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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

in the United States and Canada, bicyclists are more at risk for fatality per mile traveled than people in automobiles

So we have to kill people to make them healthier, I get it.

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You're committing a fallacy. MORE risk than driving doesn't mean you're in worse health if you cycle. The health benefits may outweigh the increased risk of life loss.

Such risks also aren't set in stone. The Netherlands has much lower risks. Encouraging more cycling here could lower the odds of danger.

Snark is fun, but it doesn't add anything to the discussion.

I think the poster understood what you said, but has a moral outlook where even positive expected value interventions can be immoral. I don't really understand that viewpoint, but it is a very common one. Usually it is expressed in terms like "how Would you explain all this stuff about averages to the daughter of the man whose bike got ran over by a truck "

Wow, that position actually exists? Presumably, you explain it the same way you'd explain it to the daughter of the man who was killed in a car accident while driving his car.

> how Would you explain all this stuff about averages to the daughter of the man whose bike got ran over by a truck

The greatly increased chances of seeing any grandchildren I may end up having is way more important, to me anyway, than the tiny increase in risk that I may not see my children reach adulthood (or even their teenage years).

Those are not your only options. You can get exercise, and improve your health, in ways other than commuting by bike. Ways that reduce risk, not increase them, even.

But cars do a lot of miles on freeways/motorways with relatively low accidents per mile and these are the sorts of journeys that would be impractical by bicycle anyway. You would have to compare trip for trip.

Accidents per mile != fatalities per mile. I'm guessing fatalities per accident on freeways/motorways are much higher than in residential districts.

But I agree you have to compare trip for trip.

That's true, but I was thinking more of back roads with lots of blind corners and speeds high enough to be dangerous. It would also be interesting to compare day and night, because cycling in the dark is probably much more dangerous even with high visibility clothing.

I don't know the true mean, median, or mode, but in my experience, even carless cyclists don't travel an average of 15,000 per year. "Risk for fatality per mile traveled" is not the only way the two activities should be compared.

Some numbers[0] show that cycling is about 6 times more dangerous per mile than car travel. If those numbers are correct, it's approximately equally dangerous per minute to be in a car on a highway as it is to be a cyclist on surface streets.

Of course, there are other considerations as well. For example, if exercise improves health, does cycling add more risk of death/injury than it removes?

[0] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safe...

I'd like to see such a statistic broken down between athletic versus utilitarian cycling (or choose whatever terms are appropriate). Is racing more dangerous than commuting, or vice versa?

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