I wouldn’t say road riding is dangerous. It really bothers me that this message keeps being shared because I don’t think it really shows in the facts and it puts people off riding.
I think a lot of people view any injury on a bike more catastrophically than they would in other sports or activities.
For example, a footballer (UK) gets injured 2.8 times in 1000 hours of training, and 58 times per 1000 hours of matches. In comparison, when cycling, people get injured at a rate of once every 240,000 miles. Let’s just prudently use 20mph average speed and we get a casualty rate of 0.08 per 1000 hours.
Running injury rates are comparable to footballers, I.e. much higher than cycling.
You’re comparing twisting an ankle to getting hit by a car. Not really apples to apples. The public doesn’t see stories on the evening news when someone twists their ankle, but when a cyclist gets hit by a car, it’s major news for at least a day or two.
I’m not really though. The vast majority of those cycling casualties were ‘slight’, and only requiring basic first aid.
Of course, there can be catastrophic injuries or fatalities when cycling and the impacts of those can be devastating. But then there can be in everything we do. In the UK, you are (marginally) more likely to be killed as a pedestrian, than by cycling (per mile travelled). Let’s not suggest nobody should walk, surely? By that same measure, if you want to minimise your risk then travel everywhere only by bus!
But when people say cycling is dangerous, they’re talking about getting hit by a car, not twisting your ankle or scraping your knee. You’re not comparing apples to apples when you talk about cyclists vs. footballers or runners in the public “it’s dangerous” opinion. They don’t care about the minor stuff.
The point was that all sport carries risk of injury (and so does almost anything that’s fun), but cycling often gets viewed differently and it isn’t backed up by the population level stats. The risk perception outweighs the real risk level.
The pedestrian deaths stat is exactly equivalent to the cycling deaths stat - it’s the same measure. But who would say walking is dangerous and encourage others not to walk?
But it’s not equivalent at all. There are FAR more people walking than cycling. That stat is per mile travelled. So, a single cyclist riding 50 miles in a single ride on the weekend is FAR more likely to be hit by a car than a single person walking for 10 minutes to get from one place to another.
The numbers of people walking vs cycling has nothing to do with it. That’s why it’s compared by per mile travelled (or occasionally per hour travelled). You also can’t really make the assertion that riding 50 miles at the weekend is more risky than walking for 10 minutes, as there may be a different risk profile for those riding 50 miles at a time, vs those riding a mile at a time down to the shops.
Here’s another take on this question, which aims to look at all factors in mortality by transportation choice for commuting - but who would tell someone not to walk to work?
They studied 263,450 participants, with a mean age of 52; 52 per cent of whom were female. The participants used a variety of methods to commute - walking, cycling, and ‘non-active’ (car or public transport).
By the end of the study, 2430 participants had died - and the breakdown showed that cyclists were the least likely to have deceased.
Additionally, and perhaps more relevantly to my point that we have a skewed view of the risk of cycling vs other sports:
A further study by a group of epidemiologists looked at the sporting background and lifespan of 80,306 British adults.
They found that cyclists were 15 per cent less likely to die from any cause - and those who spent time on two wheels came off best
Cycling just isn’t a particularly dangerous activity. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any instances of horrible things happening. But just that it’s not that different from anything else we do in life, so let’s take joy from cycling and encourage others to do the same.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Im still talking about individual odds of being killed during the activity, and you’ve moved on to longevity. Let’s leave it there. Cheers.
Studies like this are just showing correlation, not causation. This could just as easily be saying something about the health of people who choose to take up cycling.
I don’t personally view road cycling as all that dangerous where I live in Seattle. It does feel a bit more so in the suburbs I guess. Taking this back to the original topic, I just find riding gravel more pleasant.
A great analogy. Flying is ridiculously safe (I’m sure much safer than cycling), but people overestimate the danger because the rare incidents are horrific and get a lot of press. But people jump in cars daily with little thought, even though the chance of serious injury is 100x higher and life altering incidents don’t even make the local news sometimes.
I know there is a risk of getting killed by a car every time I ride my bike on the road, but I also know driving a car could end my life. Or scuba diving. Or hiking in the high mountains. Or downhill skiing. And probably all that stuff is safer than living a sedentary lifestyle with poor eating habits and limited physical activity (which some might consider safe behavior).
Agreed, but if it could just round up to be a bit higher, I think that would give a psychological benefit (no actual evidence of this before I’m asked)
I know you’re joking, but this actually brought the point home for me. If I was at 194, trying to break the next “level”, seeing 199 would be a disappointment, whereas 200 would be a “YES, I did it” moment. “Psychological benefit” indeed! Humans are strange.
Oh I totally agree with the actual maths part of this. I’m just approaching this from the (ego) training side of this.
Wouldn’t this benefit the athlete to think they had achieved ?
And I totally understand the point about actual performance but maybe I’m one those who can be placebo tricked into thinking that I’m better than I’m actually am, and then achieve a level higher than I thought…
Unpopular opinion: people need to stop valuing the THINKING/FEELING they had achieved something, and need to focus on ACTUALLY achieving stuff. This is a major problem in society today. Quit chasing validation/dopamine, focus on real results.
If you’re replying to me, I was not thinking about a particular thing.
I was, to some degree, reacting to the prior comments about ego in training, and whether people would work harder if they felt they had achieved something (like the idea or rounding up an FTP number so people would get a psychological boost/benefit from feeling like they had achieved a certain number like “breaking 200”).
But in general, when I wrote that message I was really thinking broadly about society today. I see it very often, in many areas, that people index strongly on what they FEEL and HOW they feel, rather than focusing on the specific and concrete outcomes/results which are what they really want. And in the end, our primary goal shouldn’t be to FEEL like we achieved something but to ACTUALLY ACHIEVE the thing.
Philosophical musing, not specifically about X or Y.
