Well...yeah? Just like a bus or a train? Different concerns and different advantages, but I was riding bikes and walking around at those ages. Unfortunately the worst case scenario tends to...
Well...yeah? Just like a bus or a train? Different concerns and different advantages, but I was riding bikes and walking around at those ages. Unfortunately the worst case scenario tends to dictate policy but kids really should be allowed some level of autonomy and if these devices ARE as safe as they claim (driving wise), then fine.
I mean, the implication is that these parents would not feel safe letting their kids ride an Uber or Taxi alone. So the existence of Waymo allows new possibilities for where kids can go without...
I mean, the implication is that these parents would not feel safe letting their kids ride an Uber or Taxi alone. So the existence of Waymo allows new possibilities for where kids can go without their parents.
I can't exactly blame adults for not wanting their kids to take BART - I almost got stabbed once as a college student in the bay area. It's a far cry from MTA. Probably the least safe I've felt on public transit anywhere in the US.
Honestly, taking a ride share as a minor seems perfectly safe. The apps track everything. Of course there are risks, but they seem manageable.
I mean, the implication is that these parents would not feel safe letting their kids ride an Uber or Taxi alone. So the existence of Waymo allows new possibilities for where kids can go without their parents.
Honestly, taking a ride share as a minor seems perfectly safe. The apps track everything. Of course there are risks, but they seem manageable.
99% of the time nothing would go wrong. But I'd imagine as a parent, the 0.001% is just very hard to risk, which is you just put your child in a metal box with someone who's going to sexually...
99% of the time nothing would go wrong. But I'd imagine as a parent, the 0.001% is just very hard to risk, which is you just put your child in a metal box with someone who's going to sexually assault them.
BART has made strides recently though in improving safety thankfully. While there are characters still from time to time, it's rare that I get on a train that doesn't have a safety officer on it.
BART has made strides recently though in improving safety thankfully. While there are characters still from time to time, it's rare that I get on a train that doesn't have a safety officer on it.
Yeah as always there's a large "It depends" caveat around these things. US public transport varies WILDLY in quality and safety. Obviously "alone in a car" is in theory a hell of a lot safer than...
Yeah as always there's a large "It depends" caveat around these things. US public transport varies WILDLY in quality and safety. Obviously "alone in a car" is in theory a hell of a lot safer than "with a bunch of strangers on the bus/subway", but again, I think depends heavily on the area.
Would you mind expanding on this? What's the danger that's still so high that parents shouldn't be letting their teens use Waymo? The article hit at one of the things I immediately thought...
Would you mind expanding on this? What's the danger that's still so high that parents shouldn't be letting their teens use Waymo?
The article hit at one of the things I immediately thought would/could be more dangerous: having their teen friends who can drive, drive them around. But that's pretty normalized, even with various laws restricting the ability of new teen drivers to have passengers (that's how it was in my state). There were definitely times I had more passengers than I was legally allowed.
And less than a bicycle? In this country? I mean, biking is probably fine around the neighborhood. As a kid/younger teen, I definitely biked around a bunch. But never anywhere that far. And in the suburbs, anything that's worth going to is far if you don't have a vehicle taking you there. It'd be incredibly dangerous via a bike, with our apparent love of stroads and US highways and state routes that often double as major shopping/entertainment areas.
But, maybe there's something I'm not considering. Been a long time since I've been a teen (sigh), and I don't have kids.
Not who you're replying to, but I have to imagine they meant they can be a lot more dangerous than they claim to be and still be less dangerous than bicycles. Which I totally agree with. With...
Not who you're replying to, but I have to imagine they meant they can be a lot more dangerous than they claim to be and still be less dangerous than bicycles.
Which I totally agree with. With distracted driving and the massive increase vehicle sizes, biking anywhere in the vicinity of driving vehicles is essentially a gamble with your life. Even in suburban and neighborhood streets.
This is nonsense. Cycling is extremely safe. This kind of rhetoric scares people away from bicycling. Driving is the most dangerous activity the average person regularly does. Speed kills, and...
Which I totally agree with. With distracted driving and the massive increase vehicle sizes, biking anywhere in the vicinity of driving vehicles is essentially a gamble with your life. Even in suburban and neighborhood streets.
This is nonsense. Cycling is extremely safe. This kind of rhetoric scares people away from bicycling. Driving is the most dangerous activity the average person regularly does. Speed kills, and even illegal ebikes don't go highway speeds.
I commute by ebike daily, and I have no issues despite spotty biking infrastructure. Rather, I have far more close calls when driving, especially with people speeding through parking garages and the like.
I mean, cars can also go fast... and hit you, as a cyclist. If you're cycling in a dedicate lane, sure, it's fairly safe, but in any substantial urban area in the US, you're seriously at risk of...
Driving is the most dangerous activity the average person regularly does. Speed kills, and even illegal ebikes don't go highway speeds.
I mean, cars can also go fast... and hit you, as a cyclist. If you're cycling in a dedicate lane, sure, it's fairly safe, but in any substantial urban area in the US, you're seriously at risk of poor decisions by drivers. The difference is that when that happens, the driver is in a giant metal box, and you're next to nothing.
Even just people opening doors can knock you into oncoming traffic.
Rather, I have far more close calls when driving
Sure, and those are scrapes. There is almost no chance you get seriously injured by people speeding in a parking garage.
Cycling is not extremely safe in a lot of places in the US. Around me, to get anywhere, I'd have to ride on a bike lane in between the right lane and a ton of turning lanes on a very busy stroad...
Cycling is not extremely safe in a lot of places in the US. Around me, to get anywhere, I'd have to ride on a bike lane in between the right lane and a ton of turning lanes on a very busy stroad where people don't do a great job paying attention or looking for cyclists. It's so dangerous that I'm surprised the city even bothered paining the bike lanes, and the only bikes I've ever seen near that road is on the sidewalk. There's no way in hell I'd be comfortable letting my kids ride bikes there.
Lots of people die by getting hit by cars riding bikes in places like that.
I've had more close calls on a bicycle than I have in a vehicle, and I've been in a vehicle WAY more times than I was riding a bike. Say it's nonsense all you want, but unless you have figures to...
I've had more close calls on a bicycle than I have in a vehicle, and I've been in a vehicle WAY more times than I was riding a bike. Say it's nonsense all you want, but unless you have figures to back it up, it's no more valid than my personal experience which says it's lots of sense rather than nonsense.
When I was riding my bike a few times a week, I always rode with my head on a swivel. I never crossed a single driveway or street without looking. One time I stopped at a mid-block crossing (a trail path intersecting a street with no traffic lights) and this type of crossing was garnering a lot of attention in my area because people were getting hit and in some cases dying because some drivers would preemptively stop, thinking they were doing pedestrians and trail users a favor by 'letting' them cross, due to the aforementioned lack of traffic signaling at these spots, and other drivers weren't expecting someone to just seemingly randomly stop in the middle of the road so they would go around the car and then plow into the trail user. Nearly happened to me except I refused to cross when drivers preemptively stop.
Another time I was riding my bicycle on the sidewalk, which you can get conflicting perspectives on what is safer or even whether it's legal depending on the area, and a car running from the cops comes barrelling down a busy road that this sidewalk is next to. Chances were decently high that if I was in the roadway, the car would not have hesitated to hit me to evade hitting cars which would have drastically ruined their chances of evading cops while hitting me would have been barely a speed bump.
Thank you for your anecdotes. Those sound like they were scary events, and left a lasting impression on you. But the population-level data is clear that cars are more lethal. In 2020 (the last...
Thank you for your anecdotes. Those sound like they were scary events, and left a lasting impression on you. But the population-level data is clear that cars are more lethal. In 2020 (the last year I can see comparable data) there were 0.257 cycling deaths per 100k people in the USA, and 11.67 motor vehicle deaths per 100k. Far more people die in car crashes than from bike crashes.
