Is there a cycling equivalent to "Accidents in North American Mountaineering"?

[MattTuck]

Sometimes after I hear about an accident (like this recent IronMan death), I wonder if there exists a resource for cyclists that includes the results of the investigations of incidents that injure or kill cyclists.

I think there is probably more heterogeneity in the cycling population than mountaineering, in the sense that people get on bikes for all sorts of reasons, recreation, fitness, commuting, can't drive, etc. And so I'm not sure the lessons of one group would be applicable to another group. Still, I wonder if something like this would be helpful for safety minded cyclists.

My other concern is that 90% of the incidents would involve, "Driver was distracted and/or didn't see the cyclist."

[sandyrs]

My other concern is that 90% of the incidents would involve, "Driver was distracted and/or didn't see the cyclist."

I think a surprising percentage would involve the cyclist being drunk and/or riding at night with no lights.

As you mentioned there's a lot of heterogeneity in cycling, and people with DUIs often end up on bikes...

[11.4]

Never seen one. Most big incidents are memorialized on YouTube.

Mountaineering and sea kayaking both have semi-formalized forums for reporting on deaths or severe accidents, because both deal with a fairly constant incidence of repetitive deaths (repetitive in the sense of the same cause, over and over). I'm not sure why mountaineering actually needs a book on it -- the Institute publishes death reports but the people who tend to die aren't the ones who read it, and most experienced mountaineers and alpinists know the issues and understand that some deaths arise from carelessness, some from bad decisions, and some from simple bad luck. Occasionally a major guide or climber dies, but as often as not it's something unavoidable or if it was avoidable, the number of hours spent at altitude simply gives that more than an infinitesimal likelihood. It's somewhat the same in sea kayaking, though the number of nubes who die in high-death areas due to stupidity (cold water kayaking in high currents and winds with no protective clothing, inadequate equipment, etc.) is high.

[ripvanrando]

None exists.

Most cycling statistics rely upon police reports and sometimes ER visits buy many cyclists who have been crashed into by cars simply go home. Most serious bicycling accidents do not involve cars.

[Mark McM]

I think a surprising percentage would involve the cyclist being drunk and/or riding at night with no lights.

As you mentioned there's a lot of heterogeneity in cycling, and people with DUIs often end up on bikes...

Very true, according to the statistics tracked by the IIHS (http://www.iihs.org/iihs) (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety).

In 2014, 21% of bicyclists who died had BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentrations) of 0.08% or higher.

Compare that to the 31% of automobile passengers who died with BAC of 0.08 or higher, and 38% of pedestrian fatalities with BAC of 0.08 or higher.

Although there aren't statistics given for the use of lights at night, the numbers show that 24% of bicycle fatalities occurred between 9pm and 3am, a time when it will be dark year round. The numbers also show that 49% of bicycle fatalities occurred between 6 am and 6pm, but as there are more fatalities in summer months, it is likely that it was only dark for a portion of time between 3am and 6am, and 6pm and 9pm. Still, that's probably about 1/3 of all bicycle fatalities during hours of darkness.

[deechee]

I saw this in the paper recently for my area (we had a recent pedestrian death), a map of accidents (http://www.dsp.santemontreal.qc.ca/fileadmin/documents/dossiers_thematiques/Environnement/Transport/Carto_Blesses_routeMtl/IleMontreal_saaq20032012Velo.pdf) for pedestrians, cyclists and car occupants, but the paper mainly discusses pedestrian safety.

The paper's #1 recommendation though is not to focus on accident-known intersections. Which pretty much tells me there's not enough data out there.

That said, my personal view is that besides downtown, the plateau area in Montreal has a lot of accidents because a lot of cyclists there don't own cars. Honestly, driving a car there is scary; cyclists are everywhere, ride every which way on the streets, and have absolutely no care of road signals. A good portion of it has to do with people who have never studied for a driving exam. Actually, the same thing can be said for pedestrians; we're notorious for jay walking here...

[dzxc]

This is a pretty good one, maybe not totally what you're looking for though, but growing:

http://closecalldatabase.com/

[verticaldoug]

Climbing Cycling
1. Protection fails DUI
2. Rappelling Texting/inattentive driver
3. Rockfall Random Collusion
4. Weather/stranding Night without lights

Does that cover it?

[smontanaro]

Nothing really operational yet, but since Kalamazoo (isn't it a shame that all we need to refer to is the city?), I started tracking what crosses my inbox from a Google Alert I set up. Right now, it's just a simple thread on The Chainlink:

http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/another-cyclist-fatality

I started to work on a Google Spreadsheet to sort of feel my way to which bits of data I can reasonably extract from news accounts. It has even fewer records than the Chainlink thread, mostly because dredging up the extra information for each incident is more difficult than simply name, date, age and city.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Na88X5WNZspoMuNxmbPNPWN8QKQoc73-gmTqWe9YvOQ/edit?usp=sharing

Feedback on the content of the spreadsheet is welcome. If anyone would like to help with either of these activities, let me know. I'd be happy to give you write permission to the spreadsheet. In theory, you could get a login for the Chainlink, though I doubt that's necessary if you just want to pluck off events it contains to add them to the spreadsheet.

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