The Torontoist brought to our attention the City's release of 2010 data on pedestrian and cycling injuries and fatalities from collisions with motor vehicles (on the bottom of the Transportation Services page).
According to the presumption of fault by the police (which wouldn't be the same as the court's finding of fault), in only 33% of the collisions were the police able to determine that the motorists were driving "properly", with about 12% where the driving behaviour is unknown (for the average of the last 5 years).
If we can use the 2006 census as a reference for mode share, it appears as if cycling is twice as dangerous as walking in the city. While there were twice as many pedestrian/car collisions as cyclist/car collisions; there are about 4 times as many people walking to work as biking to work (1.7% bike mode share versus 7.1% walking mode share). A cyclist, it appears, is twice as likely to be in a minor or major collision compared to a pedestrian. While cycling is overall still a safe transportation mode, we could still do a lot to create better conditions for cyclists so they can at least reach the lesser risk levels of pedestrians.
There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the severity of injury of those wearing a helmet versus those not wearing a helmet (5% of those not wearing a helmet at a major injury and 3% of those wearing a helmet). From this small sample we could hazard a guess that wearing a helmet may have made a difference but not much of one, at least not such a difference that we could justify going all "nanny state" on cyclists. We can have far greater impacts by placing more responsibility on motorists to slow down and by reconfiguring our streets to prioritize active transportation modes (i.e complete streets).
Comments
Random cyclist (not verified)
It's ridiculous to use the
Thu, 05/26/2011 - 13:20It's ridiculous to use the census figures, because not all cyclists and pedestrians were hit on the way to/from work. Overall, there are a lot more pedestrians than cyclists in the city at any given moment, so the odds are even worse for cyclists.
Mr. S. (not verified)
The 'Pest' had an article on
Fri, 05/27/2011 - 21:11The 'Pest' had an article on Toronto's execrable collision rate this week, which was about as idiotic as you can expect from that paper.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/05/25/toronto-has-countrys-highest-rat...
That National Pest article looks even more insane viewed from cyclable Tokyo. The agency of collisions is twisted to redeem drivers. I'd write a response to them, except there's no point.
"pedestrians colliding with vehicles": how irresponsibly suicidal of them.
"We don’t know why Toronto is different from these other jurisdictions": negligible policing, perhaps?
"The city does what it can to improve the conditions for road users, said Mr. Brady, with better marked crosswalks and pedestrian countdown signals at intersections." But apparently the statistics show the city isn't doing enough...
"the most common kind of collision between four and two wheels involves one side swiping the other; the second most common is a cyclist striking a car’s open door." In real life, cars moving into a cyclist's space, and car doors swung into a cyclist's space.
dances_with_traffic (not verified)
Two most common accidents,
Sat, 05/28/2011 - 11:10Two most common accidents, being sideswipped by a car and being doored by a car.
I don't see either as being the cyclists fault... I can't remember the last time i saw a cyclist accidentally side-swipe a car(lol) and the last time I watched a cyclist deliberately fling themselves into a door was never!
Claire (not verified)
I found the National Post
Mon, 05/30/2011 - 07:55I found the National Post article so biased that is was offensive. "Pedestrians colliding with vehicles" . Apparently, Toronto breeds a lemming like pedestrians who leap out into streets striking unsuspecting passing cars. Our cyclists are just as bad. They cruise the city searching for open car doors so that they can collide with them. If a cyclist ever sideswiped a car I'm sure it had to do with avoiding a hazard in their path such as a pot hole or debris.
Salvage Cars (not verified)
Well said there definitely
Tue, 05/31/2011 - 11:42Well said there definitely require to re configure the road talking the cyclist into consideration, infact in many big cities there are separate lane for cyclist even then such incidents take place ridiculous.