"Brian Nystrom" wrote in message
news:6QQUf.3348$1U1.2877@trndny05...

Brian - think for a moment. You're mixing two different ideas. You're
correct - the odds of BEING in an accident are higher in your car. The
odds of being HURT in an accident, assuming you're on shared roadways, or
far higher on your bike. This is analogous to the nonsensical airlines'
theory. "Less accidents per miles travelled in planes, compared to cars".
Yes, that's true. But when your plane crashes, your chances of survival
are, for all intents and purposes, zero.

Granted, but if you never get in an accident in the first place, you're
chances of dying are also zero. The stats I've seen on flying have always
been about the odds of DYING in a plane crash, so it's not like anyone's
trying to hide the fact that a plane crash means almost certain death. I
think it's fair to say that the public assumes that.

Maybe the airlines have stopped repeating the "less accidents per mile"
nonsense. Anyone who's taken a statistics class should puke when they hear
that.



At least riding a bike has heath benefits that allow one to enjoy their
life more and live longer. That far outweighs any risk of injury or
death.

Yes, there are health benefits. I ride on dedicated trails, where
nobody's driving anything that weighs more than my vehicle. My biggest
risk is being crushed by a very fat person on a bike, or a collision with
a bee.

That's nice, but I daresay that most people don't have that option.
Additionally, the trails I've been on, which are typically multi-use, are
far more dangerous than the open roadways. They're full of walkers,
runners, families with kids on bikes and worst of all, inline skaters.
These people are every bit as oblivious as drivers and are far less
predictable. I'll take a large road with a wide shoulder or a sparsely
travelled back road over these trails any day.

Yeah, well still, I'd rather fall off a bike than be slammed into by a car.
But, I took physics in school, so maybe I'm wrong.