Safety

I stumbled across a website called “How not to get hit by cars” which I thought I’d check out. After all, I’d like to know how not to get hit by cars, wouldn’t you? I thought the website had a lot of good information, but I have to admit that I got distracted from it by the Great Cycling Safety Controversy.

Apparently, not everyone can agree on how not to get hit by cars.

This is different from the controversy about whether you should wear a helmet or not when you ride. (You should, by the way. See how effectively I dealt with that controversy?)

The controversy seems to involve two schools of thought, one fostered by a man by the name of Bluejay and the other fostered by a man by the name of (appropriately enough) Foster who adds

M.S., P.E.
Cycling Transportation Engineer Consulting Engineer,
Expert Witness & Educator in Effective Cycling,
Bicycles, Highways & Bikeways, Traffic Laws

after his name, all of which sounds very impressive.

Mr. Bluejay (I’m sorry, that just sounds like someone out of a book by Beatrix Potter) doesn’t offer us any of his qualifications for dispensing safety information, he just dispenses the information and leaves it up to the reader to decide on its value.

So, what’s the difference?

Here is the crux of Mr. Foster’s philosophy:

Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.

That is the guiding principle that cyclists should recognize and government and society should obey. But government does its best to prevent cyclists from recognizing this principle.

He goes on to add:

Bikeways neither make cycling much safer nor reduce the skill required. They probably do the reverse.

Government knows that bikeways don't make cycling safer, but it uses the public superstition that they do.

Well, I will admit to you that I know that a bicycle is classified as a vehicle with all of the rights and privileges and responsibilities appertaining thereunto. (If you aren’t a lawyer, how often do you get to use a phrase like appertaining thereunto?) I also have to admit that I like Bikeways (by which I am assuming the author means bike lanes). We don’t have many of them around these parts, but I like them.

Well, actually, we have one bike lane around here. It's about two miles long. Oh, and it isn't continuous. It reaches a corner and then disappears. Half a mile later, at another corner, it reappears. What you're supposed to do between those two corners, I don't know. Teleport, probably.

Mr. Bluejay’s method can be summed up like this:

Ride as if you were invisible.

It's often helpful to ride in such a way that motorists won't hit you even if they don't see you. You're not trying to BE invisible, you're trying to make it irrelevant whether cars see you or not.

In other words, wear bright colors and lights and anything else that will make you stand out, but assume that the driver of that car doesn’t see you and act accordingly.

I like this advice. I like this advice very much.

Mr. Bluejay also says that sometimes obeying the law may be hazardous to your health.

Here’s a question for you –

You are a law abiding cyclist on a two lane road. You want to turn left, but you have to wait for oncoming traffic to get out of the way. Do you:

1. stay in the middle of the lane with your arm stuck out indicating your upcoming turn while hoping that no car is going to come up from behind you and plaster you across the pavement
2. pull your bike off the road and wait for traffic to clear and then move across to where you want to be
   
3. decide that you didn’t really need to make that left hand turn right there and maybe you’ll just keep going straight for awhile

A vehicle would certainly chose 1., right? But is it safe? You tell me.

On a group ride a couple of days ago there were about twenty of us. We came up to a stop light which changed to red on us before the entire group got across. Some riders ran the light, others hit the brakes and waited.

Everyone has different ideas, and thinking about them all is making my head hurt. I think I'll go for a ride. If I can figure what to do, that is.

See you on the road.

Helmets

Because this is a generally humorous blog…

No, wait. Maybe that’s going too far.

Because this is a blog that generally tries to be humorous…

That’s better.

I thought we’d talk about death and injuries today, largely because I came across a website that annoyed me. Yes, I know that it’s dangerous to write a blog post while annoyed, but I’ll take the risk. The website in question was written by someone who can’t figure out why cyclists bother to wear helmets. He wanted to find out if helmets are really of any use.

So we thought we'd cast aside all the "it just makes sense" and "if just one life is saved" rubbish and find some real, hard numbers to evaluate the effectiveness of crash helmets.

Now, as a scientist (and a card carrying geek), I am all in favor of using real, hard numbers to evaluate things. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d automatically toss out “it just makes sense” and “if just one life is saved” as being rubbish. Anecdotal evidence isn't necessarily inaccurate.

So, on this website they compared fatality rates per 10,000 vehicles, per 1 million population and per 1 million miles traveled and compared cars, bikes, motorcycles and pedestrians, and they found that the death rates for pedestrians and cyclists were about the same for every million miles traveled (though cyclists were quite a bit more likely to be injured than pedestrians were). Oh, and they also found this out:

It turns out that alcohol is a major player in all fatalities, not just car crashes. Drunk drivers cause 40% of car fatalities; drunk riders cause 29% of motorcycle fatalities; drunk bicyclists cause 24% of bicycle fatalities; and drunk pedestrians (we are not making this up) cause 33% of pedestrian fatalities. Apparently, staying sober while trying to move, or not trying to move while drunk, are both excellent ways of improving one's odds of survival.

I just reprinted that part because the concept of drunk cyclists (and drunk pedestrians) startled me, although I suppose it shouldn’t have.

Scientific studies can generally be divided into two groups:

1. Wow. I didn't know that - Viruses aren't actually living organisms.

2. No duh - Students who read do better in school.

I mention this because I would have thought that the concept that driving or riding or walking or operating heavy machinery or attempting to ride an elephant while drunk is probably bad is a "no duh" kind of result.

Now, let’s assume for the sake of argument that all of the data presented on this website is accurate. It is jam packed with table like this one:

	Death Rate	Injury Rate
From cancer	2010	N/A
From pneumonia/flu	237	N/A
From poisoning	73.5	1842
From falling	50.9	27100
From suffocation	44.0	137
While walking	16.9	280
From Drowning	14.8	28.5
While driving	12.9	987
While motorcycling	9.8	717
On horseback	3.8	127
While bicycling	2.5	453
Struck by lightning	2.0	8.0
While skiing	0.2	43

which is then summed up like this:

Nearly twice as likely to be killed by a horse, six times more likely to drown, 100 times more likely to die of pneumonia or the flu, than to be killed while riding a bicycle. More than twice as likely to be seriously injured in a car, and four times as likely to be poisoned, than seriously injured on a bicycle. And keep in mind, according to the CDC, only a third of those bicycle injuries are head injuries.

Well, how many of those riders who didn’t get head injuries were wearing helmets? How many of the riders who got head injuries were wearing helmets. I didn’t actually find that information on the website, so either I missed it or the author didn’t know, but it seem a relevant point to me.

And the conclusion to be drawn from the mountain of data?

Helmets save lives? Well, sure, occasionally they do.

Oh, well, if it’s only occasionally…

In the real world, biking is no more dangerous than taking the dog for a walk, and often even safer.

I’ve been walking a dog for considerably longer than I’ve been riding a bike, but I’ve never had any dog walking related injuries, and I’ve never met anyone who has had any dog walking related injuries. I have picked up a few cycling related injuries and I know quite a lot of people who have picked up cycling related injuries. I also know a couple of people who, if they hadn’t been wearing helmets, would probably be in a lot worse shape than they are today (one of those people being me). I’ll grant you that this is only anecdotal evidence, but it persuades me.

And the final word from the author of the website?

We feel no more need for a helmet than we feel the need to strap a lightning rod to our shorts. But then again, we don't bother playing the lottery either.

I’m not quite sure how to take this. Does this mean that the author feels like he needs to wear a helmet or not? I don’t know. I do know that I won’t ride without one, and I hope you won't either.

See you on the road.

Hopefully with a helmet on your head.