How dangerous is riding a bike on the road?

If you are a commuter or a new rider, you will likely wonder how dangerous riding a bike on the road is.

It is often perceived to be a dangerous way to run around in cities.

Busses, metros, and vehicles often have huge blindspots that prevent drivers from seeing a fast-approaching cyclist – especially when making a turn.

But let’s look at accident data and see if it’s really all that dangerous.

How dangerous is riding a bike on the road?

Riding a bike on the road is generally very safe if you follow some basic safety measures. While driving a car is safer, cyclists are much more likely to survive serious accidents than motorcyclists or pedestrians. Cycling is often perceived to be more dangerous than it is.

A look at the raw data

7,250 people died in bicycle accidents in the United States between 2011 and 2020 while 489,397 cyclists were injured according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

That is an average of 725 deaths and 48,940 injuries per year in that time frame.

For context, 22,4500 motor vehicle occupants died per year in the same time frame and 2,249,917 were injured.

70,951 pedestrians were injured and 5,578 died on average per year.

An average of 5,016 motorcyclists died and 88,5656 were injured per year.

Granted there are more pedestrians and cars on the road than bicycles, but the total numbers are still very low.

Is cycling more dangerous than driving?

Cycling is slightly more dangerous than driving a car but much safer than walking or riding a motorcycle.

To compare the safety of different modes of transportation, we can look at the ratio between injuries to deaths.

That allows us to see how likely a serious accident is to end in a fatality.

As Table 2 shows, one in 67.5 serious bicycle accidents ends in a fatality.

Only 1 Car or truck occupant dies for every 100.2 injuries on the other hand. That makes driving an overall safer choice.

However, both bicycles and cars are much safer than walking or riding a motorcycle with one in 12.7 and one in 17.7 fatalities respectively.

That means that you are 5 times more likely to survive a serious bicycle accident than an accident on foot.

Is bike commuting dangerous?

Bike commuting is overall not very dangerous. As long as some basic safety measures are followed, it is much safer than other modes of transportation.

How to ride a bike safely on the road

The most important aspect of riding a bike safely on the road is being aware of other people in traffic.

Hand signals, slow speeds, wearing visible clothes, lights, and spatial awareness are all important.

But the single biggest safety feature is to wear a helmet.

There is no excuse to go riding without.

The biggest objection to wearing a helmet is that it can mess with a hairstyle.

But there are ways to avoid helmet hair.