Interesting and alarming in equal measure. Cyclists 15 times more likely to be killed in an accident than a car driver…

BBC

It would be interesting to see the causes of the accidents caused by other vehicles.. such as 5% couldn’t see because of glare, 10% looking at a phone, 2 % drunk etc

That’s really interesting. Thanks for link OP. Would be interesting to breakdown figures by geographic location too.

Could the breakdown of figures that cloudnine mentions be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act 2000?

I very much doubt the info cloudnine is looking for exists as a statistict. Interesting stuff though, not necessarily alarming, sort of fits in with my perceptions.

Interesting (but not altogether surprising) that whilst the serious injury number is lower, the number of deaths in rural areas are higher than in urban areas. Vehicle speeds are often higher so risk of death rather than injury rises I guess. If you compared the death per cycling journey ratios in rural and urban areas (per journey rather than cycling mile as distances ridden in rural areas per journey are longer) I would imagine that makes the risk of death on a ride orders of magnitude higher in rural areas. As a rural only rider who elects to avoid city riding as it ‘feels’ too unsafe that is sobering.

The annual road traffic reports do have sections about the Contributory Causes of accidents, but it tends to be more general categories like “Didn’t look properly” rather than specifically “Was trying to get 3 stars on level 24 of Angry Birds”

cloudnine, check out the table on page 12 of the source report linked to in the BBC article

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/358042/rrcgb2013-02.pdf

Via – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22614569
Who’s at fault?
• Analysis of accident data suggested factors involved in crashes can be attributed “fairly equally” to drivers and cyclists
• Child cyclists were much more likely to have contributed to accidents, while incidents involving cyclists aged 25 and over were more often put down to the driver
• Some 2,801 cyclists were said to have contributed to serious collisions between 2005 and 2007, 43% by failing to look properly and one-fifth by riding out from the pavement
• Over the same period, 2,587 drivers were said to have contributed to serious crashes, with 56% failing to look properly and 17% through a poor manoeuvre
• An observational study, conducted in London and published in 2007, stated that between 13% and 17% of cyclists jumped red lights. Car drivers – including taxis – were the next most common offenders, followed by those in vans.
Source: Transport Research Laboratory

The 15 times is based on distance travelled. That’s a bollocks comparison.

It should be based on hours in/on the vehicle/bike.

The 15 times is based on distance travelled. That’s a bollocks comparison.

It should be based on hours in/on the vehicle/bike.

But cycling a certain distance generally takes longer than it would take in a car, so over the same trip there is greater exposure to an accident for a cyclist. Based on the time spent travelling, a cyclist is five times more likely to have a fatal accident than a car driver.

From the article in the OP

It’s a tricky one, but distance traveled makes some sense if you think about a question like “What is the safest way for me to travel the 5km to work?”

There seemed to be a bit too much emphasis on small changes in relatively small numbers for the numbers killed bit.

Lucky that (on average and acknowledging that no one is average) the health benefits massively outweigh the risks anyway, eh?

Agree with Graham, if you are weighing up whether to cycle or drive to work, risk based on distance travelled becomes an extremely valid comparison