Friday 27 July 2012

I told you light up! Accidents

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/unlit-cyclists-face-greater-injury-20120726-22vep.html

According to the above article a rider without lights at night is three times more likely to suffer a serious injury/accident then one that is riding with lights. I have to say this is no surprise to me really. There has been countless times when out of the dark a NINJA (unlit bike rider) appears dead in front of me. I jump, I swerve and he just rolls past ignorant of the dangers! Honestly as I posted in a previous post getting some good head lights is not that hard now!

What is more interesting is the other statistics that are posted in relation to the accidents

74% are male
- a reflection of the fact that women are less likely to ride a bike in Australia

99% have a licence
- so much for the "you don't know the rules of the road" argument or rego for that matter

81% rode 2-3 times a week and 62% rode more than 3 times a week
- this means that they are well and truly experienced in riding a bike

65% rode more than 50kms a week
- it is very easy to make that, your work place only has to be 5 kms from your house and work a 5 day week and hay you have ridden 50kms in one week.

93% cyclist wearing helmets
- I will not touch this one with a ten foot barge pole!

57% were travelling at 20kmph or more at time of crash
- funny how every abusive motorist always proclaims we can't do more than 10kmph when were in front of them thou. My last accident was well over 20kmph, I have a lost memory to provide it!

The bicycle types most frequently involved in crashes were drop bar road bikes
(44%), hybrids (25%), mountain bikes (14%) and flat bar road bikes (9%).
- This one is very interesting, but reading the entire document would explain why!

As to the entire document it can be found below, pleasant reading

http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/reports/muarc311.pdf

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