Cycling is dangerous. It’s inherently a lot safer, but when you get bumped by a car in the morning because some wage slave didn’t have time for their morning coffee that day, it’s a lot safer to be in a car. Couple this with unreliable and expensive public transport and you have the recipe that made me give up on cycling to school/work after over 25 years and get a driving licence. The tipping point for me was being hit by a car going at least ten miles over the limit on a straight, totally empty road in broad daylight while wearing a hi-vis jacket and barely walking away from it. A few inches the other way and I would certainly have been killed. Nope. Nope nope nope. I’ve put on a lot of weight since then and I am not enjoying car ownership much, financially. But sadly I have had a traumatic experience and I just feel nervous about cycling now, even after all those years.
Sure, there are accidents with bikes. I do not want to discount your trauma (I had a traumatic car accident waliking when I was a pupil), and I had on the bike a collision with car whose driver took a left turn without looking.
I also have seen two probably fatal bike accidents in my life, where cars turning rolled over bikes and a lot of blood was left on the street.
The numerous terrible accidents with cars, when we pass wrecks on the highway, we somehow don’t register that much.
But the whole point is, you will objectively and statistically live longer when you use a bike. Our views and risk perception are a bit distorted. And this is because cars are also dangerous to our health.
Cycling is dangerous. It’s inherently a lot safer, but when you get bumped by a car in the morning because some wage slave didn’t have time for their morning coffee that day, it’s a lot safer to be in a car. Couple this with unreliable and expensive public transport and you have the recipe that made me give up on cycling to school/work after over 25 years and get a driving licence. The tipping point for me was being hit by a car going at least ten miles over the limit on a straight, totally empty road in broad daylight while wearing a hi-vis jacket and barely walking away from it. A few inches the other way and I would certainly have been killed. Nope. Nope nope nope. I’ve put on a lot of weight since then and I am not enjoying car ownership much, financially. But sadly I have had a traumatic experience and I just feel nervous about cycling now, even after all those years.
Sure, there are accidents with bikes. I do not want to discount your trauma (I had a traumatic car accident waliking when I was a pupil), and I had on the bike a collision with car whose driver took a left turn without looking.
I also have seen two probably fatal bike accidents in my life, where cars turning rolled over bikes and a lot of blood was left on the street.
The numerous terrible accidents with cars, when we pass wrecks on the highway, we somehow don’t register that much.
But the whole point is, you will objectively and statistically live longer when you use a bike. Our views and risk perception are a bit distorted. And this is because cars are also dangerous to our health.