Death Statistics 2014

[jefmcg]

You can have a look at the full document here Mortality Statistics: Deaths Registered in England and Wales (Series DR), 2014 but the Guardian has a summary of cycling related data here.

Highlights (all direct quotes from G)

• In 2014, 88 cyclists were killed riding their bikes on roads in England and Wales. That’s 73 men and 15 women
  
• 20 male cyclists (and two female cyclists) died in a “non-collision transport incident”.
• 15 cyclists (nine men, six women) killed after “collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus”.
• One man was killed on his bike when hit by a train;
• two men, both aged 65+, after “collision with pedestrian or animal”.
• Five men and one woman died following “collision with fixed or stationary object”.
• Four pedestrians, all aged 70 or over, were killed after being hit by a cyclist
• Fewer cyclists died in 2014 than 2013, according to the ONS, when 100 people died (89 men and 11 women) were killed while out on their bikes.
  
• Serious injuries increased by 8.2% among cyclists
  
• the number of seriously injured cyclists has increased every year since a low of 2,174 in 2004, according to the pressure group CTC.

 

[slowmotion]

Is the rise in serious injuries and deaths tracking the increased popularity? It could actually be getting safer per mile ridden.

 

[jefmcg]

Is the rise in serious injuries and deaths tracking the increased popularity? It could actually be getting safer per mile ridden.

Oh, this is depressing. No, it's going up apparently.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359311/rrcgb-2013.pdf

 

[ANT 666]

One man was killed on his bike when hit by a train

That will always be a lose. Unless he was pushed its got to be his own fault, Doh!

 

[summerdays]

There were more pedestrians killed than I expected, I thought the figure was under 1 per year, is it a blip or is my hazy recollection incorrect?

 

[slowmotion]

Thanks for the graph @jefmcg. Much appreciated.

 

[slowmotion]

I'm actually quite heartened by that graph in a strange way. It seems to be indicating that you have a fifty percent greater chance (per mile) of a KSI riding a bike than if travelling in a car. The general public seem to believe that cycling is vastly more dangerous than that.

 

[srw]

Let me reframe the statistics - and I'm only using the OP rather than the original source because it's only 3 minutes to quizzy Monday on BBC2 and BBC4.

The number of cycling deaths is down 12% year on year. Of the deaths, fully 25% didn't involve a collision, so the risk of cycling with traffic is over-stated by 33%. Men are over-represented in the death stats compared with their presence in cyclists, suggesting that women are really safe.

Only 88 people died because of cycling. That's significantly fewer than the number of people whose lives were extended because of cycling.

 

[jefmcg]

I think the statistic is somewhat misleading and rather selective. It's 'people over the age of 70 who have died after being in collision with a bicycle'.... it doesn't mean that the collision was necessarily directly the cause of death.

I just had a look at the data, and it's "underlying cause of death" That's the same way as the 88 cyclists are described as being caused in a car crash. It's what is written on the death certificate.

Even those these people must have been old and probably frail, they were hearty enough to get out and about in harms way, so an active life was cut off.

@summerdays I thought it was < 1/year. Hopefully last year was just a blimp.

 

[srw]

I just had a look at the data, and it's "underlying cause of death" That's the same way as the 88 cyclists are described as being caused in a car crash. It's what is written on the death certificate.

Point of order. Assuming your OP is correct - the bit I've bolded is incorrect. As I've posted, fully 25% of the deaths didn't involve a collision of any kind, let alone a car crash. What I didn't point out is that 8 deaths - 9% - were called by crashes with objects other than motorised vehicles. That means that only 63% of the 88 deaths were caused by crashes with motorised vehicles.

 

[jefmcg]

Point of order. Assuming your OP is correct - the bit I've bolded is incorrect. As I've posted, fully 25% of the deaths didn't involve a collision of any kind, let alone a car crash. What I didn't point out is that 8 deaths - 9% - were called by crashes with objects other than motorised vehicles. That means that only 63% of the 88 deaths were caused by crashes with motorised vehicles.

Yeah, you're right. I meant in a bicycle crash. Must be more careful. My point was that the 4 elderly died as a result of an incident with a cycle, in the same way as the 88 had a cycle crash as a cause of death.

And while I am here

'Being hit by a bicycle' would not be a cause of death on a death certificate. It may be the circumstances leading up to someone's death recorded by a coroner on a Pink Form 100A or 100B, which would also go into the GRO statistics.

You are probably right about that, too. I've never seen a UK death certificate.

These statistics statistics are all about "underlying cause of death" which is apparently collected by the Office of National Statistics, so it must be written down somewhere, to end up in their database.

 

[srw]

I've now had a chance to flick through the stats - the stats for deaths caused by accidents [their term, not mine] only, because there's a comparison with bike deaths. I've identified two really dangerous things which we should be really alarmed by. These are things we use every day, and each kills more young and middle-aged adults than bikes do. Who's going to join me in a publicity campaign? Who's going to write the Guardian article on them?

The first is steps and stairs - 730 deaths a year. We should be building bungalows! And the second is that noxious chemical - dihydrogen oxide (which goes under the street name of "water"). No fewer than 240 drownings and submersions. Let's drain our lakes and rivers!

And don't get me started on alcohol and other drugs - legal and illegal...

 

[rualexander]

I recently read an interesting statistic on the danger of cycling, in the UK there are 0.4 fatalities for every million person-hours of cycling and that it would take one cyclist more than 2000 years of cycling non stop to clock up that many hours. Therefore cycle for 5000 years non stop and you will be killed!

 

[glenn forger]

0.4 fatalities for every million person-hours of cycling

Less that the fatality rate per person-hours of gardening.

 

[Pale Rider]

Less that the fatality rate per person-hours of gardening.

Perhaps they were digging their own graves.