Road deaths and safety

petemadoc

I've recently got back into cycling, mainly road and I commute to work too. After a near miss with a car at a mini roundabout today, which resulted in me stopping about a foot away from a dopey woman who didn't see me and then falling off right in the middle of the roundabout, it got me thinking about safety.

According to google there were 104 cyclist deaths in 2009, does anyone know where you can get more detailed information such as ages, areas of the country etc. I'd like to know what group I fall into and how dangerous cycling actually is. If 90 of the 104 deaths were 16yr olds in the London area then I'd be pretty low risk, whereas if most deaths are adult men on rural roads then I know I'm f**ked.

There are other cycling safety figures which are pretty meaningless. annual casualties for example, this probably includes every tom dick and granny who falls of their bike and goes to A&E for a slight graze. What I want to know is how many are serious injury's that would actually change your life ie. you caouldn't cycle anymore.

I know we should all be vigilant at all times on the road, there will always be those drivers who just don't see you, not to mention the ones who are just pr*cks. Does anyone else ever worry about their safety, I've got 2 kids and I want to carry on living

deptfordmarmoset

Does anyone else ever worry about their safety, I've got 2 kids and I want to carry on living Smile

I don't think you can cycle and survive without worrying about your safety. I had to make 3 ''emergency'' manoeuvres today, 2 of which could have maimed me, the other one was a woman - a big woman - who took a traffic queue for a red light and assumed she could simply walk out on the road without looking. Right in front of me. I spend nearly all my riding time being aware of dangers, real or potential, and watching many atrocious drivers for whom other peoples' safety is simply not on the agenda.

This ends up meaning that, particularly before going out for a ride simply for the sake of a ride, I find myself thinking about the risk - first to acknowledge that it's there and second, to think about how to manage - ie reduce - the risk. And then, almost fatalistically, reminding myself that we're all mortal, death will get us all sooner or later, and it will probably happen with little dignity. So be it: my daughter (I hope) would be deeply affected by my death, but we can't continually chip away at risk until it approaches zero risk. In the end, it's a 100% certainty anyway.

In effect, then, I often have to ''talk myself'' onto the bike, to claim my right to be on the road. And on balance, I feel more alive after the ride. So while there's a risk that I might get myself killed, there's a higher probability that I was alive when it happened.

cougie

10x as many motorists were killed too. Motorists never worry about their safety.

Ride sensibly - treat all drivers as idiots, have great lights and the reactions of a cat and then theres nothing to be worried about. Inactivity kills a hell of a lot more people anyway.

unixnerd

Not all cycling deaths involve cars, we had one up here lately where an elderly woman fell off her bike on a steep downhill corner and died. So bear that in mind.

You can do a lot to protect yourself. Wear hi-vis clothing and use nice bright lights when needed. I'd love to know how many of the fatalities were cyclists who just blended in with the background. Naturally a driver should be able to see them and is to blame for the accident, but making yourself more visible is common sense.

I nearly hit a bloke years ago who had no lights in the dead of night. I also had a near miss with a woman in a green top in woods near my house at dusk. Personally I've been knocked off my bike once, just outside Tescos at a junction. A quick nip to the shops so I had black toursers and a dark blue fleece on a dull day, so I partly blame myself. Wasn't hurt.

Also things like cyclists going up the left side of lorries in traffic must have taken a few lives.

It's by no means always the fault of the cyclist, but it's not always the driver's fault either.

dilemna

PeteMadoc wrote:

I've recently got back into cycling, mainly road and I commute to work too. After a near miss with a car at a mini roundabout today, which resulted in me stopping about a foot away from a dopey woman who didn't see me and then falling off right in the middle of the roundabout, it got me thinking about safety.

According to google there were 104 cyclist deaths in 2009, does anyone know where you can get more detailed information such as ages, areas of the country etc. I'd like to know what group I fall into and how dangerous cycling actually is. If 90 of the 104 deaths were 16yr olds in the London area then I'd be pretty low risk, whereas if most deaths are adult men on rural roads then I know I'm f**ked.

There are other cycling safety figures which are pretty meaningless. annual casualties for example, this probably includes every tom dick and granny who falls of their bike and goes to A&E for a slight graze. What I want to know is how many are serious injury's that would actually change your life ie. you caouldn't cycle anymore.

I know we should all be vigilant at all times on the road, there will always be those drivers who just don't see you, not to mention the ones who are just pr*cks. Does anyone else ever worry about their safety, I've got 2 kids and I want to carry on living

And a wife as well presumably ...................

Make sure your life is adequately insured. How much would they need if you were taken down and didn't survive? £100k, £200k or £500k?

Or if you were taken down and ended up so seriously injured you needed 24/7 nursing care for the rest of your life? You need to cover this base as you might not be able to work, so loss of earnings for 25 years plus all your care and other facilities.

petemadoc

[/quote]And a wife as well presumably ...................[/quote]

Yep got one of those too

I'm always aware on the roads and would never give up cycling for safety reasons. As deptfordmarmoset says there's no point being alive anyway if you don't "live life" and you can't eliminate risk.

I'd still like to see more detail on road stats, does anyone know where you can get this info.

Oh and I'm well aware of the risk without cars too. Going downhill at 50 mph, tucked in, wind rushing over you can be scary but it definitely makes you feel alive! Wouldn't like to have a blowout, I have read about it happening.

