You’ve heard it again and again:
“Cycling is dangerous”
When we keep hearing the same statement again and again, we end up believing it. This is a well-known manipulation technique, mentioned by Daniel Kanheman in his acclaimed book “Thinking fast and slow“:
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
How dangerous is cycling?
Not as dangerous as it has been portrayed. According to this assessment and this summary, cycling is less dangerous that walking for the same distance traveled.
In other words, cycling to the shops is less dangerous than walking to the shops.
Statistically, one can expect a severe head injury from cycling once every 8,000 years of average cycling.
Wardlaw M. British Medical Journal 2000;321(7276):1582 (23 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7276.1582
What type of cycling might be dangerous?
Sweeping statements such as “cycling is dangerous fail to distinguish between very different types of cycling.
Sports cycling can be dangerous
Yet cycling as a mode of transport is safe.
This is less dangerous than walking
This is even safer
With its low speed and upright position, bike share is safe. In London, after 7 million trips, there were no fatalities and only 9 injuries requiring hospitalisation. The serious injury rate is 3 times lower than for all cyclists.
These people don’t seem to think that transport cycling is dangerous:
But they keep telling me that all cycling is dangerous!
The myth that all cycling is dangerous comes from years of helmet promotion campaigns. Scaremongering tactics manipulate our fears to push helmets.
How do you promote helmets for a safe activity? Make it look more dangerous than it really is.
This is eloquently illustrated in this report:
“our politicians and transport bureaucrats feel compelled to constantly remind us of how dangerous cycling is …
“Don’t think that little ride to the shops warrants wearing [a helmet]? Well I’ve got news for you. Even on a short ride you could have a big fall and you could suffer a major brain injury.”
Misconception 1: Cycling is dangerous. … Melbourne newspaper The Age quoted an emergency physician who opined that riding a bicycle on Melbourne’s roads was “verging on suicide” – an almost hysterical assessment of the risk. ….
The reality is that riding a bicycle is a safe activity. The following table shows Australian government data on the relative injury risk of a number of sporting and recreational activities. …
Unfortunately, despite the evidence, governments continue to portray cycling as unusually dangerous”
The claim made in the fear mongering propaganda quoted above is particularly misleading, considering that cycling to the shops is safer than walking to the shops. Even though cycling is less dangerous than many comparable activities, it is portrayed as being particularly dangerous.
A funny parody of this ad highlights how cycling is misrepresented as being far more dangerous than it really is.
Not every country suffers from fear mongering tactics from their government. In the UK, the transport minister admits that:
“(cycling is) a “safe activity” … safer than walking“
In Canada, the hysteria about cycling being “dangerous” is being challenged in the media:
“bicycling had the lowest “burden” of deaths and head injuries of the three transportation modes …
There were 14 deaths per 100 million trips for bicycling, 15 for walking and 10 for driving – remarkably similar. …
Are these risks high? One way to think about this is the number of trips for one death to happen: one car occupant dies every 10 million trips and one pedestrian or cyclist dies every seven million trips. ….
Both walking and bicycling are active modes of travel. The physical activity they entail reduces the risk of developing many chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers, and dementia. Many studies have compared these benefits to the injury risks. All have found that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. The benefits of walking and cycling (lower risk of death from chronic diseases) are 10 to 100 times higher than the risk of death from injuries“
US data reports:
“Research studies and data clearly show that, in the current environment, cycling benefits greatly outweigh its tiny risks. We know of no study that contradict this fact.
Contrary to common belief, cycling is safer than many other activities.
Cycling is over three times safer, per mile, than walking.“