Is Cycling Dangerous?

As you might have heard in the last 24 hours two prominent members of the British Cycling Team have had separate unrelated traffic accidents whilst out cycling on their bikes. Both were hospitalised following their incidents but as I understand it both will make full recoveries.

These accidents coming so close together have understandably reignited the debate about safety on Britain's roads for cyclists. Tragically so far this year 100 cyclists have been killed on the road and this is obviously 100 too many. But does this number mean that we should be scared to get on our bikes, is cycling dangerous?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/pictures/2010/11/01/bikelights5.jpg


It is quite interesting to look at the facts and figures. According to cyclinginfo.co.uk in 2011 there were 21 cycling related fatalities per billion kilometres cycled. This means that on average a person can cycle 47,620,000 km before statistically they are likely to be killed riding their bike. To put that another way, about 1200 times around the Earth. This seems pretty safe to me.

The same website also suggests that as cycling increases the rate of fatalities decreases, therefore more cycling makes the activity safer. The suggestion is that with more cyclists on the roads the other road users raise their own awareness of the hazards and change their behaviours to compensate.

Cycling is a healthy activity and it has been estimated that people who cycle regularly can add up to two years to their life by reducing life threatening illnesses caused by inactivity, obesity and high blood pressure. It should also be remembered that around 60,000 people die in the UK from heart disease.

These figures show that like many things in life that we do there is risk, and in this case the risk is surely outweighed by the benefits.

If you do cycle then the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, RoSPA, makes some suggestions that might help you reduce the risk

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/cycling/facts-figures.aspx

 

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