Cam Dye says 'no more' to road biking

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

I'm older now, and my creeping fear of mortality has me more fearful of riding on the rode.

It also has me purchase disc brakes and use a 10-42 cassette

That would be "road." Perhaps an effect of creeping mortality ...

[buddybikes]

Guess I am a good age to be old and have my miles in rear view mirror. Find i am lazing out on the bike trail (east bay bike path RI) more and more where least during week i can pretty much go brain dead.

[93KgBike]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

The discussion section of the paper sighted says that cycling is getting safer.

"In all 11 countries shown in Figures 1
and 2, pedestrian and cyclist fatality rates per
capita fell between 1990 and 2014, but the
smallest reductions were in the United States."

Originally Posted by Mark McM

I don't think you read the article you cited.

I read it, but posted the link for the across countries comparison and the discussion about infrastructure. And also because it discusses reporting differences between the Emergency Room and the police reports. Thanks for reading it.

I think this comes closer to the issue today - the perception of the dangers of cycling has been increasing, even if the actual dangers have not. The human mind is conditioned to assess and react to the dangers it encounters (which includes dangers we have heard about from others). In previous decades, when we got news from local papers and TV stations, or from word of mouth, it was rare to hear stories about cycling crashes that happened far away. Now, in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, we instantly hear about cycling fatalities that happen half a world away. Even though we may hear about more cycling fatalities today, that doesn't mean there actually are more cycling fatalities today.

The problem is more than just perceptual. I already knew the NHTSA stats, but should've posted them before. There's been a 35% uptick in accidents since that study was published. And the NHTSA only uses PD numbers rather than PD & ED combined

[oldpotatoe]

It sounds a little Milquetoast, but research actually bares out the claim. The roads are more unsafe for American pedestrians and cyclists than ever before.

I have struggled with my perception of these changes, and challenged myself to be stronger and smarter on the road.

Well, I wonder how much 'fun' they guy had riding a bike? It is a real shame to stop doing something you enjoy, 'what if' yourself out of doing something fun. The roads are more dangerous(distracted drivers) but what I do is ride smart..defensively and never ride anywhere w/o a shoulder. And in 2002 I got hit from behind while riding at 10:30 on a Saturday morning but not gonna stop riding road. Dirt road riding just isn't as much fun to me, nope to MTB..road riding is fun, even with the risk..YMMV and all that.

[93KgBike]

It was my not intention to set up an opinion poll about whether to ride a road bike or not. Cam Dye himself says that he intends to stop riding on the roads, not to stop riding.

We all want to ride our bikes. Those of us in our 40s-60s (who are the most at risk for being killed by a car while riding) have survived riding in the roads by being skillful, especially those of us that have been hit by cars (like me). But none of us want to be hit by cars.

European countries have adopted policies to reduce the risk of riding on pavement. America has been considerably less successful at adopting risk reduction policies.

The cyclist community spends a lot of time debating amongst itself about the relative risk of bike-lanes versus shared-use paths, but these combined environments account for 6% of the total deaths of cyclists. The other 94% occur in areas that we often must use.

After spending almost four decades assuming all the risk of riding in traffic, my question to myself is, "have I done anything to help improve road biking conditions?"

The AJPH paper I linked above suggests,

Because the vast majority of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are attributable to collisions with motor vehicles, roadways are the most lethal environment for walking and cycling.

Walking and cycling are safer on completely separate off-road facilities, such as mixed-use recreational paths, or in car-free zones, traffic-calmed residential streets (with slower speeds and less traffic), and physically separated on-street facilities (such as cycle tracks).

Thus, the provision of more and better separate facilities is a key to improving overall walking and cycling safety. Such facilities are especially important for children and seniors, who are most likely to be killed or seriously injured if hit by a motor vehicle.

Being a surviving, safe and enthusiastic cyclist strikes me as the minimum input into getting structural change that improves the quality of cycling infrastructure.

I bookmarked the site, copenhagenize.eu, which has the ambitious goal of:

advising and inspiring cities, governments and organisations about the re-establishment of the bicycle as a normal form of urban transport. For us, our work is to design a monument in each city we work in – to ingenuity, rationality and human-powered transport.

