MattL
Active Member
Does anyone know roughly the accident rates for Boris Bikes? (versus owned bikes would be interesting.)
Whatever metric you use - injuries per million km or per million trips or per million pedal revolutions - bugger-all is still bugger-all.
Let's not forget that, because of the incentives for shorter journeys, the average Boris Bike journey is going to be significantly shorter than the average non-Boris-Bike bike journey. A better gauge for comparing injury and death rates would be to compare miles travelled.
I would be very surprised, given that the average Boris Bike user is probably a lot less comfortable on a bike than the average bicycle owner, if the figures for 'injury per mile' or 'death per mile' turn out to be smaller for Boris Bike users. Most likely, the injury and death rate will end up being significantly higher for users of the scheme. I'm sure the folks behind the scheme are aware of this potential problem. They certainly have an incentive to broadcast the figures based on 'per journey' rather than 'per mile'. If they are forced to give out 'per mile' data, they may hope that the 'safety in numbers' effect offsets what is likely to be a higher injury/death rate. I doubt it will, but who knows.
Another factor that may play a role in reducing injuries and deaths for Boris Bike users is speed. People who are unused to cycling tend to ride slower than cyclists, which tends to make them safer, especially at intersections.
The problem is, as soon as the first person dies on a Boris Bike, the media are going to be all over it like flies on faeces and people are going to get scared of using the bikes. And if the Boris Bikes folks aren't prepared, it's going to be a problem for cyclists everywhere, because we're likely to be hit with the old 'Cycling is dangerous' nonsense again.
Metrics do matter in such a situation. Forewarned is forearmed, and if we just go blithely along, thinking that Boris Bikes are going to be safer than cycling in general, we are setting ourselves up for a shock when it turns out they aren't.
A good comparison for the Boris Bikes folks to make, in the eventuality of a person dying on a Boris Bike, would be cyclist deaths per miles travelled by Boris Bike vs car occupant deaths per miles travelled by car in the same area. In London, I suspect that figure will be higher for car (as it usually is in urban settings). THAT will quickly sort out the 'bikes are dangerous' crowd, because everyone assumes cars are safer (God only knows why, given the casualty rate).
An even better metric would be deaths/injuries per time spent per transportation type - that would be an even more realistic gauge of the relative safety of cycling.
These schemes, and not just Boris Bikes, do have very good accident stats... Link
There is nothing to study seriously. Bugger-all injuries and bugger-all damage (you've got the stats) is bugger-all percent of whatever metric you happen to pick on. The whole thread is about propaganda - and User and me (who actually live over here) are better placed than someone on the other side of the Atlantic to judge what use (none, actually) the press will make of any serious incident.As I explained, used in this way, these figures are grossly misleading. They're fine for propaganda purposes, but not for serious study.
The Streetsblog link you share tells of 'per trip' statistics. From the link:
“...In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, Vélib’ riders were responsible for one-third of all bike trips in Paris but were involved in only one-fourth of all traffic crashes involving a bicycle.
As I explained, used in this way, these figures are grossly misleading. They're fine for propaganda purposes, but not much use for serious study or discussion. I'm fine with the Mayor of Paris or the folks behind Boris Bikes using such nonsense to get credulous communities to breathe collective sighs of relief, but when folks start telling me they're meaningful, to be frank, it kinda insults my intelligence.
Streetsblog is a well known outlet for bike facility propaganda. I take everything they say with a pinch of salt because I don't need to be lied to to be more comfortable on a bike. I'm a big boy now and I can handle the truth.
An even better metric would be deaths/injuries pertimedistance spent per transportation type - that would be an even more realistic gauge of the relative safety of cycling.
The figures for Boris Bikes are not misleading despite your a) conviction they were misleading and b) not actually knowing whether they were misleading or not because you didn't know the trip/mileage conversion factor for Boris Bikes and cycles in general.
But I get the feeling you've become infused with the Leftpondian wish to view cycling as a death wish and bugger the facts.
I think that's better.
Actually, it was better beforehand. Unless you want to show that cycling is more dangerous than driving. The longer the distance, the safer motoring gets and the more dangerous cycling appears in comparison - because unlike cyclists, motorists can use freeways that tend to skew the figures because they remove the possibility of intersection conflicts.