What kind of helmet do you use?

[Pemalite]

Ask yourself this.
What would hurt more... Landing on the corner of a cement gutter wearing a helmet, or landing on a gutter without one, even at 15-25kph.

I would much rather have plastic and foam between my skull and that.

Helmets aren't going to prevent all injuries, but it will help mitigate a few and reduce others and do nothing for the rest, certainly better than nothing.

If you are asking this whilst on an ebike however... Keep in mind your average speeds are going to be higher, I wouldn't wear anything less than a full face when going at speed or doing something technical, but each to their own, I've had accidents and was glad I wore one.

 

[d8veh]

One of the leading neurosurgeons in Ireland found in his report that there was no statistically significant difference between people wearing and not wearing helmets when it came to receiving traumatic brain injuries.

Probably true. Of course the surgeons don't see the guys that banged their heads when they were protected by their helmets because they went home and probably didn't even tell anyone what happened. That's the point! You can prove anything by selecting the wrong statistics.

Did you watch that video of Geraint Thomas that I posted above? He didn't do anything wrong. He was tipped off line by another cyclist. That could happen to any one of us - tipped into a lamp-post by a car driver on his phone. I guess that happens from time to time, but those guys without helmets crush their skulls, so are not alive enough to come back and tell us how not wearing a helmet helped them.

I don't care whether anybody else wears one or not. In fact I don't always wear one myself, but please don't come on here and try and convince people that helmets don't help. You're messing with peoples lives!

 

[Joseph C.]

Very few people in either the Netherlands or Denmark wear helmets. Two countries that have decades more experience with bicycles than any other country in Europe.

Even in a country like the UK you'd have to live for more than 5,100 years such is the lifetime odds of dying. Your lifetime odds of dying in a car is 462 years. Even the chances of a pedestrian being killed are much greater than a cyclist at 1,104 years. Yet pedestrians don't wear helmets.

At the risk of sounding facetious I believe that there are other activities where you are far more likely to fall than cycling. Climbing ladders, walking across uneven surfaces, changing of levels. Yet despite the risk being greater for those activities people don't wear helmets.

Statistically speaking death is not a factor for cyclists.

http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/Risk/trasnsportpop.html

I simply don't believe that wearing a helmet while cycling on the road confers much advantage at all. If helmets were really good there should be an obvious and statistically significant advantage. The positive correlation should be well above the background noise. There is even evidence to suggest that wearing helmets has a correlation with increased head injuries.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2034.pdf

My reasons for not wearing a helmet:

1. It is extremely unlikely that I will die during my lifetime while cycling.
2. A helmet is not going to prevent a traumatic brain injury for the same reasons it doesn't prevent concussions in other sports.
3. I believe that the risk of falling and injury while cycling are greatly overstated compared to other activities.
4. Bicycle helmets offer little protection above 15 kph.
5. I'm an experienced assertive cyclist that takes the middle of the lane while in towns which should confer extra advantage.
6. The routes that I take are very safe. No cyclist has died in my county for as long as I can remember. (Actually, there was one elderly man dressed in black who was cycling on a road without lights about a decade back.)

All of the above only applies to cycling on roads. Off-road is an entirely different matter where a full-face helmet is recommended.

 

[Chalo]

Population-wide studies don't lie. We know how many cyclists die in total on a year to year basis. Helmets have not improved that number as they have come into general use. That's the proof you need. For every ounce of physical protection they offer, they impose some other effect (I believe it's risk compensation by both cyclists and motorists) that cancels out whatever protection you get.

So I ask, why isn't it doing someone a disservice to recommend using a device that has been demonstrated by research to make drivers pass you more closely?

I say, wear one if you're sure you're going to fall on your head. If you usually try and succeed in avoiding that, then the helmet is unlikely to do you any good on the balance.

 

[brumbrum]

Riding abike without gloves and helmet is fine when your young and have the protective bubble of invincibility. I for one came off my ebike last winter entering a road covered in black ice(i.e invisible, the street was shadowed from the morning sun) doing at least 20 mph, bike went one way and i went the other. My head hit the road hard near the temple area and left a large mark on my skate/bmx style helmet. When standing up i realised that the street was full of passers by and motorists skidding all over the place. I was helped up by two young girls on their way to school, slightly embarrassing to say the least but nice to know there are good samaritans around. I limped off with cuts and bruises. Without the helmet and the gloves a believe i would have needed an ambulance. Btw, i regulary ride upto 35mph in the woods on a down hill mtb with 3000w at hand. Riding on the road is much much more dangerous.

