I mean, it’s more dangerous for someone on a bike or Scooter on car-centric infrastructure than it is for someone in a car.
Only if you consider only the safety of the vehicle’s pilot. Another perhaps more rational way to look at it is to look at how it affects the safety of all people. And then it’s clear that the car is still more dangerous than the bike, even on infrastructure specifically designed for car safety above all else.
No, they ranking the usage of a car as less dangerous. Which is correct.
Not really no cars cause a MASSIVE amount of deaths less likely to be the driver potentially but its still far more fatal to other people which imo is actually worse
If we look at it statically, biking is healthier because it reduces health problems.
Bike is healthier until you get pancaked by an SUV or pickup which are increasingly all that people drive on roads nowadays. The roads aren’t safe for bikes. If you live somewhere without dedicated bike infrastructure (no, painted bike lanes on the street don’t count), biking is basically playing Russian roulette.
I can find sources if you want, but there are studies that show those who get around by bike live longer on average, even in North America. The danger is definitely there, and I agree I’m playing Russian roulette every time I bike around town. However, I am much, much more likely to extend my life by a couple years by being healthier, than get killed in a collision and die significantly earlier.
I don’t think that’s how it works when you’re talking about death rates.
Yes, for the people that survive, they will see an average and statistically significant increase in lifespan. On the other hand, more of them will die as a direct result of their travel mode than for people that primarily drive. (I.e., you’re more likely to die in a bicycle crash–any bicycle crash–than you are in any given car crash.)
There’s no good way to make riding a bicycle ‘safe’, because you can’t surround yourself with crumple zones, restraints, and air bags (although you can get airbags for motorcycles, but weight and breathability is less of a concern on a motorcycle). Helmets are about the best you can do, and compliance rates with helmet guidelines on bicycles are pretty low.
Don’t get me wrong - I fully support bicycles as a way of commuting and most general transportation, and want to see more infrastructure developed towards that end. But we also need to be realistic about the risks.
I don’t think that’s how it works when you’re talking about death rates.
The comment I was responding to wasn’t talking about death rates.
There’s no good way to make riding a bicycle ‘safe’, because you can’t surround yourself with crumple zones, restraints, and air bags (although you can get airbags for motorcycles, but weight and breathability is less of a concern on a motorcycle). Helmets are about the best you can do, and compliance rates with helmet guidelines on bicycles are pretty low.
Infrastructure, my friend, that’s how we make bicycling less dangerous. Riding a bicycle itself isn’t all that dangerous, even without a helmet. What is dangerous, is interacting with cars.
Riding a bicycle itself isn’t all that dangerous, even without a helmet.
My dude, have you never ridden a bicycle in your life?
Of all of my bike crashes, only two involved a car. One spectacular one involved another cyclist on a fixie–it’s always the fucking shitheads on fixies–running a red light and t-boning me because you can’t fucking stop quickly on a fixie. (Seriously, don’t fucking ride a fixie on public streets or trails, you slack-jawed fucking morons.) My two car incidents were separated by 20-odd years; the first one was in San Diego in the 90s, when a cab cut me off on a steep hill and I tried to put my face through his rear windshield, and the most recent was in Chicago when I got slightly doored (hit my leg, left a huge bruise, but my bike was fine). Otherwise, most of my crashes have involved road conditions, like ice during a sudden winter rainstorm, wet steel plates over construction trenches, or an 8" deep pothole that I couldn’t see because it looked like just another puddle. My ex-wife broke her pelvis when she got hit by another cyclist.
In your previous comment, you were equating “Danger” to “Death Rates.” How often do you hear of a cyclist dying in an incident that doesn’t involve a car?
Yes, accidents and injuries happen. I’ve literally fallen while walking twice in the past week.
My ex-wife broke her pelvis when she got hit by another cyclist.
And if that was a car, do you think she would have survived?
Even in area not made for bikes, the health benefits outweight the risk of getting killed by a car in the total longevity.
This become false when the road have too much traffic: air pollution damage start to outweight the health benefits of doing sport.Areas not made for bikes also tend to have a lot of car traffic
In any case, the health benefits of bikes can be easily achieved by other means, so I don’t think it’s worth bringing up.
Really, you’re going to quote a comedy website/image? It also even depends on what they mean with “dangerous”. If they mean dangerous for the passengers (which is a viable assumption since how many deaths are caused by hot air balloons excluding the persons traveling with the hot air balloon?) this could even be a true graph. So hold you “offended” feeling and just laugh at the joke at hand.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if electric scooters are legitimately more dangerous in urban environments with sane infrastructure. Those things can go absolutely anywhere, and can reach ridiculous speeds while cars are far more restricted in urban spaces (yet again, the ones with good design).
What? They are right. But that doesn’t mean it’s a pro car argument. Cars are definitely safer as bicycles can’t utter wrecks you like they do to bicycles
From what I recall it really depends on how you classify danger. Bikes are more dangerous for non-lethal injuries. But any car trip that you drive over 45 mph is slightly more lethal than biking per comparable trip. So it depends on what danger you’re willing to risk.
If you’re driving over 45mph, there’s likely not a comparable bike trip.
By comparable, I mean from point a to point b. If you have a 10 mile commute to work, you have a slightly higher lethality driving a car on a highway, than biking to work, but you have a higher chance of non-lethal injury by biking.
Unless you’re also biking on the highway, it’s not comparable.
Wut?
