Bicycle Austin forum

MichaelBluejay

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From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

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Netherlands has more cycling deaths per capita than U.S.

It's true:  The Netherlands, considered by many to be a bicycling utopia, has more cyclist deaths per capita than the U.S.  Heck, the Netherlands actually has more cyclist deaths overall than car driver/passenger deaths!

Most of you probably already know the reason why:  the Dutch do way more bike-riding by Americans, so per mile traveled (which is a much more meaningful metric than per-capita), cycling is way more dangerous in the U.S. than the Netherlands.  Like, 4x more dangerous.  (And on a per-trip basis, seems to be about 15x more dangerous.)

Here's a (dated) chart of the percent of trips by bicycle, by country.  USA!  USA!

As Forbes notes, the more cyclists in a country, the fewer fatal crashes: