Why I Ride on the Road

The latest installment in my Shifting Gears column in the Southwest Journal just hit the streets and I wanted to provide some substantiation for a few statistics I cite in the piece. As soon as the story is posted on the Journal's web site I'll provide a link, but in a nutshell I explain why I feel safe riding my bike on the road, with traffic. I've actually come to prefer riding on the road rather than on dedicated trails and paths

The figure I cite regarding the average number of cyclists killed in car-bike crashes in Minneapolis (1-2 per year) was taken from a conversation I had with Don Pflaum, city of Minneapolis Bicycle Coordinator.

The observation that "about half of all car-bike crashes are caused by dangerous behavior on the part of cyclists, such as riding on the wrong (left) side of the road, turning left in front of passing vehicles, running through red lights and stop signs or riding at night without lights" was drawn from Robert Hurst's excellent book The Art of Cycling: A Guide to Bicycling in 21st Century America (p. 161).

The estimate that "a decade of experience will reduce a cyclist’s accident rate by roughly 80 percent" originally comes from John Forester's Bicycle Transportation: A Handbook for Cycling Transportation Engineers, published first in the early 80s but updated in a second edition in 1994. I first noticed this claim on Ken Kifer's web site (www.kenkifer.com).

The general observations regarding the relative safety of biking versus driving were drawn from Ken Kifer's research. Sadly, Kifer (a writer and dedicated cyclist) was tragically killed by a drunk driver in September 2003 while riding his bicycle near his home near Scottsboro, Alabama. His web site, referenced above, contains a remarkable amount of practical information for cyclists.