Every Cyclist Who Was Killed by a Driver in 2020 | Hacker News Reader

Every Cyclist Who Was Killed by a Driver in 2020

outsideonline.com

15 pointsdfgdghdf8 comments

Interestingly, there's some parallels between bicycle deaths and motorcycle fatalities. 126 male deaths, 16 female deaths (out of >800 total? I guess the deaths identified by gender are a smaller subset). The figures are similar for motorcycles, about an order of magnitude larger for men than women [1]. In part this is due to the larger share of riders being men. But even when we compare the rates, there are significant differences. This disparity typically indicates behavior-based risks. In aggregate, the majority of motorcycle-automobile collisions are the fault of the latter, but fatalities often result from risky behavior on part of the former - hence the gender disparity, since said behavior is much more prevalent among men.

Some of the purported reasons don't measure up. This article claims that the prevalence of larger SUVs and trucks are resulting in more bicyclist deaths, and compares SUV and truck sales in 2019 vs 1994. But the fatality rates among bicyclists are not substantially different in 1994 than 2019. There's actually an overall downward trend the in rate of bicyclist deaths [2]. The same applies to the rising speed limits and greater prevalent of phones - these don't seem to correlate with any increase in fatalities. The overall trend from 1975 to the latest data is a downward trend from a fatality rate of ~0.4 per 100k people to 0.3 to 0.2.

1. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/gende...

2. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearl...

I can't find the study, but I remember hearing about it on NPR when the author was interviewed years ago. Basically, the authors tried biking with varyous appearances and measured how close cars typically got while passing. The findings were that if you wore a helmet, cars actually got closer to you. Cars also kept their distance when the author, a male, donned a blonde female wig. I think there are a lot of factors at play, part of it is risk behavior, but part of it is certainly subconscious perception by drivers.

This made me really sad.

Donovan Oxendine Age: 14 Date: 4/9 Location: Red Springs, NC

Aiden Christopher Manning Caldwell Age: 13 Date: 4/9 Location: Red Springs, NC

The news article doesn't mention that they were brothers, but I found obituaries that link each other.

Tesla's cyclist detection is awesome:

https://youtu.be/Dg2MqMJo-uk

I really want to buy a Tesla as soon as I have the money for it to be a safer driver, as it's generally really hard to spot cyclists and pedestrians sometimes, and I'm more worried about hitting somebody than getting killed in an accident.

This seems like a very one-sided article. For example, it could have easily been titled "Every Cyclist who died in a motor vehicle crash in 2020". The current title directly states that it was the drivers fault in every case, which is certainly not true.

…in the US

> What’s Causing the Death Toll?

What about more bicyclists treating roads as an exercise machine? It may be uncomfortable to consider that perhaps going 5 mph up a hill that cars are going 35 mph on a narrow two-lane road is eventually going to end up with dead bicyclists.

Do they provide the dataset?

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