Monday, January 31, 2011

Sobering Numbers

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Facts 2009 divides traffic fatalities into three categories: occupants, motorcyclists, and non-occupants. For 2009 in the USA, 24,747 occupants were killed and over 2 million injured. For motorcyclists the number is 4,462 killed and 90,000 injured.

While the numbers show cars and motorcycles being much more of a danger to themselves and each other, there were also 4,872 non-occupants killed and 116,000 injured.

Cyclists made up 630 of the dead and 51,000 of the injured.

I don't know what to say about these numbers. Certainly 30,000 families morning their dead seems a high cost. I did find that around 60% of the cycling incidents involve riding at night without lights. So just that one simple change greatly decreases your chance of being a number in a future report.


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