 

[Joseph C.]

Probably true. Of course the surgeons don't see the guys that banged their heads when they were protected by their helmets because they went home and probably didn't even tell anyone what happened. That's the point! You can prove anything by selecting the wrong statistics.

Did you watch that video of Geraint Thomas that I posted above? He didn't do anything wrong. He was tipped off line by another cyclist. That could happen to any one of us - tipped into a lamp-post by a car driver on his phone. I guess that happens from time to time, but those guys without helmets crush their skulls, so are not alive enough to come back and tell us how not wearing a helmet helped them.

I don't care whether anybody else wears one or not. In fact I don't always wear one myself, but please don't come on here and try and convince people that helmets don't help. You're messing with peoples lives!

I already said if he was still concerned that he should wear a full-face helmet.

I'm messing with people's lives? Really? Not the hypothetical car driver on the phone?

If you're worried about people dying while cycling you probably should never get in a car so as your chances of dying are 23 times more likely over lifetime odds. Worrying about dying while cycling is just a statistically irrationally fear.

Anything can happen but what is the probability of something occurring. We shouldn't spend our lives worrying about very unlikely events. There are more than seven billion people on the planet. There are even more mobile phones than people. Even some of the poorest countries in the world have a dense penetration of camera phones. All of this brings the unusual and exotic to our doors making unusual events seem commonplace.

But we need to remember that this is a distortion of reality. The probably isn't that these things will never happen to us the probability is that these things will never happen to us even if we could live for several lifetimes.

Using the higher US rate of cyclist deaths out of a population of 7.27 billion people there should be roughly 20,200 killed while cycling. That number would attract headlines but its connotations are minuscule while related to the individual.

 

[brumbrum]

Majority of bike riders i know have near misses on a daily basis when it comes to other road users. So statistically its just a matter time.

Do they have cars in Ireland these days?

 

[Chalo]

Riding abike without gloves and helmet is fine when your young and have the protective bubble of invincibility.

As for me, I fell off rather often when I was younger, riding faster, pushing the limits. Now that I don't care how fast or slow I go, almost never.

Back when I did fall often, I got scraped up a lot, but I rarely hit my head. I got concussions with and without a helmet, and I escaped getting concussions with and without a helmet too.

In the end, I gave helmets up entirely so that I could better hear what was happening outside my field of view. It was only later that I came to understand helmets don't improve the big picture for cyclists at all.

 

[Joseph C.]

Majority of bike riders i know have near misses on a daily basis when it comes to other road users. So statistically its just a matter time.

Do they have cars in Ireland these days?

Anecdotes do not constitute evidence.

Yes, far too many I'm afraid - along with below average motorists like every other country. But that still doesn't change the facts.

Dublin Bikes has 55,000 users and the county, according to the 2011 census has a population of 1.271 million people. 5.1 per cent of them are predominantly cyclists that's 64,000 people. The average fatality rate for Dublin has been consistently one person for a number of years. Last year I believe it was three - one of which involved a man cycling on the motorway.

The chances of dying in most given years in Co. Dublin is one in 64,000 thousand. Going by 2014 statistics the chances of dying are one in 21,000. Statistically you'd have to live for 21,000 years before you'd die cycling in Dublin.

In reality, those census figures are out of date and a lot more people are cycling in Dublin. Which means the odds of dying are statistically lower than the figures above.

 

[Punx0r]

Even in a country like the UK you'd have to live for more than 5,100 years such is the lifetime odds of dying. Your lifetime odds of dying in a car is 462 years. Even the chances of a pedestrian being killed are much greater than a cyclist at 1,104 years. Yet pedestrians don't wear helmets.

I suspect those figures are for an average person (the majority of whom don't cycle at all), not an average cyclist. The average male cycled 79 miles in 2011 (females averaged 20 miles): http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06224/SN06224.pdf

Deaths per mile is a more accurate way to compare the relative safety of transport and cycling is 15 times more dangerous than driving a car (one death per 29 million miles in 2013).