Back to the subject - cars are the biggest killer surely, but what and where is the most common cause of death. I read something about road deaths in London being 80% women and there was a theory it was because women weren't as confident and didn't jump red lights to get away from the passenger side of lorries. Not sure who cam up with that but there are def more female deaths in London than male and they were mostly caused by lorries.

Clever Pun

This all sounds a bit serious

ndru

Someone said, that although we are the safest people to live on earth, we are also the most scared. I would advise you to read this http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/09/fear-of-cycling-01-essay-in-five-parts.html. And then simply ride in a sensible and predictable way. Reducing the speed sometimes is the best option - it means you can focus more on the road and the cars can overtake you quicker, but also make sure you don't ride in the gutter.

Buckled_Rims

CTC has statistics on their website.

or if you want a real read...



http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/rrcgb2008.pdf/url]

petemadoc

Good news is all road deaths of any kind have gone down a lot in the last 15 years. Here's the important bits for cyclists then.

81% of cycle casualties were male and 84% of fatalities . . that's to be expected really, there are clearly more male cyclist on the roads anyway.

but only 58% of casualties/fatalitites were between 16-59 . . I would have thought this was the most common road cycling age group.

10% of fatalities were children which leaves 32% to over 59's, this seems very high and makes you wonder. I bet that there's no way that 32% of cyclists are over 59!

So I'm male, between 16-59 this puts me in roughly in 49% bracket of cycling deaths last year in a population of 60 million people, a very rough guess puts me in a group of people 18 million strong, if half of them cycle then I've 1 in something million chance of dying and if I'm careful, don't do anything stupid and use lights at night that will be even less.

So errrr, I reckon I'll be ok.

Don't fancy taking up motorbiking though

unixnerd

10% of fatalities were children which leaves 32% to over 59's, this seems very high and makes you wonder. I bet that there's no way that 32% of cyclists are over 59!

I had a relative who died pedalling his bike up a steep hill, must have been nearly 80. I can think of worse ways to go.

I'm surprised only 10% were children. My company supports a road safety charity who go around primary schools, they their ilk must be doing some good after all.

roger_merriman

cycling isn't a dangerious activity, thats not to say you couldn't die doing it. but same as lots of things.

but bluntly some 100 plus folks die every year, which out of 60 million or so is fairly good odds.

quite frankly don't worry be happy......

UndercoverElephant

I think it's normal to wonder about this stuff. Especially when you first start out.

I seem to remember that cycling has roughly 10 people died when driving (non-motorway) per billion kilometers. By the same measure, 30 people died cycling, 35 people died as pedestrians and 120 died on a motorbike. I can't find the source for this, so I'm willing to be proved slightly inaccurate).

Also, cycling makes you live longer on average.

dondare

Cycling is a lot less dangerous than motor-cycling and surprisingly slightly less dangerous than walking. It's a lot less dangerous than not getting enough exercise.

nickthetrick

Yes maybe we should factor in how many of the 100 or so people who died cycling would have died anyway! That might bring the number down by 10% or so?!

Seems to me judging by recent news coverage that to avoid participating in Time Trails on A roads would be a good thing to do.

tjwood

PeteMadoc wrote:

According to google there were 104 cyclist deaths in 2009

This is, by itself, meaningless.

If you were to calculate the statistical risk of death due to cycling, you would need to know such things as:

- how many of these people died as a direct result of cycling (some of them may have been about to die anyway)

- how many people would have died had it not been for cycling (we may hypothesise that cycling makes you healthier and hence less likely to die of, e.g., heart disease)

- as a proportion of those who died in 2009, how many of them were cyclists? How does this ratio compare to with that in the group of people who didn't die?

- is 2009 a representative year, statistically speaking?

- are all cyclists equal, or are those who die mainly those in some other group that pre-disposes them to death (e.g. have medical problems, or cycle in the gutter, or ride poorly maintained bikes, etc)

- given that if people aren't cycling they will probably be doing other activities (either using alternative methods of transport, or doing alternative things with their leisure time), how do the risks of death if you spend your time cycling compare to those if you spend your time doing other things?

- is death the only outcome we're interested in?



Suffice to say, I don't have the data or time or inclination to work all this out, so I'm happy to use some hand-waving argument like "104 is a small number, I enjoy cycling, I've got to die of something at some point anyway, so let's not worry about it".

tjwood

UndercoverElephant wrote:

I seem to remember that cycling has roughly 10 people died when driving (non-motorway) per billion kilometers. By the same measure, 30 people died cycling, 35 people died as pedestrians and 120 died on a motorbike. I can't find the source for this, so I'm willing to be proved slightly inaccurate).

Even if those stats are correct, they might not be all that relevant. Car miles would include lots of long journeys on big, relatively safe roads (even if that excludes motorways), whereas pedestrian miles will mainly be short journeys in urban areas, and I guess cyclist miles fall somewhere in the middle. Also cars cover many miles per hour, pedestrians few, and cyclists somewhere in the middle. It might be that the rate of accidents that lead to death is more closely linked to the amount of time spent travelling, rather than the distance travelled, in which case deaths per hour may be more relevant than deaths per kilometre.

The basic problem is that you're not comparing like with like, unless you consider only stats for, say, short urban journeys of two miles or less, in which case you might be able to make a fair comparison between cycle, car and pedestrian journeys.

jimmypippa

Buckled_Rims wrote:

CTC has statistics on their website.

or if you want a real read...



http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/rrcgb2008.pdf

Fixed your link...

I seem to remember (from the CTC, I think) that the net improvement in health outweighs the increased accident risk, so the average increase in life expectancy is about 2-years...