I am not currently a member of a cyclists group with those kind of goals. But I think it's time for me to change that.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by 93KgBike

The problem is more than just perceptual. I already knew the NHTSA stats, but should've posted them before. There's been a 35% uptick in accidents since that study was published. And the NHTSA only uses PD numbers rather than PD & ED combined

Where do you come up with that number? There is no such data in this new article. The only way I can see to come up with a 35% value is to arbitrarily cherry pick data points to produce an out of context value. I'm not sure that you understand statistics.

Firstly, the only data in this new study is annual fatility numbers. But for that to have meaning, it needs to be put into context. Where there more or less riders? Did they ride or more or less? For example, if there are more riders, then for the same number of annual fatalities, a smaller percentage of cyclists died (and therefore cycling is safer for an individual rider).

Secondly, bicycle fatalities are a statistically small number. The numbers are only in the hundreds per year. It is not surprising that the numbers can vary quite a bit from year to year. Over the past 40 years, the variation in fatalities from one year to the next has varied over a range of -119 to +89. Because of the variation, you can't just compare the values from two arbitrary years, you have to look at overall trends. The data in the NHTSA report you cited was only up to 2016. The IIHS web page includes data for 2017. This data shows that cycling fatalities decreased from 848 in 2016 to only 777 in 2017. Does that mean that recently cycling got 8.4% safer in one year? Of course not - most of the difference is random variation.

The authors of the first study understood these things. That's why they didn't just just use the total number of injuries and fatalities, they instead used the more meaningful information of injuries and fatalities per 100 million kilometers ridden. And instead of comparing two individual years, they used different ranges of years, to average out the year-to-year variations. And when they did this, they (correctly) found that cycling is getting safer in the US

Originally Posted by 93KgBike

It was my not intention to set up an opinion poll about whether to ride a road bike or not.

No, but it was your intention to use fear mongering and false claims to push your agenda. There is no facts or data that supports your claims that, "The roads are more unsafe for American pedestrians and cyclists than ever before," or that, "There's been a 35% uptick in accidents since that study was published."

[nooneline]

as a health data scientist, it's nice to see Mark McM's contributions in this thread.

It's really easy to miscommunicate science; it's really easy to misunderstand it. It's complicated stuff! And it's easy to be mislead by statistical-sounding numbers. It's helpful to have somebody with some knowledge provide context that's often missing from journal articles and even news write-ups of scientific studies.

[thwart]

Everyone has to make their own decisions on this difficult topic.

I live in an area that has seen rapid growth; back roads are more congested, and average speeds on those (narrow) roads have gone up.

I've been involved in a serious crash and know first-hand what that is like.

My spouse's fears are important for me to address as well.

Regarding statistics and how to use (and abuse) them... I look at this NHTSA graph and fail to see good evidence that cycling is getting safer.

[93KgBike]

I rode nearly 3200 miles commuting on the roads last year, and roughly 4600 miles for fun and exercise.

Fear mongering?

My only agenda was to have a discussion.

And the numbers that I quoted, well you can read, so work them out for yourself. They're from the chart above ('09-'16). Or don't.

I don't agree with any of your comments about how to read the stats.

If you're dismissing 1625 people dying on bikes (allegedly?) in 2016-2017, well weird for you.

I don't read your comments as 'a voice of reason' or as someone interested in the conclusions of the two reports, or as someone interested in a conversation.

The thread is toxic now, so I doubt I'll revisit it.

[cdimattio]

Originally Posted by 93KgBike

My only agenda was to have a discussion.

I believe there is a valuable discussion here and I personally value all the viewpoints presented.

While fatalities may have risen, some have pointed out that these counts might be better viewed with the benefit of additional perspectives such as population growth and a related increase of cyclists on the road.

Fatalies by year are certainly growing, but so is the population. The perception offered was that we might view the increase with context. Fatalities per kilometer cycled or fatalites related to the population are showing improvement.

Not sure anyone is discouting the tradgedy of these numbers.

[nooneline]

Originally Posted by thwart

Regarding statistics and how to use (and abuse) them... I look at this NHTSA graph and fail to see good evidence that cycling is getting safer.

