But, fear itself

A new research paper from Alastair Woodward and co-workers at the University of Auckland looks at the the risks of cycling in New Zealand. Jamie Morton at the Herald has written about it.  Basically, cycling isn’t as dangerous as you probably thought: the risk of an injury severe enough to report to ACC or to go to the emergency department is about one incident per 10,000 half-hour trips.  Or, for me, about once in 25-30 years.

There are two caveats for this as a pro-cycling message.  First, there’s some selection bias: the people who currently cycle are more likely to have safe routes available than those who currently don’t cycle — bike paths really work.  So if more people started cycling with the current infrastructure the ‘safety in numbers’ effect would be reduced by the increased use of dangerous roads.

Second,  it isn’t just actual injury that’s a problem.  The research paper talks about the social context of risk perception, and how the fact that cycling is regarded as weird makes the risks seem higher, which is true and an important factor. But. One morning recently, I stopped at the traffic lights coming off Grafton Bridge, and the bus behind me didn’t.  I didn’t come that close to being hit; It’s still not a fun way to start the day.  Russell Brown, who can actually write, covers this aspect better than I can.  He concludes

Cycling is much safer than people think. But until things change, fear of cycling will keep many reasonable people off the roads.