Why do so many fear the bicycle?

Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 | Kate Sloane | 7 Comments

Prof Alistair Woodward, Auckland University

“It is too dangerous.” This is the reason given most commonly for not riding a bike on the road in New Zealand. In this blog, I summarise a paper we have just published quantifying the risk of cycling injury. We found it to be low compared to other activites that New Zealanders commonly engage in. For example, riding a bike to a rugby game is roughly 500 times safer than playing the game. I conclude by examining why cycling is so marginalised (the bike is shunted, literally, to the side of the road), and how this might be changed.

Source: New Zealand Transport Agency

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