The odds of any given cyclist dying in their lifetime (due to cycling) is still small, but for a given journey it is a relatively dangerous way to travel on today's roads.

 

[Gregory]

I wonder what the studies and statistics say about the effectiveness/necessity of bicycle helmets when we are increasing the speed of the bicycle by 100% or 200%?

If a kid falls off their bike at 15km/h no biggie, but double the speed and you quadruple the energy. Seems like a good case for an ebike rated helmet to me :? Something lighter than a motorbike helmet, but more protection than a bicycle helmet?

 

[Joseph C.]

I suspect those figures are for an average person (the majority of whom don't cycle at all), not an average cyclist. The average male cycled 79 miles in 2011 (females averaged 20 miles): http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06224/SN06224.pdf

Deaths per mile is a more accurate way to compare the relative safety of transport and cycling is 15 times more dangerous than driving a car (one death per 29 million miles in 2013).

The odds of any given cyclist dying in their lifetime (due to cycling) is still small, but for a given journey it is a relatively dangerous way to travel on today's roads.

The perception is that it is dangerous and maybe some areas are worse than others. I think this perception can be put down to our irrationality. The information above is out of date anyway. But the statistics don't lie being in a car is much likely to result in your death than cycling a bike.

I strongly disagree with the accuracy resulting from using deaths per mile. It's not a realistic measure at all. The difference in speed between a bicycle and car means that you will never cover the miles a car does on a bike. Our lives are measured in time not distance. A cyclist will never cycle 1.9 million miles on their bike. I average well below 3,000 km per year. Even if I cycled 20,000 km every year for the next 60 years I'd still only average 1.2 million km which is 0.75 million miles. And we both know that that 20,000 km for 60 years is just not sustainable for the vast majority of people.

In reality, I'll probably average 180,000 km over six decades (even that is unrealistically optimistic). And we also know that we are on the verge of self-driving transportation that will make all these fatality statistics redundant.

Now maybe a professional cyclist could reach those numbers. I'm not entirely sure (checks Google and comes up with 30,000 km) but I do know that competitions are performed on closed-off roads and even training on roads they have cars flanking ahead and behind protecting them. Plus they will only cycle those distance for 20 years maximum.

Let's try another tack. And be as accurate as possible unfortunately the 2011 UK census doesn't have a breakdown of people who cycle as their primary form of transport. But it does say that 2.9 per cent of the working population cycle to work. The working population of England and Wales is just over 26,608,000. The number of cycling fatalities in the UK ranges between 100 and 120.

The only data I could easily find was for 2013 and the number was 109 people so we'll use that figure. The census figure say that 800,000 people cycle to work but according to their own figures that number is actually 771,600 roughly. The chances of dying in England and Wales are roughly once every 7,079 years. If the 2.9 per cent figure has been rounded down and you use the 800,000 figure for bike commuters instead, the odds are even more in your favour.

I used County Dublin figures as it would have a lot more vehicles on the road than any other area of Ireland (conversely it is also the safest county in Ireland) but if you use national figures. The 2011 figures are 39,803 people who commute to work and 21,374 people who cycle to school/college. That's 61,177 people who are primarily cyclists. Even if you go with last year's high figures of 12 deaths which is more than double the norm that is 5,098 years before one person will die. Normally it would be around 10,000 years.

Both countries are still a long way behind the Netherlands whose numbers are one death in more than 24,000 years. They also cycle a lot more km on average than other countries.

Even if I do die while cycling (believe me the irony isn't lost) I still won't be wrong about this. The odds are stacked in my favour I just got extremely, extremely unlucky. My epitaph will read 'Still Statistically Right'.

 

[MadRhino]

Riding the mountain trails, I see kids wearing full face helmets and it seems that part of their brains are trapped in there, for I noticed they are much more likely to try stupid stunts.

 

[Joseph C.]

I wonder what the studies and statistics say about the effectiveness/necessity of bicycle helmets when we are increasing the speed of the bicycle by 100% or 200%?

If a kid falls off their bike at 15km/h no biggie, but double the speed and you quadruple the energy. Seems like a good case for an ebike rated helmet to me :? Something lighter than a motorbike helmet, but more protection than a bicycle helmet?