That statistic is not meaningful. Less than 1 million people commute via bicycle in the US, versus 124 million via car. So yeah, more people die driving cars than riding a bike, because more...
That statistic is not meaningful. Less than 1 million people commute via bicycle in the US, versus 124 million via car. So yeah, more people die driving cars than riding a bike, because more people drive cars regularly than ride bikes.
But 891 people died riding bikes in 2020 versus 38,824 in cars, meaning per amount of people regularly using that mode of transportion, bikes are actually more dangerous.
If it were just about raw numbers of people killed, knife juggling would be safer than both.
Here you go: From the Federal Highway Administration's 2022 transportation survey: 1,103,851 million miles driven, and 5,888 million miles cycled, so people traveled 0.00533 as far by bike as by...
Here you go: From the Federal Highway Administration's 2022 transportation survey: 1,103,851 million miles driven, and 5,888 million miles cycled, so people traveled 0.00533 as far by bike as by car. By comparison, the deaths as a percentage of population show cycling deaths at .02202, or about 5 times as deadly per mile traveled. But as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety points out, essentially all cycling fatalities are from crashes involving a motor vehicle. This is not to say that cycling is without risk, but basically all of that lethality is because of cars.
Of course. If cars and trucks didn't exist, virtually no one would ever die on bicycles. That distinction doesn't really matter that much if you're a parent doing the risk calculus of letting your...
But as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety points out, essentially all cycling fatalities are from crashes involving a motor vehicle
Of course. If cars and trucks didn't exist, virtually no one would ever die on bicycles.
That distinction doesn't really matter that much if you're a parent doing the risk calculus of letting your kids take a waymo across town versus ride their bike though.
When we’re comparing rates we need to be careful about denominators and there are a lot of things one could legitimately put there, depending on what you’re interested in. For example, deaths per...
When we’re comparing rates we need to be careful about denominators and there are a lot of things one could legitimately put there, depending on what you’re interested in.
For example, deaths per passenger-mile makes airlines look very good, because we don’t fly that often and it’s for long distances. If we are thinking about what’s the safest way to get from San Francisco to New York, this is the relevant statistic. I wouldn’t expect bicycling to do particularly well because that would be a very long trip by bicycle and so there’s a lot of time for accidents to happen.
Deaths per person-hour is also a useful statistic but it means something different: we are comparing ways you occupy your time. This might be relevant if you’re comparing a career working as a pilot or flight attendant to versus, say, a bike messenger. The miles you put in isn’t really relevant compared to time on the job.
The relevant statistics we’re looking for would answer for individuals what would happen if they start bicycling more as part of an active lifestyle. This is going to depend on what kind of bicycling you do. I do know serious bicyclists who were injured where it wasn’t due to a car, it was due to falling off the bike. In a couple cases it was going off road going downhill at high speed. In another case, she just fainted for unknown reasons. These weren’t fatal, but head injuries can be very serious.
I don’t think we found the right statistics to do this comparison yet. What you want to know as an individual is what happens if you take up cycling. It seems like deaths per time spent riding might be useful, but there are different kinds of riding, and deaths aren’t all we’re concerned about.
That rate doesn't mean anything. The entire US population doesn't cycle. Show me a rate of deaths per 100k cyclists vs. deaths per 100k motorists if you actually want to prove anything. On a...
That rate doesn't mean anything. The entire US population doesn't cycle.
Show me a rate of deaths per 100k cyclists vs. deaths per 100k motorists if you actually want to prove anything.
On a personal note - I know 4 people (as in personally) who have been hit and killed while cycling/walking/running on roads with no sidewalk / bike lane. I know of 2 people on that time who've been killed in car accidents.
That's awful. I'm sorry you lost so many people close to you. That said, my takeaway from what you're saying is that being in or near cars killed 6 people you know. Whether they were inside or...
That's awful. I'm sorry you lost so many people close to you.
That said, my takeaway from what you're saying is that being in or near cars killed 6 people you know. Whether they were inside or outside, the commonalities are the car, and secondarily a lack of infrastructure for anyone not in a car. It's not bicycling that's the danger.
