cycling vindicated

Great article by Dave Moulton exposing the realities behind saying that cars are safer than bikes per mile (which is true).

However, this statistic is flawed to the point that it can be ignored, for the simple reason it would take a cyclist riding slightly under 385 miles per week, 50 years to ride one million miles.

Most of us will never come close to that kind of cycling mileage; 500,000 miles in a lifetime would be very good. Compare this to driving, and we all know how relatively easy it is to put 100,000 miles on our car speedometer, two million miles in an automobile in a lifetime is not unreasonable.

I've had a couple friends point this out to me, usually after I've been a little too self righteous about bike riding. Most people express concern for my well being when I tell them that I ride a bike in LA, but I think being in a car is far more dangerous. Especially if you consider that the amount of cycling deaths would go down if more people rode bicycles instead of cars.

In any case, it is nice to feel vindicated, at least a little bit. While this may not sway anybody over to riding a bike, I can at least feel a little more smug riding my bike everyday.