Bruce Siceloff of the Raleigh News & Observer has an interesting column out on bicyclist deaths. Some takeaway points:
• Bicycles are very much an adult item these days: In 2012, 84 percent of all cyclists killed were age 20 or above.
• “More than two-thirds of the cyclists killed each year were not wearing safety helmets.”
And then there’s this:
“In North Carolina, where 117 cyclists died in bike-car crashes during the five years that ended in 2012, police concluded that 27 of the cyclists and 14 of the car drivers had been drinking before the crash, according to a searchable database maintained by the UNC Highway Safety Research Center.
Biking while impaired is sometimes a hazard for rural, low-income residents who don’t have driver’s licenses – including four of the nine Robeson County cyclists killed during that five-year period. But it’s part of the city cycling scene, too.
“The urban bicycle commuters go to happy hour, too,” [Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association] said. “Impairment is impairment: If you’re too drunk to drive a car, you’re too drunk to ride a bike.”