Yes, that was the point I made originally. Biking in areas where cars drive is not safe. I don't think anybody here is arguing that cycling is inherently more dangerous than driving, but that...
Yes, that was the point I made originally. Biking in areas where cars drive is not safe. I don't think anybody here is arguing that cycling is inherently more dangerous than driving, but that biking alongside regular vehicle traffic is
The entire US population also doesn't drive. Being able to sample over a million bikers certainly gets us a statistical meaningful result. They did. The site doesn't say they edited their comment,...
The entire US population doesn't cycle.
The entire US population also doesn't drive. Being able to sample over a million bikers certainly gets us a statistical meaningful result.
Show me a rate of deaths per 100k cyclists vs. deaths per 100k motorists if you actually want to prove anything.
They did. The site doesn't say they edited their comment, right?
while cycling/walking/running on roads with no sidewalk / bike lane.
Yes, studies show bicycle safety increases when you build more dedicated biking lanes. Saying that biking is less safe discourages building such infrastructure.
I see. The wiki page is woefully underpopulated for multiple reasons. There's a more complete visualization here, https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/bicycle-deaths/ But...
I see. The wiki page is woefully underpopulated for multiple reasons.
Here's my best attempt to find comprehensive numbers on total cyclists. These focus on commuting and regular cyclists compared to numbers where you'd hear tens of millions who have rode a bike at least once in that year (I can find that link if it's useful)
studies seem to suggest bicycling becoming safer throughout the US overtime despite rising rates of cycling. So the notion of it becoming more dangerous seems localized at best. We can compare...
unless you have figures to back it up, it's no more valid than my personal experience which says it's lots of sense rather than nonsense.
studies seem to suggest bicycling becoming safer throughout the US overtime despite rising rates of cycling. So the notion of it becoming more dangerous seems localized at best.
We can compare apples to oranges all day if we want, but I think the spirit of Minori's comment is that this negative feedback loop of discouraging cycling infrastructure by suggesting cycling is more dangerous ends up makes things more dangerous in the long run. The statistics support that the solution to this is to expand, not avoid.
You are misunderstanding the point others are making here. Nobody is discouraging cycling infrastructure. In fact, what I am saying is that its the lack of infrastructure that makes cycling...
negative feedback loop of discouraging cycling infrastructure
You are misunderstanding the point others are making here. Nobody is discouraging cycling infrastructure. In fact, what I am saying is that its the lack of infrastructure that makes cycling dangerous. Its not biking itself, but who you share the road with that makes it dangerous.
Yeah I mostly agree, just more pointing it out. General attitudes (and laws) these days seem to point to children being alone being treated as child abuse, so just pointing out that there's a LOT...
Yeah I mostly agree, just more pointing it out. General attitudes (and laws) these days seem to point to children being alone being treated as child abuse, so just pointing out that there's a LOT of activities that kids do that can harm them or leave them in less than safe situations.
And for what it's worth, electric bikes are HELL of a lot less safe since kids seem to treat them like small motor bikes. I have groups of kids in my area (11-16ish?) who will ride around in the street doing wheelies at 30mph. Most wear helmets at least, but still not the smartest thing to do against traffic on a blind corner.
At some point it stops being about the risk and starts being about teaching the kid consequences.
Kid or adult, it comes down to accountability at the end of the day. And we're still in the wild west of who's accountable in those cases of accidents, malfunctions, or otherwise drifting off course.
kids really should be allowed some level of autonomy and if these devices ARE as safe as they claim (driving wise), then fine.
Kid or adult, it comes down to accountability at the end of the day. And we're still in the wild west of who's accountable in those cases of accidents, malfunctions, or otherwise drifting off course.
The title of this has Bulldozer Parent written all over it. The actual article just reminds me how we allow companies to 'disrupt' without actually providing the accomodations that are really...
The title of this has Bulldozer Parent written all over it. The actual article just reminds me how we allow companies to 'disrupt' without actually providing the accomodations that are really required of the service they're disrupting. Like being able to shove an 8 year old in a cab.
My wife grew up in the gayborhood of Philadelphia, and at that age was walking 3x the distance, before cellphones were really a thing average people had.
We're comfortable with our 8 year old walking ~10 min from home in a small city, with no means of communication or location tracking. If they get in trouble, they know what to do.
If a 12 year old can't get themselves a cab (automated or not), then we really have strayed down an awful rabbithole of killing self-sufficiency.
I just discovered a thing called 'utility concierge' exists. Because it's apparently too difficult for renters to figure out what their electric, internet, and gas companies are and fill out an online form.
12 is sort of a grey area in my eyes. Once they are teens they should be getting used to navigating around their town and enjoying some freedoms. biking for good exercise, public transportation to...
If a 12 year old can't get themselves a cab (automated or not), then we really have strayed down an awful rabbithole of killing self-sufficiency.
12 is sort of a grey area in my eyes. Once they are teens they should be getting used to navigating around their town and enjoying some freedoms. biking for good exercise, public transportation to teach them about how to schedule their travels (and probably suffer once or twice when they inevitably mistime their stops). Sadly, results may vary based on your city on if public transportation is safe enough.
8 years old seems extremely young to go out farther than a neighborhood (and yes, a child that young wandering would probably get written up by CPS these days).
I don't really trust automated cabs, though. I'd still be wary of letting my kids on until they are 16 or so (at which point, they should be practicing for adulthood and should be able to make 90% of their own decisions, independent from their parents' personal opinions)
I think our diffrences boil down to 'each kid is different.' Also life circumstances: My spouse was thrown in a cab at 8 when temps were below 20. My 8yr could handle it. Pretty sure my next will...
I think our diffrences boil down to 'each kid is different.' Also life circumstances: My spouse was thrown in a cab at 8 when temps were below 20.
My 8yr could handle it. Pretty sure my next will not until 10.
Increasingly, parents in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are relying on robotaxis to transport their unaccompanied children — mostly teenagers who aren’t quite old enough for a driver’s license. This practice breaks the rules imposed by Waymo and its state regulators, which require that riders be 18 or older unless they have an adult chaperone. But parents have found they’re unlikely to get caught, and the need is clear.
[...]
“It’s really become part of our culture,” said Megan Schmidt, a mother in the Inner Richmond who considers Waymo a vital form of mobility for her 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son. Like other moms, Schmidt said that AVs have helped her reclaim a lot of time, some of which she can spend socializing with other parents.
[...]
Waymo responded to similar interest in another market, Phoenix, by introducing teen accounts for riders ages 14 to 17 — with the stipulation that each be linked to a parent or guardian. The feature, launched last July, was pitched as a tool for parents who want to give their children more autonomy while still being able to track their trips. It drew instant buzz.
[...]
Whether Waymo or any of its competitors can replicate this feature in San Francisco is unclear. The company would need approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, whose members are midway through a process to make new rules and policies for autonomous vehicles. Children’s use of robotaxis was among the items up for discussion, though at this point it’s unclear where regulators would land.
Well...yeah? Just like a bus or a train? Different concerns and different advantages, but I was riding bikes and walking around at those ages. Unfortunately the worst case scenario tends to dictate policy but kids really should be allowed some level of autonomy and if these devices ARE as safe as they claim (driving wise), then fine.
I mean, the implication is that these parents would not feel safe letting their kids ride an Uber or Taxi alone. So the existence of Waymo allows new possibilities for where kids can go without their parents.
I can't exactly blame adults for not wanting their kids to take BART - I almost got stabbed once as a college student in the bay area. It's a far cry from MTA. Probably the least safe I've felt on public transit anywhere in the US.
Honestly, taking a ride share as a minor seems perfectly safe. The apps track everything. Of course there are risks, but they seem manageable.
99% of the time nothing would go wrong. But I'd imagine as a parent, the 0.001% is just very hard to risk, which is you just put your child in a metal box with someone who's going to sexually assault them.
BART has made strides recently though in improving safety thankfully. While there are characters still from time to time, it's rare that I get on a train that doesn't have a safety officer on it.
Yeah as always there's a large "It depends" caveat around these things. US public transport varies WILDLY in quality and safety. Obviously "alone in a car" is in theory a hell of a lot safer than "with a bunch of strangers on the bus/subway", but again, I think depends heavily on the area.
It seems like something of a milestone that some kids are growing up taking driverless cars for granted.
They can be a lot more dangerous than they claim to be before the danger level falls below that of a bicycle.
Would you mind expanding on this? What's the danger that's still so high that parents shouldn't be letting their teens use Waymo?
The article hit at one of the things I immediately thought would/could be more dangerous: having their teen friends who can drive, drive them around. But that's pretty normalized, even with various laws restricting the ability of new teen drivers to have passengers (that's how it was in my state). There were definitely times I had more passengers than I was legally allowed.
And less than a bicycle? In this country? I mean, biking is probably fine around the neighborhood. As a kid/younger teen, I definitely biked around a bunch. But never anywhere that far. And in the suburbs, anything that's worth going to is far if you don't have a vehicle taking you there. It'd be incredibly dangerous via a bike, with our apparent love of stroads and US highways and state routes that often double as major shopping/entertainment areas.
But, maybe there's something I'm not considering. Been a long time since I've been a teen (sigh), and I don't have kids.
Not who you're replying to, but I have to imagine they meant they can be a lot more dangerous than they claim to be and still be less dangerous than bicycles.
Which I totally agree with. With distracted driving and the massive increase vehicle sizes, biking anywhere in the vicinity of driving vehicles is essentially a gamble with your life. Even in suburban and neighborhood streets.
This is nonsense. Cycling is extremely safe. This kind of rhetoric scares people away from bicycling. Driving is the most dangerous activity the average person regularly does. Speed kills, and even illegal ebikes don't go highway speeds.
I commute by ebike daily, and I have no issues despite spotty biking infrastructure. Rather, I have far more close calls when driving, especially with people speeding through parking garages and the like.
I mean, cars can also go fast... and hit you, as a cyclist. If you're cycling in a dedicate lane, sure, it's fairly safe, but in any substantial urban area in the US, you're seriously at risk of poor decisions by drivers. The difference is that when that happens, the driver is in a giant metal box, and you're next to nothing.
Even just people opening doors can knock you into oncoming traffic.
Sure, and those are scrapes. There is almost no chance you get seriously injured by people speeding in a parking garage.
Cycling is not extremely safe in a lot of places in the US. Around me, to get anywhere, I'd have to ride on a bike lane in between the right lane and a ton of turning lanes on a very busy stroad where people don't do a great job paying attention or looking for cyclists. It's so dangerous that I'm surprised the city even bothered paining the bike lanes, and the only bikes I've ever seen near that road is on the sidewalk. There's no way in hell I'd be comfortable letting my kids ride bikes there.
Lots of people die by getting hit by cars riding bikes in places like that.
I've had more close calls on a bicycle than I have in a vehicle, and I've been in a vehicle WAY more times than I was riding a bike. Say it's nonsense all you want, but unless you have figures to back it up, it's no more valid than my personal experience which says it's lots of sense rather than nonsense.
When I was riding my bike a few times a week, I always rode with my head on a swivel. I never crossed a single driveway or street without looking. One time I stopped at a mid-block crossing (a trail path intersecting a street with no traffic lights) and this type of crossing was garnering a lot of attention in my area because people were getting hit and in some cases dying because some drivers would preemptively stop, thinking they were doing pedestrians and trail users a favor by 'letting' them cross, due to the aforementioned lack of traffic signaling at these spots, and other drivers weren't expecting someone to just seemingly randomly stop in the middle of the road so they would go around the car and then plow into the trail user. Nearly happened to me except I refused to cross when drivers preemptively stop.
