Lane splitting in California

[BikeMaine]

I heard a statistic many years ago that, in terms of accidents per million KM travelled, you are less likely to be involved in an accident on a bike (I believe this has to do with being able to avoid collisions better on bikes) than in a car BUT in terms of sever injuries per million accidents you are more likely to be severely injured in a bike accident than in a car accident. As I understood it at the time they more or less cancelled out so that severe injuries per million Km were about the same for cars and bikes.

I wonder about statistics some times. It's all in how they are written. One common statistic is you are more likely to die in an automobile accident than in an airplane. Well, I drive an auto everyday of my life, but fly less than once a year......

[rcmatt007]

I have heard 83% of all statistics are made up

[Sidecar Bob]

Right. And I haven't flown in decades so neither of us are very likely to die in a plane crash.

Meaningful accident statistics will always specify per so many somethings (e.g. per million Km or million miles) to level the playing field but sometimes they quote stats that are for the general population (e.g. the average person is likely to have such & so happen to them) and they can be either very significant or meaningless.

One example of a per population stat that was significant involved US Air Force pilots: There was a project to test the survivability of ejected combat aircraft seats but when the statistics were analyzed it was discovered that far more pilots were injured while driving to & from the airfield than when ejecting from aircraft and that led to the use of crash test dummies in evaluating automobile crashes.

[BikeMaine]

I have heard 83% of all statistics are made up

[BikeMaine]

Right. And I haven't flown in decades so neither of us are very likely to die in a plane crash.

Meaningful accident statistics will always specify per so many somethings (e.g. per million Km or million miles) to level the playing field but sometimes they quote stats that are for the general population (e.g. the average person is likely to have such & so happen to them) and they can be either very significant or meaningless.

One example of a per population stat that was significant involved US Air Force pilots: There was a project to test the survivability of ejected combat aircraft seats but when the statistics were analyzed it was discovered that far more pilots were injured while driving to & from the airfield than when ejecting from aircraft and that led to the use of crash test dummies in evaluating automobile crashes.

I agree.