Bicycle Safety 101: How Texas Ranks in Bicycle Fatality and Commuting Rates

I am in one of those moods where I could blog all day long, but gotta go meet Bernadette Schaeffler for lunch. So check out this article that tells us Texas is not the worst state for bicyclists. But then, that may be because we don’t have as many bike commuters as does California, Florida, New York and the others.

I’m not a biker. Oh, I have a snazzy bike in the garage, but I do my cycling at the gym. Used to bike a lot when the kids were little. That doesn’t mean I might not get the wheels pumped with air and dust off that bike one of these days. Biking is great for your glutes!

But biking terrifies me in Dallas, where, in my opinion, people drive too fast especially in trucks or SUVs. My husband was avidly biking for a bit ’till a car ran him off the road. Anyhow, this is kind of grisly, but your mom would want you to know this: according to a new yearlong study by the League of American Bicyclists, 40 percent of U.S. bicycle deaths are from a driver hitting you from behind, or as Treehugger gruesomely puts it, “where drivers just go right over a cyclist.” Awful! So be careful out there, and stay off the busy roads. Of the 238 fatal crashes the group studied, almost 100 were the result of cyclists going the wrong way, riding on the sidewalk, or failing to yield right of way. But overall, drivers are the worst threat to cyclists.

Every year, some 45,000 bicyclists are hurt and 5,000 cyclists die while on the road, according to the League of American Bicyclists. (Read their full report here.)