Cycling as safe as walking?

[pwh91]

Hi All - firstly, hello to everyone - I'm a new member and this practically my first post.

I've been wondering for a while where the factoid "cycling is as safe as walking" has come from. BentMikey reminded me of this in another thread, and I saw it also in a cycling magazine a month or two ago (could have bene Cycling Plus.) However I don't have the magazine any more.

As a fact, it sounds good if it's true but I'm not sure if this is trustworthy. I've done some Google trawling and haven't come up with any original evidence / research for this, assuming it's UK sourced.

So - Does anyone know the origin of this assertion and if there's some proper science/statistics available freely available to see if this hold water? Simple stuff like per-mile or per-hour analysis can skew results, as can confounding effects such as intoxication and also age-group, so I'd be fascinated to see how this has researched and analysed.

Thanks in advance!

Pete

 

[Origamist]

Pete,

As you have already adduced, there are problems in this area with the stats (sampling, methodology etc).


I have more (germane) data at home, but here's the DFT figures Article 7 - Comparative casualty rates by mode of travel

Taken from:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistic...asualtiesgbar/roadcasualtiesgreatbritain20071

Off the top of my head, these two are worth a quick look:

http://www.industrializedcyclist.com/promotingsafepucher.pdf

http://www.industrializedcyclist.com/bikepeddata.pdf

 

[jonesy]

This is an interesting discussion of different ways of comparing risk:
http://www.networks.nhs.uk/uploads/06/09/wardlaw.pdf

It is a great pity that DfT continues to publish the distance based comparison as this is very misleading, especially the cyclist vs car comparison as they don't compare like with like. The figure for cars is skewed by the low per km casualty rate on motorways and dual carriageways, where longer distance trips are undertaken and for which cycling is generally not an alternative, so it is meaningless to compare the respective risks of those, very different, types of journey.

 

[purplepolly]

"cycling is as safe as walking"

better stop cycling right away then

Ever walk much? People backing out of their drives without checking their mirrors, cars queueing on crossings, going through long after the red light, going through on red and shunting pedestrians out of the way... Seriously, I've witnessed the latter at least twice. And a pedestrian being missed by literally a hairs breadth by a driver who's not even noticed the lights is something I expect to see at least once a week. I feel much safer on the bike.

 

[Origamist]

Most pedestrain injuries are caused by falls and more often than not, another vehicle is not involved.

Another problem is the under-reporting of bicycle and pedestrian injuries, the misleading use of metrics and dubious comaparative studies as Jonesy mentions...

 

[another_dave_b]

The following quote is taken from an article in the British Medical Journal:

The inherent risks of road cycling are trivial.3 Of at least 3.5 million regular cyclists in Britain, only about 10 a year are killed in rider only accidents. This compares with about 350 people younger than 75 killed each year falling down steps or tripping.4 Six times as many pedestrians as cyclists are killed by motor traffic, yet travel surveys show annual mileage walked is only five times that cycled; a mile of walking must be more "dangerous" than a mile of cycling. In both cases, of course, the activity itself is harmless

 

[pwh91]

Origamist - Thanks for the links! The whole situation does look almost impossible to fathom, with the classic per-mile or per-trip issue to take into account. The international stats, especially the US data looks almost worthless due to the peculiarities of the country's attitude towards non-car transport.... I'll have to have more of a look on the weekend when I get a chance, but looks like a interesting starting point...

 

[pwh91]

Thanks for all the excellent links - the Wardlaw papers are particularly interesting and pertinent. The PDF gives some detail relating to the OP question, confirming (i think) my feeling that walking is more dangerous per kilometre but cycling more dangerous per hour, although there are clearly confounding factors in both cases (age, experience, reporting rate for injuries, etc etc).

Also (although not explicitly mentioned) I suspect that this confirms that intersections where vehicles have right-of-way are the real problem areas for pedestrians (as purplepolly said) and also reinforces my dislike of segregated cycle lanes where you get the disadvantages of high-speed accidents coupled with the frequency of intersections to deal with.

The paper also makes me feel like throwing my helmet away, although not until it's a little warmer...

 

[Bollo]

Top job O.

Pete, like so many things, the key element in all of this is people's perception of risk rather than the actual risk expressed by the raw stats. Cycling and walking are safe activities, but one is perceived as risky while the other not. Explaining the often subtle niceties of statistics to Joseph Public is notoriously hard, especially through the filter of our pro-car, anti-cycling press.

 

[thomas]

Does this mean walking to your bike is more dangerous than riding it?

 

[skrx]

Does this mean walking to your bike is more dangerous than riding it?

It would mean walking your bike the same distance you normally ride it is more dangerous.

(Crossing the road outside a station is generally much more dangerous than the train journey you just made though.)

 

[bonj2]

Cycling is not as safe as walking. Statistics that a higher percentage of walkers than cyclists get knocked over/have accidents may suggest otherwise, but they are skewed by the fact that pedestrians are often a lot more stupid than cyclists.

 

[skrx]

Cycling is not as safe as walking. Statistics that a higher percentage of walkers than cyclists get knocked over/have accidents may suggest otherwise, but they are skewed by the fact that pedestrians are often a lot more stupid than cyclists.

That's irrelevant, if we're talking the average cyclist or pedestrian.

Comparing a careful, alert cyclist to a careful, alert pedestrian is much more difficult!

 

[dellzeqq]

the problem with statistics of this nature is that they only tell a portion of the story

http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/...eveals-deprivation-link-to-UK-mortality-rates

people living in Eastbourne live until they are 80. People living in Easterhouse pop their clogs at 66. That doesn't make Eastbourne a safer, or even a healthier place to live. It means that people living in Eastbourne are healthier because (generally) they're better off.

And so with cycling. Or road deaths. Or falling down in the home. Cyclists get killed in particular circumstances, and those circumstances can very often be addressed. People die on the roads as a result of particular types of behaviour, very often by particular types of people, and that can (and, in fairness to the DfT, is) being addressed. And, if you're young I wouldn't worry too much about falling and dying at home. If you're a woman over 75 then I'd be seriously concerned.

So - cycling is a lot more dangerous than walking if your name is Simon Legg. I've been hospitalised six times and crashed more times than I can remember. That's because I'm a bit uncoordinated and ride like an idiot. More importantly cycling is most dangerous in London if you're on the left hand side of a lorry that is about to turn left - and that is something that is addressable, although the powers that be have barely begun to do so.

There's a general problem in this country with regard to risk and cost benefit. If you start calculating risk, or assessing the cost and benefit of palliative or preventative measurs then people think that you're a heartless kind of person. It's not just in transport. The fuss over Arvastin, a drug that may lengthen life for some cancer sufferers is a decent example. The government quango that has decided that Arvastin is not a sensible drug to spend NHS cash on has been reviled. The sad fact of the matter is that you could spend the money elsewhere and have a far greater impact. We also fall prey to 'something must be done', particularly if the person saying somthing must be done is a person of influence. So...we have a building regulation on electrical safety that might save five lives a year at the cost of £250million, and the regulations on safety in the home are so lax that, yes, 2500 old ladies a year die after falls. The electrician who puts a pendant light into a new flat will have a big certificate, but he or she would have been wiser to put three or four wall lights in that could be changed by a person of small stature without recourse to a ladder.

So - bikes, bike lanes, helmets, and so on, are all subject to a level of general theorising. And then we look at the who got killed where, and, lo and behold, it's the same story time after time after time after time. Left turning lorries and plain straigtforward bad driving.

 

[Twenty Inch]

Gerd Gigerenzer "Reckoning with Risk" is a very good place to start, if this is something you are interested in (and we all should be).