Cycling Tips & Stories Article

We've covered this a few times before, but it's worth mentioning again--and this article from the University of New South Wales explains the issue in a very clear and concise way:

It seems paradoxical but the more people ride bicycles on our city streets, the less likely they are to be injured in traffic accidents, say injury experts who will speak at a forthcoming cycling safety seminar in Sydney.

Local and international research reveals that as cycling participation increases, a cyclist is far less likely to collide with a motor vehicle or suffer injury and death - and what's true for cyclists is also true for pedestrians. And it's not simply because there are fewer cars on the roads, but because motorists seem to change their behaviour and drive more safely when they see more cyclists and pedestrians around.

Studies in many countries have shown consistently that the number of motorists colliding with walkers or cyclists doesn't increase equally with the number of people walking or bicycling. For example, a community that doubles its cycling numbers can expect a one-third drop in the per-cyclist frequency of a crash with a motor vehicle.

"It's a virtuous cycle," says Dr Julie Hatfield, an injury expert from UNSW who address the seminar on September 5. "The likelihood that an individual cyclist will be struck by a motorist falls with increasing rate of bicycling in a community. And the safer cycling is perceived to be, the more people are prepared to cycle."

Experts say the effect is independent of improvements in cycling-friendly laws such as lower speed limits and better infrastructure, such as bike paths. Research has revealed the safety-in-numbers impact for cyclists in Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, 14 European countries and 68 Californian cities.

"It's a positive effect but some people are surprised that injury rates don't go up at the same rate of increases in cycling," says Sydney University's Dr Chris Rissel, who will give the seminar's keynote address. "It appears that motorists adjust their behaviour in the presence of increasing numbers of people bicycling because they expect or experience more people cycling. Also, rising cycling rates mean motorists are more likely to be cyclists, and therefore be more conscious of, and sympathetic towards, cyclists."

Over the past decades we in the U.S.--and particularly in Missouri--have been in a sort of death spiral, where less bicycling and walking made it more dangerous (for those hardy souls who still dared walk or bicycle), meaning that even fewer participated, meaning that there was less support for good walking & bicycling facilities, meaning that every fewer participated, creating less political support, greater perception of danger--and so on, year after year and decade after decade, with each year fewer and fewer people walking and bicycling and therefore fewer and fewer good facilities and a decrease in safety each year.

But now we've reached the turnaround point, with greater and greater walking and bicycling, greater support for better facilities, and improved safety each year.

Related:

News: Columbia MO bike-ped pilot program in the news

News: What will the proposed MO highway safety law do for cyclists? (Part 1)

News: "Sharing the road" in Press Journal

Tips&Stories: Safety increases as walking and bicycling increase in an area

News: Time to start planning your community's 2008 Ride of Silence