Most certainly especially for Europe where the regulations for bicycle helmets are more lax than in the U.S.

If you're going to wear a helmet it probably should be a full face downhill one. But the jury is still out on the effectiveness of helmets for road use.

 

[Punx0r]

The perception is that it is dangerous and maybe some areas are worse than others. I think this perception can be put down to our irrationality. The information above is out of date anyway. But the statistics don't lie being in a car is much likely to result in your death than cycling a bike. I strongly disagree with the accuracy resulting from using deaths per mile. It's not a realistic measure at all.

This is like arguing that swallowing swords is inherently safer than eating normal cooked food because in total more people each year die from food poisoning.

You are correct that the average person is more likely to be killed behind the wheel than in the saddle but it's because the average person rarely, if ever, sits in the saddle. But that doesn't make car driving inherently riskier. If the average person works up to five miles from home they have a realistic choice of cycling or driving there each day and many argue we should encourage people to cycle. The mileage each year is the same regardless of where they drive or cycle, but if they choose to cycle, statistics suggest they are 15 times more likely to perish on their commute. Obviously, statistics are poor at predicting individual outcomes, so it would be more accurate to say we could expect to see a 15-fold increase in the average number of people killed each year travelling to work, assuming they all previously drove cars.

 

[Joseph C.]

This is like arguing that swallowing swords is inherently safer than eating normal cooked food because in total more people each year die from food poisoning.

You are correct that the average person is more likely to be killed behind the wheel than in the saddle but it's because the average person rarely, if ever, sits in the saddle. But that doesn't make car driving inherently riskier. If the average person works up to five miles from home they have a realistic choice of cycling or driving there each day and many argue we should encourage people to cycle. The mileage each year is the same regardless of where they drive or cycle, but if they choose to cycle, statistics suggest they are 15 times more likely to perish on their commute. Obviously, statistics are poor at predicting individual outcomes, so it would be more accurate to say we could expect to see a 15-fold increase in the average number of people killed each year travelling to work, assuming they all previously drove cars.

Of course the mileage isn't the same as to whether they drive or they cycle. It's not possible to do the same mileage that the average car driver does on a bike. Sure you can get outliers. There are high mileage cyclists but majority of people can't cycle those distances and its not sustainable for decades. For long journeys instead of taking the car they would have to take a bus or a train.

You can't argue that if people cycled instead of drove cars that they would be more likely to die. Well I mean you can argue it but you'd be wrong.

Going by 2013 figures, as I can't get proper car statistics for 2013 of the RSA's detail lacking website, five cyclists died in Ireland. Three of the five were killed by cars(I have to use irishcycle.com to get that information - they probably used FOA requests). One by a van and another by a turning lorry (another woman - it seems to be nearly always women who get killed by turning lorries for some reason).

If all motorists cycled instead of drove that would mean a 60 per cent reduction in cyclist fatalities, if you extrapolate the numbers to a larger population. Cycling fatalities in Ireland would decrease as a current percentage. I hope that makes sense because it doesn't read very well.

According to the latest census, 1,136,615 people drove or were driven to work in a car. 296,711 were driven to primary school. 126,172 were driven to secondary school and 53,606 drove/were driven to third level. That gives us a grand total of 1,613,104 car users compared to 61,177 cyclists. We shall extrapolate that with the cars off the road and with cyclists now numbering 1,674,281 people on bikes that cyclists are now 27 times more numerous. Bicycle fatalities should now number 136 deaths a year minus the 60 per cent reduction due to no cars.

Worst-case scenario and ignoring the phenomenon of there being greater safety with increased numbers of cyclists there are now 82 cyclist deaths a year on average compared to the 127 motorists/passengers killed. The RSA of Ireland conveniently don't have a breakdown of how many other people were killed by cars. But it is safe to say that the majority of 31 pedestrians, 27 motorcyclists and five cyclists were all killed by cars.

Therefore, even in the scenario above with the entire country of Ireland basically flooded by bikes and no change in either cycling infrastructure or the behaviour of non-motorist drivers, which is very unlikely, - cycling a bicycle is still safer than driving a car when it comes to fatalities. People who drive for a living would now be the biggest cause of cycling fatalities and not motorists. You're still more likely to be killed in a car than while on a bicycle.

