The Most and Least Deadly U.S. Cities for Bicyclists is...Complicated
The bike industry has experienced a remarkable past few years. With COVID-19, more people were getting out on bikes in the U.S. than ever before. We felt safer commuting alone, outdoors than on mass transit. And, many had more free time to recreate on bikes. Which led to a national bike shortage in the spring and summer of 2020.
And while many roads saw far less automobile traffic, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that road deaths of all kinds from crashes increased by 6.8 percent from 2019 to 2020.
When experts study data, a good rule of thumb is 7 or 8 consecutive points on a graph in order to be able to really analyze a trend in one direction or another. So in order to be able to say that something is truly trending up or down, it takes nearly a decade of observation. That’s why it’s dangerous to come to real conclusions when comparing one single year to another.
Still, it’s troubling when data backs up the feeling many cyclists have, of hostility from drivers—the seeming inability to share roads and look out for more vulnerable users. Business Insider reported that in 2020, 938 people riding bicycles and other two-wheeled non motorized vehicles powered by pedals or riding tricycles and unicycles (referred to by the NHTSA as pedalcyclists) were killed in motor-vehicle crashes—9 percent higher than the 2019 figure, NHTSA reported. Several hundred other cyclists were killed in non-traffic accidents, according to the National Safety Council.
It’s easy to sense when a place feels kind or aggressive toward people on bikes. Even when nothing technically goes wrong, cyclists can tell when they’re around drivers who wished they didn’t have to share the road.
When looking at U.S. cities with more than 500,000 people, recent data from the NHTSA points to Tucson, Arizona as the deadliest big city for cyclists, with 1.26 deaths per 100,000 people. Detroit, Michigan is the second-deadliest, with 1.2 deaths per 100,000 residents, and Jacksonville, Florida, is the third most deadly, with 1.09 deaths per 100,000.
Of course, it’s not a simple story. To show a complete picture we would have to look at things like weather, unemployment, infrastructure, and other population statistics. But when so many people on bikes are killed by drivers in specific areas, it’s alarming to say the least.
This same study found that the safest big cities for bikers and other cyclists were Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, El Paso, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, where no cyclists were killed in motor-vehicle crashes in 2020. Again, numbers like this don’t tell the whole story, but fewer people killed while riding bikes is definitely a good thing.
Overall, data shows that the vast majority (79%) of driver on cyclist crashes happen in urban areas, and more commonly during the summer months. The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) points out that there are many ways to measure safety.
They rate U.S. states on their friendliness towards bikers based on infrastructure, funding, education, traffic laws and practices, policies, and planning. With those considerations, the LAB ranks Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington as the best states for cyclists, and Wyoming, Nebraska, and Mississippi as the worst.
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