Bicycle accidents  Working in a bike shop, I see the carnage from the many unreported bicycle accidents that happen in our area. When I ask the cyclist if they reported their accident, 90% of the time the answer is no. It's unfortunate because the police need to know that there are many more bicycle/auto accidents occurring in our area than they realize, not that they care a great deal. When I discuss the problem of bicycle accidents with them, they often respond that there are not that many accidents. They need to see the bent wheels and frames that we see. There were two in the last week, both unreported.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration National Center for Statistics and Analysis recently published a report on bicycle crashes, Traffic Safety Facts 2004 Data [PDF]

In 2004, 725 pedalcyclists were killed and an additional 41,000 were injured in traffic crashes. Pedalcyclist deaths accounted for 2 percent of all traffic fatalities, and pedalcyclists made up 1 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes during the year.

posted by Bruce Wright at 9:15 PM #