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all night.

 

[d8veh]

As I said earlier, you can substantiate almost any point by choosing the statistics to go with it, but here's one to consider. I haven't counted, but I would say that the number of regular posters on here would be in the hundreds or less. When several of them say that they've been saved from srious head injuries by wearing a helmet, I would say that that's very significant.

It guess that there's probably an equal number that just disappeared from posting because they did suffer serious head injuries and are now in a vegetative state or not here to tell us about it. I used wonder why regular posters suddenly disappeared. Now I've figured it out.

 

[Joseph C.]

As I said earlier, you can substantiate almost any point by choosing the statistics to go with it, but here's one to consider. I haven't counted, but I would say that the number of regular posters on here would be in the hundreds or less. When several of them say that they've been saved from srious head injuries by wearing a helmet, I would say that that's very significant.

It guess that there's probably an equal number that just disappeared from posting because they did suffer serious head injuries and are now in a vegetative state or not here to tell us about it. I used wonder why regular posters suddenly disappeared. Now I've figured it out.

A lot of them are on Facebook's Endless Sphere group page. 2,502 of them.

All you have done is speculated and added anecdotes. Once again - if helmets were so effective the evidence for their efficacy should be clear and obvious. There should be no ambiguity. The signal should be well above the background noise.

To give you some of the benefit of the doubt. There is a sub-section of Endless Sphere users whose bicycles are closer to motorcycle performance than an actual bicycle and it would probably be prudent for them to wear a proper motorcycle helmet or at least a downhill helmet.

 

[Chalo]

When several of them say that they've been saved from srious head injuries by wearing a helmet, I would say that that's very significant.

The main problem there is that everybody who wears a helmet and bonks his head swears it saved his life. We can not only disregard that assertion generally, but we can't even be sure that he would have hit his head at all if it hadn't had a helmet on it. A helmet does make your head substantially bigger and heavier, which are two ways to increase the likelihood of hitting it.

Population-wide statistics don't lie. Helmets might help on a case-by-case basis, but they surely must hurt on a case-by-case basis too-- because in the aggregate, they don't offer any positive effect.

One thing is for certain. Helmets sure help motorists blame the victim when they kill cyclists. And they love to blame their victims.

 

[Pemalite]

Once again - if helmets were so effective the evidence for their efficacy should be clear and obvious. There should be no ambiguity. The signal should be well above the background noise.

To be fair, most cyclists also wear horrible helmets that only cover the very top of their head, because they are cheap/minimum requirement by law.
Today I'm seeing less of those helmets with more people opting for skate styled helmets due to their greater coverage protection.

This discussion has been on-going in Australia... We were the first country to make it law back in the 90's after all. Helmets did reduce head injuries by 23%.
https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-rules/cyclist-safety/wearing-a-bicycle-helmet

Just remember, would you rather have your head hit bare cement without a helmet? Or would you rather it be padded with plastic and foam for the impact?
I have to work and have other obligations, I'll take the insurance a Helmet offers, it doesn't impair me in any way.
And because everyone has to wear one by law, there is no peer pressure, bullying etc'. They are seen as Normal.

Conversely, most people argue about their own ability to avoid a collision/impact, but it's not yourself you need to be wary of, there are other road users who you cannot control or predict.

I wonder what the studies and statistics say about the effectiveness/necessity of bicycle helmets when we are increasing the speed of the bicycle by 100% or 200%?

If a kid falls off their bike at 15km/h no biggie, but double the speed and you quadruple the energy. Seems like a good case for an ebike rated helmet to me :? Something lighter than a motorbike helmet, but more protection than a bicycle helmet?

You mean like a Full-faced DH helmet?
Lighter than a motorbike helmet, more protection than a Bicycle Helmet.

I wear a Fox helmet for around town and a full face DH Helmet when doing anything technical or long distance out of town.

 

[Chalo]

This discussion has been on-going in Australia... We were the first country to make it law back in the 90's after all. Helmets did reduce head injuries by 23%.
https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-rules/cyclist-safety/wearing-a-bicycle-helmet

My understanding is that this was the result of the mandatory helmet law reducing ridership by more than 23%, meaning mortality rates actually rose.

