How dangerous is cycling?

[alp1950]

How dangerous is cycling?

It seems that almost every day these forums contain details of another cycling fatality or near miss. Telling people I was returning to cycling elicited stories of experienced cyclists being knocked off their bikes. Then Cycling Plus magazine quoted the statistic that "you'd have to pedal for 3,000 miles before suffering a head injury-threatening accident". Hang on- I've got a 30 mile round trip commute- that's only 100 journeys.

If cycling is really that dangerous we shouldn't just stop with the helmet, don't we need body armour as well?

 

[Jaded]

Isn't it something like 300,000 miles?

People rush to post about deaths on here, terrible as they are. However they don't rush to post "cyclist completed journey safely". If they did such a post for every cyclist that completed a journey safely you'd never see the death reporting threads - they'd be completely swamped.

Sadly there are around 140 people killed on a bike a year. If all of them were reported here you'd expect a death reported about once every 3 days.


You are more likely to die of death than die whilst cycling.

 

[Perry]

Cycling is very safe, it's the other road traffic that's dangerous.

 

[dondare]

3000 miles is a misprint or some such. The probability of a fatal head injury is once every 3000 years of cycling.

 

[dondare]

And another thing, cycling protects you from heart attacks, which are still Britain's biggest killer. It's much more dangerous not to cycle.

 

[mr_cellophane]

3000 miles is a misprint or some such. The probability of a fatal head injury is once every 3000 years of cycling.

Head injuries don't have to be fatal to ruin your life. A broken arm will mend, a broken head won't so easily.

 

[dondare]

It's still a case of heart attacks being a bigger danger to non-cyclists than road accidents are to cyclists. They don't have to be fatal to ruin your life, either.

 

[Jaded]

3000 miles is a misprint or some such. The probability of a fatal head injury is once every 3000 years of cycling.

I knew there was some huge figure in there!

 

[Jaded]

It's still a case of heart attacks being a bigger danger to non-cyclists than road accidents are to cyclists. They don't have to be fatal to ruin your life, either.

Indeed, but if you spread FUD you an sell more helmets!

 

[dondare]

Just checked this; it's not a fatal head injury every 3000 years, it's a fatal or serious accident every 20,000 years.
That 3000 figure might be 3000 million miles.

 

[Riding in Circles]

I have been cycling on two wheels and more recently (last 8 years), on three wheels for over 30 years, I do about 10,000 miles a year on all sorts of roads including busy city and A/B roads and to the best of my knowledge I have not been killed once, nor have I ever had anything worse than road rash and I rarely wear a helmet and I go very very fast at times.

 

[Cab]

Then Cycling Plus magazine quoted the statistic that "you'd have to

Do me a favour, could you check that figure? Does Cycling Plus really say that? Wouldn't surprise me if they did (their editorial standards have just occasionally let down what is otherwise a good read), but if they have said that then it is important that they're informed so that they can correct this figure in the next issue, before it becomes widely quoted.

 

[dondare]

Yes, they really say that but it's obviously a mistake. But even if they meant 3000 million kilometres (which would be consistant with other estimates) then it'd be a case of misleading statistics, because the more miles you cycle the less likely you are to have an accident in future.

 

[botchjob]

The statistic that I remember is that a cyclist would have to cycle non-stop for something like 150 years before they were due a fatal accident. Can't remember where that stat came from but i'm more than happy to take those odds

 

[papercorn2000]

Cycling is very dangerous if done properly!