Another time I was riding my bicycle on the sidewalk, which you can get conflicting perspectives on what is safer or even whether it's legal depending on the area, and a car running from the cops comes barrelling down a busy road that this sidewalk is next to. Chances were decently high that if I was in the roadway, the car would not have hesitated to hit me to evade hitting cars which would have drastically ruined their chances of evading cops while hitting me would have been barely a speed bump.
Thank you for your anecdotes. Those sound like they were scary events, and left a lasting impression on you. But the population-level data is clear that cars are more lethal. In 2020 (the last year I can see comparable data) there were 0.257 cycling deaths per 100k people in the USA, and 11.67 motor vehicle deaths per 100k. Far more people die in car crashes than from bike crashes.
That statistic is not meaningful. Less than 1 million people commute via bicycle in the US, versus 124 million via car. So yeah, more people die driving cars than riding a bike, because more people drive cars regularly than ride bikes.
But 891 people died riding bikes in 2020 versus 38,824 in cars, meaning per amount of people regularly using that mode of transportion, bikes are actually more dangerous.
If it were just about raw numbers of people killed, knife juggling would be safer than both.
Here you go: From the Federal Highway Administration's 2022 transportation survey: 1,103,851 million miles driven, and 5,888 million miles cycled, so people traveled 0.00533 as far by bike as by car. By comparison, the deaths as a percentage of population show cycling deaths at .02202, or about 5 times as deadly per mile traveled. But as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety points out, essentially all cycling fatalities are from crashes involving a motor vehicle. This is not to say that cycling is without risk, but basically all of that lethality is because of cars.
Of course. If cars and trucks didn't exist, virtually no one would ever die on bicycles.
That distinction doesn't really matter that much if you're a parent doing the risk calculus of letting your kids take a waymo across town versus ride their bike though.
When we’re comparing rates we need to be careful about denominators and there are a lot of things one could legitimately put there, depending on what you’re interested in.
For example, deaths per passenger-mile makes airlines look very good, because we don’t fly that often and it’s for long distances. If we are thinking about what’s the safest way to get from San Francisco to New York, this is the relevant statistic. I wouldn’t expect bicycling to do particularly well because that would be a very long trip by bicycle and so there’s a lot of time for accidents to happen.
Deaths per person-hour is also a useful statistic but it means something different: we are comparing ways you occupy your time. This might be relevant if you’re comparing a career working as a pilot or flight attendant to versus, say, a bike messenger. The miles you put in isn’t really relevant compared to time on the job.
The relevant statistics we’re looking for would answer for individuals what would happen if they start bicycling more as part of an active lifestyle. This is going to depend on what kind of bicycling you do. I do know serious bicyclists who were injured where it wasn’t due to a car, it was due to falling off the bike. In a couple cases it was going off road going downhill at high speed. In another case, she just fainted for unknown reasons. These weren’t fatal, but head injuries can be very serious.
I don’t think we found the right statistics to do this comparison yet. What you want to know as an individual is what happens if you take up cycling. It seems like deaths per time spent riding might be useful, but there are different kinds of riding, and deaths aren’t all we’re concerned about.
This is why they used the per capita field, and not absolute numbers. The numbers provided are doing what you were already trying to do.
Per capita here means per person in the US, not per user of that transport mode.
That rate doesn't mean anything. The entire US population doesn't cycle.
Show me a rate of deaths per 100k cyclists vs. deaths per 100k motorists if you actually want to prove anything.
On a personal note - I know 4 people (as in personally) who have been hit and killed while cycling/walking/running on roads with no sidewalk / bike lane. I know of 2 people on that time who've been killed in car accidents.
That's awful. I'm sorry you lost so many people close to you.
That said, my takeaway from what you're saying is that being in or near cars killed 6 people you know. Whether they were inside or outside, the commonalities are the car, and secondarily a lack of infrastructure for anyone not in a car. It's not bicycling that's the danger.
