Which is Riskier in Manhattan?
May 7th, 2009 by Leo
Which results in more fatalities every year in Manhattan [a] walking, [b] bicycling, or [c] motorcycling (including scooters)? Check your answer after the jump!
If you said “[a] walking,” then you’re right. In 2007 there were 37 pedestrian deaths in Manhattan (acc. to the NHTSA-Manhattan). Followed by the second most dangerous form of transportation (generally by a slim margin year after year) in NYC: bicycling. There were 7 fatalities for bicycling in Manhattan (in 2007) compared to 5 for motorcycles and scooters…
So what’s the point we should take from this? Motorcycling is dangerous, but so are other forms of transportation including walking. You need to be careful regardless of how you travel, but motorcycles and scooters can be a great and reasonably safe way to get around, especially in cities.
Want to check the statistics for your part of NYC? Click here for: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The formula for motorcycle accidents seems to be high traffic + helmet use make motorcycles almost as safe as automobiles. Medium traffic areas where vehicles travel at higher speeds in the presence of traffic hazards like driveways, intersections, etc, tend to be the most dangerous for motorcyclists (and automobile passengers), while at the same time being less travelled by pedestrians and bicyclists. Of course, wide open roads and canyons are the best, but we don’t get much of that over here.
Related posts:
“Safer” is arguable. This doesn’t seem to calculate deaths per person/hour spent doing the activity. If there are 500,000 people who spend 1 hour a day walking and 37 die each year, that’s still less fatalities proportionally than if there are 1000 people who spend 1 hour a day riding and 5 die each year.
I don’t disagree that one can take measures to reduce one’s risk, but it’s slightly dishonest to play with statistics this way.
What percentage of pedestrians die vs. the percentage of motorcyclists/bicyclists. That will give you a much better perspective.
Haha Jane, can’t pull a fast one on you! I too think it’s safer to walk (in general) than it is to ride a motorcycle… But I was trying to make 2 points. The obvious (and maybe stupid-er) one is: if you think of one activity as risky and the other as not at all risky, then there were 37 reasons to reassess that notion in 2007…ie, they are both risky to different degrees. Yes I know you are statistically less likely to get run over as a pedestrian (because there are many more pedestrians) but that doesn’t change that fact that in any given month cars are running over more pedestrians than bicyclists and motorcyclists. Meaning, it is still risky.
The second point I was implying is harder to see: What do the pedestrian deaths tell us? The real danger, I think, tends to be automobile/bus/ and truck traffic. Why do pedestrians die in traffic? It’s not that they were going too fast, obviously, it’s because of the inherent dangers that automobiles pose to things that aren’t automobiles. Any inherent risk in motorcycling doesn’t seem to come into play statistically, compared to bicycles (in Manhattan). If you were to account for the time spent in the road (or miles walked in the street) vs. number of people vs. number of deaths…I think we’d get an even clearer picture of that.
Statistics are funny because they are almost never precise enough – when 2 people get in a boxing ring each has a 50/50 chance of winning… And yet it would be wrong of me to say that I have a 50/50 chance against Mike Tyson.
So apologies for anything implied that you feel is dishonest – I’m assuming my readers are smart enough to figure out what’s what (and I appear to be correct in that). Geez, that was longer than my original post!