You can read the NHTSA's 2008 Traffic Safety Facts article and get some pretty outstanding information about cyclists and motorized vehicle accidents. The numbers that everyone is looking for immediately is, "Who many cyclists died in Oklahoma last year?!?!?!" Well, those number won't be out for another year, 2008 is the most current. In 2008 only four cyclists were killed in a traffic related incident in the state of Oklahoma.
716 were killed nation-wide. The highest numbers were 105 in California and 125 in Florida. You can attribute those higher numbers due to the high number of people cycling versus other states.
But if you take into consideration population versus the number of fatalities, Delaware takes the cake for the most dangerous place to pedal. Delaware has a Pedalcyclist Fatalities per Million Population percentage of 6.87, which is just barely high than Florida's 6.82. Oklahoma was at 1.1%.
One part of the report seems a bit misconstrued. The part when it gets to speaking about alcohol involvement in traffic crashes. It states that either the pedal cyclist or the motorist had high blood alcohol levels. Although it never divulges which one had what percentage. It would seem to me that there may have been extremely low rates in which the cyclist was actually intoxicated. I would think it would be more drunk drivers hitting cyclist than drunk cyclists hitting cars. Just a thought.
"Alcohol involvement — either for the driver or the pedalcyclist — was reported in more than one-third (37%) of the traffic crashes that resulted in pedalcyclist fatalities in 2008. In 31 percent of the crashes, either the driver or the pedalcyclist was reported to have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 grams per deciliter (g/dL) or higher. Lower alcohol levels (BAC .01 to .07 g/dL) were reported in an additional 8 percent of crashes. Over one-fourth (28%) of the pedalcyclists killed had a BAC of .01 g/dL or higher, and nearly one-fourth (23%) had a
BAC of .08 g/dL or higher."
One good bit from the report might support me riding my bike to work though. The report stated that more accidents happened in urban areas (69%). Well, my commute would be mostly in non-urban areas. I live way out in Mustang. My commute would mostly include a trip around Lake Overholser and a quiet pedal down Sara Road. But I don't think I should bring up this type of report to win over any support from the wife in the topic of a work commute.
Sorry about the downer. Just sharing numbers.
Cheers,
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