Anyone quit taking the metro and start bike commuting for safety reasons?

[KLizotte]

I thought the article was fairly balanced in its arguments given its length. From an email exchange I had with the reporter, she is a regular bike commuter too. It is my understanding that editors choose the headlines, not the reporters.

Speaking as a data point of one, I took metro for years every day to commute (I both live and work on a metro line so zero driving) and never had an injury of any sort. Since I’ve started bike commuting the last four years, I’ve suffered two broken bones, road rash, a black eye, and a sprain all due to biking as well as some close calls with drivers, other cyclists, and pedestrians. So yeah, in terms of *immediate* injury, I am clearly more in danger biking than I am taking metro. On the other hand, if I don’t have a serious accident that has long term effects (or death), then I will be better off because of the long term health benefits. At least I hope so given air pollution uncertainties. It certainly improves my mood!

I wish these types of articles accentuated the positive though in order to encourage more people to bike. There is safety in numbers!

[Subby]

This hard hitting expose brought to you by the crack investigative team behind:

How safe is leaving your house? Perhaps less than you think.

[jrenaut]

My biggest problem with the article is that it’s trying to show how dangerous cycling is, but it does it by ignoring the greatest danger to cyclists. There’s the anecdote about the teacher who lost control in some slush (I know the teacher, btw – she taught my older daughter). But there’s NO MENTION of how most serious bike injuries are because drivers hit cyclists with their cars.

[Subby]

Some good stuff in the mainstream press today too: http://www.wsj.com/articles/america-the-cyclist-is-not-your-enemy-1463073268

[rcannon100]

Bottom line – there is no good data. Think about it – think about how much you cycle. Anyone recording those miles? So how can anyone analyze injuries per mile. They cant. On the one hand, injuries go under reported – car traffic accidents have official reports – injured cyclists go home and wash up. On the other hand, the miles ridden go vastly under reported. We don’t know how many people ride. We don’t know how far they ride. And we don’t know injuries. Basically we have some ad hoc reports. Making matters worse, the data that is used compares miles traveled – as opposed to time traveled. Compare miles traveled for bike versus car and you are going to get one answer – compare hours traveled for bike versus car and you are going to get another.

I have ridden a bicycle all my life. When I was a teenager, I commuted to church – and I went on bike tours. I commuted to college and graduate school. And I have biked to work since my first job. I have been in one accident. I have been in multiple car accidents in my life (not of my doing, not with me driving).

How Safe is Cycling. Its Hard to Say. NYT 2013 (“Although many cyclists have strong opinions on the safety of their sport, the answer is that no one really knows how safe it is, or whether its safety has changed over the years. It’s not that there is a lack of data. Instead, it is that the data are inadequate to answer the questions. No one has good statistics, for example, on crashes per mile ridden. Nor do the data distinguish road cycling on a fast, light, bike with thin tires from mountain biking down dirt paths filled with obstacles or recreational cycling on what the industry calls a comfort bike. Yet they are very different sports.”)

Is Cycling Safe? Momentum 2014 (“or example, in 2012 in the US, 726 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes.1 But 22,912 motor vehicle occupants (including 39 bus occupants) were also killed, as were 4,957 motorcyclists and 4,743 pedestrians.1 Traffic deaths in 2011 in Canada (with about one-ninth the US population) included 51 cyclists, 1,420 vehicle occupants, 168 motorcyclists, and 315 pedestrians.2”)

How Safe is Cycling, BBC 2014 (while this article compares deaths per mile between bicycles and cars, it is useful to note the cause of fatalities of cyclists: that would be cars. In other words, a heavy portion of bicycle traffic in DC is on trails and separate bike lanes. Get away from the cars and you get away from the problem).

Bicycling: The Safest Form of Transportation, Mr Money Mustache 2013 (“Under even the most pessimistic of assumptions: Net effect of driving a car at 65mph for one hour: Dying 20 minutes sooner. (18 seconds of life lost per mile) Net effect of riding a bike at 12mph for one hour: Living 2 hours and 36 minutes longer(about 13 minutes of life gained per mile)”)
30 Reasons to Take Up Cycling, BikeRadar 2014 (“according to research from the University of North Carolina, people who cycle for 30 minutes, five days a week take about half as many sick days as couch potatoes.”)

Benefits of Cycling and Walking Outweighs Harms, BBC 2016 (“regular exercise reduces the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and several cancers.”)
How Cycling Makes You Smarter and Happier, Bicycling 2014 (“Arthur Kramer, PhD, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Our research finds that after only three months, people who exercised had the brain volume of those three years younger,” says Kramer, referring to a study that examined the brains of 59 sedentary volunteers between the ages of 60 and 79 who either did an exercise program or were inactive for six months. A bigger, more connected brain simply works better. “Adults whoexercise display sharper memory skills, higher concentration levels, more fluid thinking, and greater problem-solving ability than those who are sedentary,” says Kramer.”)

