Reply to Why are there no safety rules regarding children on bikes?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The obvious solution, and end-game for cyclists, is to ban cars for the safety of bike riders.

“You don’t NEED a helmet if there are no cars to hit you”.

[/quote]

The thing about cycling safety is that no one really knows anything. If you talk to people who spend a lot of time looking a bike safety they'll tell you that bike lanes probably increase safety somewhat, but that the actual evidence that they do is essentially non-existent. The same with bike helmets.

So here's a paradox for you: The US has higher rates of bicycle injuries and deaths than other countries like Holland where cycling is more widespread. But in the US, roughly 85% of bicycle accident requiring hospitalization do not involve a motor vehicle. Of the 85%, about half involve the cyclist riding into something -- a tree, a parked car, or another cyclist -- but the other half don't, and are cyclists who simply fall off of their bikes.

So even if you did ban cars it would only reduce the number of injuries by about 15%, and the US would still have much higher accident rates than Holland. So what is it about US cyclists that makes them so much more likely to ride into objects or fall off of their bikes than their Dutch counterparts?[/quote]

Poor infrastructure?  It's a lot easier and safer to ride on something made to be ridden on than making do with whatever mess happens to be your city.[/quote]

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