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P Li's avatar

Interesting to see the similarities between pedestrian and bicycle deaths. I believe pedestrian deaths largely occur on "non-highway arterials." Is that data available for bicycle deaths? Based on victim demographics and location, I wonder how much poverty and homelessness could be to blame for both.

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Mike Greenfield's avatar

Yes, location information is available -- and good idea to take a look at the more specific places.

Re: homelessness, California has 6-7x as many people who are homeless as Florida (per: https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-have-the-highest-and-lowest-rates-of-homelessness/) and fewer bike fatalities. That doesn't mean they aren't related, but I'd be surprised if there's a large relationship.

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Paul Shapiro's avatar

Very interesting. As a relatively new rider (7 years) who rides with a group composed of mainly over 50 y/o riders, I wonder if the 60+ fatalities is related to an increase in 60+ cyclists? Would be interesting to determine if drivers' cell phone usage while driving has gotten worse during the test period? I'm guessing it has

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Mike Greenfield's avatar

My read on the data is that the 60+ increases are more individual riders (e.g., e-bikers going to the store) than group rides. But I haven't yet seen something that's fully convincing on that front.

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campbell.macdonald's avatar

This is also a data quality problem. Yes, participation changed, but it’s an underlying data problem: ebikes aren’t “bikes” per se. Yes, i try to ride mine like one. But I’m also sometimes rudely reminded that is also like a weak motorcycle, i.e. i cause trouble for myself because I’m going faster than I thought, wheels spin out, etc. Lots of new riders do not realize the energy at their disposal or the consequence.

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campbell.macdonald's avatar

This is great analysis. It would be awesome if there was a rate or incident for many of these.

It's hard to know if the growth in a number is due to overall growth in participation or an actual change in underlying conditions. I imagine getting the denominator in many cases is not available. Thoughts?

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Mike Greenfield's avatar

Yep, that's a great idea -- thanks and I am going to see what I can find.

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