose their home and workplace, the amount of commute time they consider tolerable is constant, regardless of transportation mechanism.
And that's irrelevant. No matter how far away from their job someone chooses to live, biking is 3-10x more dangerous than driving that same distance. If biking is 3-10x more dangerous per mile, it's 3-10x more dangerous per 3 miles, per 7 miles, per 12 miles, etc. The distance doesn't matter.

I don't presently dispute that it's different per mile. (That's a separate discussion, which involves breaking down the statistics by cyclist type -- the statistics for, say, college students and members of the British touring club are orders of magnitude apart; cycling may be more dangerous per mile overall, but that isn't true for all segments of the cycling population).

However, you're taking into account only some kinds of risk. If I recall my numbers correctly, biking to work takes an average of two years off someone's lifespan by way of increased accident risk -- but adds on something more to the scale of 5-7 years for reduced long-term health risks (heart attack &c). I'm hard-pressed to call descriptions of cycling as dangerous as anything other than disingenuous given the relationship between those numbers.

Moreover, you're ignoring the impact of the argument made in the post to which you responded. Certainly, if the risk delta between transit modes is different per mile, that remains so at any distance. However, if the distance of peoples' commutes depends on their transit mode of choice -- a relationship for which evidence exists -- the implications of describing cycling as more dangerous as a lifestyle choice no longer hold, as cycling leads to other lifestyle choices (as with respect to commute and work locations) which effectively balance those risks.

MichaelBluejay · 2013-05-01 19:11:17

Guys, if bicycling is already so incredibly safe, why do we need groups like LOBV and Bike Texas? Call them up and tell them they can shut their doors, their work is done.

And if you want to talk disingenuous, let me point out that you left out two crucial bits about the infamous "cycling adds years to life" study: It was done in COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, one of the safest places to cycle on earth, and only those who CYCLED HARD got an extra five years of life.

Back here in the U.S....cycling remains 3-10x more risky per mile traveled.

As for the Ken Kifer article linked to about other ways to do the calculations (and which concludes that cycling isn't that dangerous), the irony here is striking: The author was himself killed by a drunk driver while bicycling. I wrote about it here about it nearly a decade ago. Kifer's article is ancient, too, and therefore so are the numbers. But even doing a mile-to-mile comparison with his numbers, Kifer shows that cycling is more than twice as fatal as driving. Not reassuring.

CharlesDuffy wrote:

However, if the distance of peoples' commutes depends on their transit mode of choice -- a relationship for which evidence exists -- the implications of describing cycling as more dangerous as a lifestyle choice no longer hold, as cycling leads to other lifestyle choices (as with respect to commute and work locations) which effectively balance those risks.

So this somehow means that my kids *aren't* actually at any greater risk by biking to school instead of being driven? Thanks, I rest a lot easier now.

dougmc · 2013-05-01 20:55:39

MichaelBluejay wrote:

Guys, if bicycling is already so incredibly safe, why do we need groups like LOBV and Bike Texas?

I realize that this is a rhetorical question, but ...

1) "safety" isn't the only thing these organizations push for

2) "safety" is more than simply "not dying", and most of the statistics being given are about the odds of dying.

3) nobody ever seems to think that something is safe *enough*.

4) If driving is even safer than cycling, why does the AAA exist? (Of course, another rhetorical question, with quite a few obvious answers, some of which I've just given.)

dougmc · 2013-05-01 21:03:16

Jack wrote:

MichaelBluejay wrote:
No, using miles-traveled rather than time traveled is the *proper* way to do the comparison. ***
If you dispute this, then let's see the math that shows that a typical work commute from A to B is *not* appreciably more dangerous by biking instead of driving.
Various ways of doing the risk calculations are explored here: http://www.boycottbell.com/cached/www.k … /risks.htm

Yes. Ken does quite a bit of handwaving to explain why "by hour" is correct and "by mile" is not, such as this gem --

Even though calculations based on exposure make more sense, as I have just explained, many vastly prefer statistics based on miles. However, data based on miles creates a bias. Consider a comparison between travel by jet with travel by car. Since the jet is 20 times faster, a comparison based on miles makes the jet look 20 times safer. Of course, if we are assuming the same distance will be covered, comparison by miles is quite fair, but bicycles and cars do not travel the same distance, as I just pointed out. Even a car-free cyclist is going to ride far below the 11,600 miles of the average motor vehicle.

Yes, cyclists go fewer miles. But that also means they go fewer places. By this metric, a broken car is the ultimate in safety, and even being more realistic a heavily loaded cargo bike must be safer than a touring bike because you don't do go as far.

The "but bicycles and cars do not travel the same distance" argument *would* make more sense if there were direct routes where bicycles could get from point A to point B in 3 miles when cars have to go 6 -- but the reality is that this is usually not the case, and often it goes the other way. (Where cars get the direct route via freeways, and bicycles have to take side roads greatly increasing the distance.)

Ken puts a lot of effort into explaining how bicycling is safe in this page. Unfortunately, he was killed by a drunk driver while on his bicycle, and that weakens his message even though it's only one bit of data.

Bicycle Austin forum

#1 2013-04-29 16:34:05

Statisics Show 98.1% of Austinites suffer from faint hearts

#2 2013-04-30 13:39:35

Re: Statisics Show 98.1% of Austinites suffer from faint hearts

#3 2013-04-30 20:05:57

Re: Statisics Show 98.1% of Austinites suffer from faint hearts

#4 2013-05-01 11:52:25

Re: Statisics Show 98.1% of Austinites suffer from faint hearts

#5 2013-05-01 12:21:26

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#6 2013-05-01 13:27:20

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#7 2013-05-01 13:47:42

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#8 2013-05-01 15:34:25

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#9 2013-05-01 16:59:16

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#10 2013-05-01 17:01:31

Re: Statisics Show 98.1% of Austinites suffer from faint hearts

#11 2013-05-01 17:14:47

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#12 2013-05-01 17:49:58

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#13 2013-05-01 19:11:17

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#14 2013-05-01 20:55:39

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#15 2013-05-01 21:03:16

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