The danger comes from cars, and the reason the distances are so great is because the landscape was designed for cars. Those fatality numbers are biased to make it seem like bicycles are dangerous by framing it in terms of the mode of transportation the victim was using, instead of the agent causing the fatality, and by comparing the numbers to VMT.
But, spin it differently: Capitalist elites bribed lobbied politicians to force you to spend your money and time on a motor vehicle to schlep your family around like sacks of potatoes to all your destinations by locating them unreasonably far away, so that the huge amounts of space needed by motor vehicles fit in between, and they could enrich themselves by selling motor vehicles. Now it’s become an arms race of bigger and bigger motor vehicles, further lining the pockets of the capitalist elites, at the expense of people’s (especially children’s, the disabled’s, and elderly’s) agency and freedom—because otherwise they’ll die under the bumpers of the maniacs operating motor vehicles that you’ll encounter in all of those extra miles you’re forced to travel.
Different spin, different bias, but still 100% fact.
I strongly disagree with VMT as the proper measure, and here’s a simple, constructed example of why:
There are two cities of about 200,000 people. One is compact, and easy to get around by transit, walking, or biking. The people drive around 2,000 miles per year each. The other is a low-density, mostly suburban area, and people drive around 15,000 miles per year. They have the same casualty rate per VMT of 3 per million miles.
Those two cities aren’t equally as safe. Not even close! The one city would have 1,200 crashes, injuries, or deaths each year, and the other would have 9,000. That’s a major difference which should be accounted for in policymaking and land-use decisions.
As far as the American landscape, it’s spread out not because it was cheaper. How could that be, when it takes more infrastructure to spread out? It was more expensive, and that was actually the point of car-dependent suburbs. They were more expensive to build and maintain, which kept the undesirable people out. Then, the desirable people were subsidized, through the GI Bill, tax breaks, mortgage lending standards (e.g. redlining), and the like.
I don’t claim it’s a grand conspiracy, but it is verifiable history.
The metric you desire ought properly to be determined by what problem you are trying to address. We aren’t building America like sim city we are deciding what to do with our existing situation. For a person deciding what to do they need to weigh the actual consequences of various choices. Deaths per billion not million vehicle miles captures the actual costs of doing so. 2 for sedans 110 for bikes.
Anyone who drives 15,000 miles isn’t replacing their car with a bike. You would be asking them to bike 288 miles per week which is absolutely insane. Nobody is doing this. If they drive 5000 they might but at the cost of a drastic increase in risk. This leaves us where we are now where almost everyone either can’t or won’t.
The danger comes from cars, and the reason the distances are so great is because the landscape was designed for cars. Those fatality numbers are biased to make it seem like bicycles are dangerous by framing it in terms of the mode of transportation the victim was using, instead of the agent causing the fatality, and by comparing the numbers to VMT.
But, spin it differently: Capitalist elites
bribedlobbied politicians to force you to spend your money and time on a motor vehicle to schlep your family around like sacks of potatoes to all your destinations by locating them unreasonably far away, so that the huge amounts of space needed by motor vehicles fit in between, and they could enrich themselves by selling motor vehicles. Now it’s become an arms race of bigger and bigger motor vehicles, further lining the pockets of the capitalist elites, at the expense of people’s (especially children’s, the disabled’s, and elderly’s) agency and freedom—because otherwise they’ll die under the bumpers of the maniacs operating motor vehicles that you’ll encounter in all of those extra miles you’re forced to travel.Different spin, different bias, but still 100% fact.
VMT is the only reasonable metric to compare relative safety. It is literally the only metric that tells you how safe your family will be traveling.
The fact that its cars that mostly make bikes dangerous is important but mostly irrelevant to any individual making decisions.
Same with America being spread out. Mostly it is because it was cheaper and therefore more profitablr for individual actors not some grand conspiracy.
The elderly, young kids, and especially the disabled don’t need safer bike lanes they need better public transit
I strongly disagree with VMT as the proper measure, and here’s a simple, constructed example of why:
There are two cities of about 200,000 people. One is compact, and easy to get around by transit, walking, or biking. The people drive around 2,000 miles per year each. The other is a low-density, mostly suburban area, and people drive around 15,000 miles per year. They have the same casualty rate per VMT of 3 per million miles.
Those two cities aren’t equally as safe. Not even close! The one city would have 1,200 crashes, injuries, or deaths each year, and the other would have 9,000. That’s a major difference which should be accounted for in policymaking and land-use decisions.
As far as the American landscape, it’s spread out not because it was cheaper. How could that be, when it takes more infrastructure to spread out? It was more expensive, and that was actually the point of car-dependent suburbs. They were more expensive to build and maintain, which kept the undesirable people out. Then, the desirable people were subsidized, through the GI Bill, tax breaks, mortgage lending standards (e.g. redlining), and the like.
I don’t claim it’s a grand conspiracy, but it is verifiable history.
The metric you desire ought properly to be determined by what problem you are trying to address. We aren’t building America like sim city we are deciding what to do with our existing situation. For a person deciding what to do they need to weigh the actual consequences of various choices. Deaths per billion not million vehicle miles captures the actual costs of doing so. 2 for sedans 110 for bikes.
Anyone who drives 15,000 miles isn’t replacing their car with a bike. You would be asking them to bike 288 miles per week which is absolutely insane. Nobody is doing this. If they drive 5000 they might but at the cost of a drastic increase in risk. This leaves us where we are now where almost everyone either can’t or won’t.