Yes, that was the point I made originally. Biking in areas where cars drive is not safe. I don't think anybody here is arguing that cycling is inherently more dangerous than driving, but that biking alongside regular vehicle traffic is
The entire US population also doesn't drive. Being able to sample over a million bikers certainly gets us a statistical meaningful result.
They did. The site doesn't say they edited their comment, right?
Yes, studies show bicycle safety increases when you build more dedicated biking lanes. Saying that biking is less safe discourages building such infrastructure.
They provided number of cycling and car deaths per 100k total people, not per 100k people who use those modes of transport
I see. The wiki page is woefully underpopulated for multiple reasons.
There's a more complete visualization here,
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/bicycle-deaths/
But it seem the injury tracking isn't really trying to take a census on bikers.
https://runrepeat.com/cycling-statistics#cycling-demographics
Here's my best attempt to find comprehensive numbers on total cyclists. These focus on commuting and regular cyclists compared to numbers where you'd hear tens of millions who have rode a bike at least once in that year (I can find that link if it's useful)
studies seem to suggest bicycling becoming safer throughout the US overtime despite rising rates of cycling. So the notion of it becoming more dangerous seems localized at best.
We can compare apples to oranges all day if we want, but I think the spirit of Minori's comment is that this negative feedback loop of discouraging cycling infrastructure by suggesting cycling is more dangerous ends up makes things more dangerous in the long run. The statistics support that the solution to this is to expand, not avoid.
You are misunderstanding the point others are making here. Nobody is discouraging cycling infrastructure. In fact, what I am saying is that its the lack of infrastructure that makes cycling dangerous. Its not biking itself, but who you share the road with that makes it dangerous.
Ah I see, appreciate that. I read the comment several times and was like "Wait, what are they saying?"
Yeah I mostly agree, just more pointing it out. General attitudes (and laws) these days seem to point to children being alone being treated as child abuse, so just pointing out that there's a LOT of activities that kids do that can harm them or leave them in less than safe situations.
And for what it's worth, electric bikes are HELL of a lot less safe since kids seem to treat them like small motor bikes. I have groups of kids in my area (11-16ish?) who will ride around in the street doing wheelies at 30mph. Most wear helmets at least, but still not the smartest thing to do against traffic on a blind corner.
At some point it stops being about the risk and starts being about teaching the kid consequences.
Kid or adult, it comes down to accountability at the end of the day. And we're still in the wild west of who's accountable in those cases of accidents, malfunctions, or otherwise drifting off course.
The title of this has Bulldozer Parent written all over it. The actual article just reminds me how we allow companies to 'disrupt' without actually providing the accomodations that are really required of the service they're disrupting. Like being able to shove an 8 year old in a cab.
My wife grew up in the gayborhood of Philadelphia, and at that age was walking 3x the distance, before cellphones were really a thing average people had.
We're comfortable with our 8 year old walking ~10 min from home in a small city, with no means of communication or location tracking. If they get in trouble, they know what to do.
If a 12 year old can't get themselves a cab (automated or not), then we really have strayed down an awful rabbithole of killing self-sufficiency.
I just discovered a thing called 'utility concierge' exists. Because it's apparently too difficult for renters to figure out what their electric, internet, and gas companies are and fill out an online form.
12 is sort of a grey area in my eyes. Once they are teens they should be getting used to navigating around their town and enjoying some freedoms. biking for good exercise, public transportation to teach them about how to schedule their travels (and probably suffer once or twice when they inevitably mistime their stops). Sadly, results may vary based on your city on if public transportation is safe enough.
8 years old seems extremely young to go out farther than a neighborhood (and yes, a child that young wandering would probably get written up by CPS these days).
I don't really trust automated cabs, though. I'd still be wary of letting my kids on until they are 16 or so (at which point, they should be practicing for adulthood and should be able to make 90% of their own decisions, independent from their parents' personal opinions)
I think our diffrences boil down to 'each kid is different.' Also life circumstances: My spouse was thrown in a cab at 8 when temps were below 20.
My 8yr could handle it. Pretty sure my next will not until 10.
https://archive.is/t6ke0
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