Cycling Makes Us Safer

You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than you do of dying in a terrorist attack.  The same can not be said about other dangers we face every day:

Comparing the CDC numbers to terrorism deaths means:

– You are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

– You are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

(Keep in mind when reading this entire piece that we are consistently and substantially understating the risk of other causes of death as compared to terrorism, because we are comparing deaths from various causes within the United States against deaths from terrorism worldwide.)

Wikipedia notes that obesity is a a contributing factor in 100,000–400,000 deaths in the United States per year. That makes obesity 5,882 to times 23,528 more likely to kill you than a terrorist.

The annual number of deaths in the U.S. due to avoidable medical errors is as high as 100,000. Indeed, one of the world’s leading medical journals – Lancet – reported in 2011:

…

The CDC says that some 80,000 deaths each year are attributable to excessive alcohol use. So you’re4,706 times more likely to drink yourself to death than die from terrorism.

Wikipedia notes that there were 32,367 automobile accidents in 2011, which means that you are 1,904times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack.

(via)

And yet “safety” seems to be all that anyone can think of when say, people want to go for a ride at midnight the night before a big running event.  We are willing to spend many more millions of dollars per victim to protect us against the very unlikely event of terrorism,  than we are to protect us from fatty foods, sedentary car based lifestyles, or global warming.  All of which kill hundreds of thousands of more people a year.

Many tens of thousands of people die in car crashes every year, and yet we are spending relatively little effort to prevent those tragic deaths.  We clearly do not react to other threats to our safety the way we react to terrorism.  If we did our daily lives would be pretty hectic.  When was the last time you had to get a full body pat down before getting behind the wheel of a car?  Or had to take your shoes off and walk through a metal detector before buying a pack of cigarettes?  Perhaps we need TSA agents at every McDonalds,  NSA spying on big tobacco companies, Drone strikes on car dealerships…

Contrary to what you might think, having a more people out riding and walking actually DECREASES your risk of getting run over by a careless driver.

In the hysteria that predated the launch of New York’s bike-sharing system last year, many critics cried that the bikes would make the city’s streets less safe. All those cyclists wouldn’t be wearing helmets! They’d have no insurance! Accidents would skyrocket, and with them lawsuits against the city. Fatalities would triple!

The system’s safety record quickly turned out to be less sensational. But this was as bike advocates expected. Biking — as with walking — offers a prime example of the power of crowds. As more people bike and walk, cycling and pedestrian fatalities actually decline. That’s because the more people bike and walk, the more drivers become attuned to their presence (either on sidewalks or road shoulders), and the more cities are likely to invest in the kind of infrastructure explicitly meant to protect them (all of which further encourages more cyclists and pedestrians).

This pattern is confirmed in a large biannual benchmarking report released this week by the Alliance for Biking & Walking in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report, based on data from census travel surveys, the American Community Survey, and local data tracking cyclists and pedestrians, offers some crucial national perspective outside of cities like New York and Washington.(via)

Click for larger pictures.

While a statistical analysis might not be as emotionally charged as our responses to the suffering of victims of violent crime, the math doesn’t lie.  Your risk of dying from terrorist related activities is basically zero.  Other dangers such and being hit by a car, or having a heart attack are much higher. Cycling and walking reduce the risk of dying in traffic, or having a heart attack.

So as our city contemplates how to react on the first anniversary of a horrific and cowardly crime, we are faced with a tough choice.  What do we do?  How do we react?

I propose a radical solution…I propose we do nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Don’t change a thing, keep on acting like we did before.  Ride your bike, go for a walk.  Do all the normal things you did before the attacks.  Why should we relinquish our freedoms because a couple madmen tried to kill us?  Why should we live in a Orwellian police state because some insane cowards tried to use bombs instead of political discourse?

If you really need to make a change, eat more vegetables  go for a bike ride, leave your car at home, and stop smoking.  All of these things will increase your safety much more than refusing to set aside a private train to a bunch of people riding their bikes on a public road.

Real people have been the real victims of  terrorist attacks.  We must never forget the vibrancy of the lives that have been lost.  But we can not allow the emotionally charged events of last years marathon bombing to obscure reality.   Far more good people are taken from us every day by less obvious, but just as real dangers.  Be it car crashes, obesity, getting cancer from pollution or climate change.  These are systematic dangers that sneak up on us slowly, but that can be dealt with in real and concrete ways.

This marathon Monday my best wishes go out to the families of everyone lost at last years attack, and everyone still struggling with recovering from injuries both mental and physical.  I urge everyone to behave the way they would have any other Marathon Monday, live your lives just as free and as proud as you did before the attacks.  No act of violence can take away what makes us great, our freedom.

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Monday Fun, Because I Can Edition

You’re welcome.

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Cycling Is Good For You, Safe, And Good For Everyone Else, So Says Science

If the traffic crashes and fatalities being at record low levels was not enough to convince you that cycling is safe, check out this new study about the health risks (or lack thereof) regarding cycling.

Its written in science language but I have made bold the area that you should be concerned about, read the whole thing here.

Although from a societal point of view a modal shift from car to bicycle may have beneficial health effects due to decreased air pollution emissions, decreased greenhouse gas emissions, and increased levels of physical activity, shifts in individual adverse health effects such as higher exposure to air pollution and risk of a traffic accident may prevail.

Objective: We describe whether the health benefits from the increased physical activity of a modal shift for urban commutes outweigh the health risks.

Data sources and extraction: We have summarized the literature for air pollution, traffic accidents, and physical activity using systematic reviews supplemented with recent key studies.

Data synthesis: We quantified the impact on all-cause mortality when 500,000 people would make a transition from car to bicycle for short trips on a daily basis in the Netherlands. We have expressed mortality impacts in life-years gained or lost, using life table calculations. For individuals who shift from car to bicycle, we estimated that beneficial effects of increased physical activity are substantially larger (3–14 months gained) than the potential mortality effect of increased inhaled air pollution doses (0.8–40 days lost) and the increase in traffic accidents (5–9 days lost). Societal benefits are even larger because of a modest reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and traffic accidents.

Conclusions: On average, the estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks relative to car driving for individuals shifting their mode of transport.

From a societal point of view, shifting from cars to other forms of transportation, such as bicycles, may have beneficial health effects due to decreased air pollution emissions, decreased greenhouse gas emissions, and increased levels of physical activity. However, increased use of bicycles may increase both personal exposure to air pollutants and the risk of traffic accidents. De Hartog et al. (p. 1109) reviewed the literature for air pollution, traffic accidents, and physical activity and estimated the impact on all-cause mortality if 500,000 people shifted from cars to bicycles for short trips on a daily basis. The authors expressed the impact on mortality in life-years gained or lost using life table calculations. For individuals shifting from cars to bicycles, the authors estimated that beneficial effects of increased physical activity would be substantially larger than potential mortality due to increased air pollution exposure and traffic accidents. Societal benefits of cycling were even larger due to a modest reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and traffic accidents. The authors conclude that the health benefits of cycling are on average nine times greater than the risks associated with driving a car.

Or to summarize, yes you are going to be putting yourself at a little risk due to pollution while riding your bike, but its better for you to suck down a little exhaust and be active than sit around in your car and suck down exhaust. Plus you are making life better for everyone else as well.

The study goes on to consider accidents, and other dangers associated with cycling, and finds overall that you are much better off cycling than not.

You can read more here.

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HOLY CRAP BIKE WEEK!

Hey did yea hear? Its bike week! Get out an pedal all over! If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days its because I am so freaking busy going to all the bike week events that I will be a heap of tired biker when its all over.

(Some pics stolen from MassBike)

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