Try reading Mark McM's post and see if that helps.

Or, the tl;dr version is this - you can't really tell is something is getting better worse based on a count (number) of an outcome (like fatalities).

That table you posted shoes that the number of fatalities rose between 2007 and 2016. But what if the number of cyclists doubled in that time? That would mean that though the number rose, the fatality rate when down (as did any one cyclist's probability of dying).

Now, the number of cyclists probably didn't double. But it may well have increased more than the fatality number did. Or, the distance traveled may have increased - which is why "per vehicular miles traveled" is a common denominator for traffic-related rates, not just "per person."

[spoonrobot]

Originally Posted by 93KgBike

What to do?

Stop paying attention to triathletes. It's become a trend to post about how you're no longer riding on the road - see any of the dozens of threads on slowtwitch started the past 16 months. These people voluntarily spend 5+ hours on a trainer, multiple times. That path lies madness, as evidenced by your link.

If I was worried about my personal safety I'd sooner stop driving a car and using the internet before quitting cycling on the open road.

[marciero]

Regarding the NHTSA report, and sort of in their defense-nowhere do they claim that cycling or walking is less or more safe. I note the title: "Traffic Safety Facts". It contains descriptive statistics only- no inferences made. There are many possible reasons for any of their "key findings"-they all raise questions. But the report does not seek to answer those. So can't compare to the other article, which is a peer-reviewed journal article that does make inferences. The problem is in drawing inferences from the NHTSA report. Not sure who the intended audience is, but looks like a government annual report-type thing.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

Stop paying attention to triathletes. It's become a trend to post about how you're no longer riding on the road - see any of the dozens of threads on slowtwitch started the past 16 months. These people voluntarily spend 5+ hours on a trainer, multiple times. That path lies madness, as evidenced by your link.

If I was worried about my personal safety I'd sooner stop driving a car and using the internet before quitting cycling on the open road.

Indeed...mee too..is it 'more' dangerous? maybe, probably but as I've mentioned, ride smart, defensively. Pick your route carefully..don't do anything that'll make ya 'dead right'...

Too many have 'what if'-ed themselves out of something that's enjoyable..bouncing around on a dirt road sure isn't it for me..YMMV and all that.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by thwart

Regarding statistics and how to use (and abuse) them... I look at this NHTSA graph and fail to see good evidence that cycling is getting safer.

Originally Posted by thwart

Regarding statistics and how to use (and abuse) them... I look at this NHTSA graph and fail to see good evidence that cycling is getting safer.

That chart might make it look like the chances of a cyclist dying has been been ever increasing - but only if you disregard things changes in the size of cycling population, or changes in the number and length of cycling trips, or the trends in data before and after this data.

The data in that chart only covers 10 years, whereas the data in the IIHS page I referenced showed 40 years of data. This graph from a CDC report on cycling shows a longer span of time, and also presents the rate of cyclist deaths a percentage of population (the solid blue line):



As can be seen, there is quite a bit of fluctuation over the years, but the general tend has been, and continues to be, downward. The data in the NHTSA chart only shows a portion of the latest fluctuation, and so may be misleading. The graph above also does include the latest data, which shows that the current inflection is pointing downward again in 2017. We'll have to wait and see if the 2018 data continues to show the downward inflection.

The CDC report also notes that the number trips taken by cyclists has increased over time: "Although bicycles account for a relatively small share of trips across all modes of transportation, the share of total household trips taken by bicycle has doubled over the last 35 years, and in 2009, bicycling accounted for approximately 1% of trips in the United States (4). Recent years have seen the largest increase in bicycling; for instance, during 2000–2012, the number of U.S. workers who traveled to work by bicycle increased 61% (6)." It seems likely that increases in the cycling rate accounts for much, if not all, of the increase in fatalities. The data on this web page shows that the number of people who participated in cycling between 2006 and 2017 increased by 20% (39.69 million to 47.54 million). This is probably a good thing, as cycling data across many countries appears to indicate that cycling is safer where there are more cyclists.

But perhaps none of the above mean anything, and everyone is right: facts, data and context today mean nothing; the sky is falling, and no amount of information and reason can prove otherwise.