Is Cycling Safe? Yes, much more than we thought, LinkedIn (“Unfortunately, the draft guidance on Active Travel makes some woefully inaccurate estimates about fatality rates for cycling and walking. The source is pre-2006 census data, which even the author admits is vastly inaccurate. ”)

There’s Safety in Numbers for Cyclists, GRIST 2010 (“Research has been steadily showing, actually, that the more people are out there riding bicycles, the safer bicycling becomes. As ridership goes up, crash rates stay flat. It’s happening in Portland (see page 11 of this report [PDF]). It’s happening in New York City.” – basically, better infrastructure and cars learning to look for cyclists)

I choose safety as a major characteristic of where I commute and where I ride. I choose not to ride with cars. DC has GREAT bicycle infrastructure.

[americancyclo]

@Subby 139532 wrote:

Some good stuff in the mainstream press today too: http://www.wsj.com/articles/america-the-cyclist-is-not-your-enemy-1463073268

Sounds like someone has been drinking from the Fountain of Pete:

I love you. Let’s all get home safe.

[Vicegrip]

How safe is loafing around in your house turning into Jaba the Hut? Perhaps less than you think.

[wheelswings]

@Subby 139532 wrote:

Some good stuff in the mainstream press today too: http://www.wsj.com/articles/america-the-cyclist-is-not-your-enemy-1463073268

Great WSJ piece….it’s funny, self-deprecating and well-informed…just what’s needed in a high-circulation story that tries to dispel automobile drivers’ pre-conceptions about bicycle riders. The reporter is strategic in his use of humor and up-front acknowledgment of drivers’ negative experiences with bicycle riders.

“I will not deny for a second that cyclists can behave badly. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. (Booo!) But it’s exasperating to see how Bad Cyclist anecdotes receive equal treatment to voluminous statistical evidence that cycling makes communities better. It’s maddening to watch public meetings where bike lanes are raged over like they’re landing pads for Martian armies. The transportation data is incontrovertible: streets that accommodate for cycling get safer. Fewer people get hurt. Fewer people get killed. People on bikes and people walking on the street. Everybody. Even people in automobiles.”

He then goes on to talk about our shared humanity and the fact that most bicycle riders are just everyday people. I think he’s mainly trying to reach the car drivers and convey his critical messaging…“Ease up on the aggression, and please—please—put that stupid phone in the glove compartment” …but he’s sugar-coating this supplication in his “love on all sides” messaging. Nicely done.

Overall it’s a superb piece. My one disagreement is his idea that bicyclists can somehow rope in the vigilante rider, the oddball who behaves badly.
“It means cycling groups trying to police themselves from within. That idiot on the regular Sunday morning ride who constantly runs red lights, screams at pedestrians and spits at drivers? That idiot needs an intervention.”

That is nonsensical. Just as I don’t expect other car-drivers to rein-in the thug I encountered in my morning commute, Lord only knows our bicycle community is a heterogeneous lot and there’s no way we can police every rider out there.

But at least we try…we’ve got Bike Arlington and PAL and WABA programs and BAC. Do car-drivers spend their Monday nights sitting around meeting tables trying to improve road safety and reduce the carnage? Do they bring in police officers and transportation planners to help sort out traffic signaling and intersection signage and enforcement issues? I don’t think so…

[consularrider]

@huskerdont 139508 wrote:

It’s the Express. The only thing it’s good for is the crossword, then to put under a bike while greasing…

And that’s exactly what I did with it this morning Although I do admit I used to pick it up for lunch time reading material.

[OneEighth]

@TwoWheelsDC 139524 wrote:

She lost me with this:

Had she done some research, she’d have learned that an overwhelming proportion of motorcycle crashes involve alcohol, speeding, and overall reckless behavior.

Wait…this is problem?

[TwoWheelsDC]

@OneEighth 139561 wrote:

Wait…this is problem?

For my insurance rates it is…

[Vicegrip]

@TwoWheelsDC 139567 wrote:

For my insurance rates it is…

But it Sure helps with organ donation.

[Henry]

I think the bigger disservice done here is by the digital headline writer. Comparing the headlines (which is all most people read anyway):

Online: How safe is bike commuting? Perhaps less than you think
Paper: Is biking a better option? A look at the pros and cons of DC bike commuting as long-term Metro work looms

I’m sure the latter is too long for a mobile device-friendly layout, but more importantly for the digital editor, it wouldn’t induce nearly as many clicks.

[GovernorSilver]

I thought this was a good read too – written by a guy who felt bad that a friend was discouraged from cycling by his blog rants/raves.

http://invisiblevisibleman.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-sobering-email-writing-about-cycling.html

[wrightrkuk]

As well as writing a blog about cycling, a recent entry in which someone’s been kind enough to post on this thread, I was for many years my newspaper’s transport correspondent. My father also worked in subways all his life. It’s pretty hard to imagine that there could be an incident on the metro much worse than the Fort Totten crash of 2009. That killed eight passengers. The reason for metro’s unreliability is precisely that when the safety equipment isn’t working it automatically switches to danger. The actual danger of dying on the metro is tiny – and certainly far smaller than cycling or going in a motor vehicle for the same trip.

There are big advantages for cycling over metro, though. One, as others have mentioned, is that it’s far more reliable than metro has become. The other is that the big health risks facing most Americans aren’t from crashes but the heart disease, cancer and diabetes that can come with inactivity. All the figures I’ve seen suggest cycling’s benefits in reducing those risks far outweigh the risks from crashes. It’s consequently rational to cycle.

[Author]

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