Not biking can kill you, plus a bike social 10/11

Is biking really dangerous? Not too long ago, Sean Bonner at blogging.la asked the women of LA what kept them from 2-wheeling around town. Most common answer: Cars, and the possibility of getting hit by them -- the colorful descriptions ranged from "the whole death-defying aspect" to "the fear of dying thing."

Perception of safety, though, is pretty different from actual safety. And while the occasional bicycling death is depressing and scary, bicycling isn't exactly like playing Russian roulette, as biodiversivist at Grist describes it.

In fact, Alan Durning, also a Grist blogger, put together a fascinating piece on bike safety, partly inspired by his son's recent bike wreck. Subtitle of the piece: Not biking can kill you.

How so? Alan quotes a study that found those who didn't bike to work -- even if they were active in sports -- died 40 percent more often than those who did commute by bike. A different study notes that "an hour of biking a day -- normal for a regular bike commuter -- prevents four times as much heart attack risk as it adds in collision risk."

How dangerous is biking, exactly? It's kind of hard to say, because numbers are everywhere -- some say cycling's more dangerous than driving, others the reverse. Plus, due to its rep, bike culture might at the moment have a disproportionate number of risk takers skewing the stats.

That's not to say biking couldn't be safer, of course. Alan points out "American bicyclists are twice as likely to get killed as German cyclists and over three times as likely to get killed as Dutch cyclists." Wow. To fix that, we need better bike infrastructure, bike and pedestrian oriented transit laws, education (not just driver's ed, but biking / pedestrian ed), and -- of course -- more bikers on the road.

Some good news to that end: USA Today reports cities are giving bicycles some love, though LA's not mentioned specifically. Chicago, San Francisco, and New York are though -- and the Big Apple's even making a special lane on Ninth Avenue that'll separate bicyclists from motorists.

And last weekend, the New Yorker Festival included a bike component: David Byrne Presents: How New Yorkers Ride Bikes. Tamara Giltsoff of Treehugger covered the event, which attracted 1,500 or so New Yorkers -- Apparently cycling in NY's increased a third since 2000!

Back to LA: Wanna be a bike activist? Check out the LA County Bicycle Coalition -- which serendipitously has its first Thursday Night Social coming up in a couple days. Meet at 6 pm, Oct. 11 at 634 S. Spring St., 1st Fl., Los Angeles for drinks, conversation and bike-themed films. Cost: $5 for members, $10 for non-members -- or free if you join LACBC for just $30!