More cyclists on the road makes them safer for cyclists. Helmet laws reduce the number of cyclists on the road, and are demonstrated to encourage unsafe passing by motorists too.

 

[Punx0r]

Joseph,

Yes, the average person doing 10,000 or 12,000 miles per year by bicycle is obviously unlikely. You seem to have expanded the argument about the relative safety of bicycle Vs. car on today's roads to a hypothetical where there are few cars and most people cycle, but somehow only for a limited part of their annual mileage. If we're adding in confusing factors we could say that people do high mileage in cars because car ownership encourages high mileage travel.

Also, while the "average" person might do 10,000 miles per year, like average earnings, the mean is skewed by a relatively small number of people who travel very high annual mileage. A lot of people do "cyclable" annual mileages.

Furthermore, we don't have to imagine a road network where the majority of people cycled to get about, we just look back in history. Mass cycle users at rush hour where considered an urban hazard by some pedestrians and then, as now, collisions between cyclists and pedestrians resulted in serious injury and death. For a given impact speed a pedestrian is certainly no better off being hit by a bicycle than a car, probably worse off in reality (survivability is better if you're hit by a car than a (motor)bicycle, better if you're hit by a bus or truck than a car [all due to bluff frontage]).

Anyway, bottom line (and the one you're trying to evade ): on today's roads (urban or rural), a journey conducted by bicycle (or motorcycle [less so]) is more likely to result in death or injury than one conducted by car. If you like, I volunteer to be hit head-on in a car by another car at 20mph if you will do the same on a bicycle. We could also do a 10mph side swipe by a bus

 

[d8veh]

The main problem there is that everybody who wears a helmet and bonks his head swears it saved his life.

Good point. That's me.

I high-sided my powerful ebike by giving it too much throttle on a slippery road. I went straight over the handlebars and landed on the front/top of my head. It knocked me completely senseless. Afterwards, when I looked at the flat part of the helmet, which was previously round, I figured that that helmet had saved my life, or at least it saved me from serious injury.

As you say, I'm not the only one that reports this sort of experience. I ask again, did you watch that video of Geraint Thomas in the link above? Do you think his helmet saved him from serious injury?

 

[Joseph C.]

Joseph,

Yes, the average person doing 10,000 or 12,000 miles per year by bicycle is obviously unlikely. You seem to have expanded the argument about the relative safety of bicycle Vs. car on today's roads to a hypothetical where there are few cars and most people cycle, but somehow only for a limited part of their annual mileage. If we're adding in confusing factors we could say that people do high mileage in cars because car ownership encourages high mileage travel.

Also, while the "average" person might do 10,000 miles per year, like average earnings, the mean is skewed by a relatively small number of people who travel very high annual mileage. A lot of people do "cyclable" annual mileages.

Furthermore, we don't have to imagine a road network where the majority of people cycled to get about, we just look back in history. Mass cycle users at rush hour where considered an urban hazard by some pedestrians and then, as now, collisions between cyclists and pedestrians resulted in serious injury and death. For a given impact speed a pedestrian is certainly no better off being hit by a bicycle than a car, probably worse off in reality (survivability is better if you're hit by a car than a (motor)bicycle, better if you're hit by a bus or truck than a car [all due to bluff frontage]).

Anyway, bottom line (and the one you're trying to evade ): on today's roads (urban or rural), a journey conducted by bicycle (or motorcycle [less so]) is more likely to result in death or injury than one conducted by car. If you like, I volunteer to be hit head-on in a car by another car at 20mph if you will do the same on a bicycle. We could also do a 10mph side swipe by a bus

I thought you originally brought up the hypothetical cyclists instead of cars argument. I just expanded upon it. Historical data wouldn't be useful that as road infrastructure is a lot safer now than it was then.

Pedestrians getting killed by cyclists is such a rare event that it is basically not even worth factoring in. I'd put the odds of killing a pedestrian on a bike at as much greater than winning the lottery but probably lower than dying in a plane crash. Such a statistical rarity isn't even worth contemplating.

Nope, I will never concede your last point unless the statistics change. Even in your scenario with everyone cycling more people would be killed in cars in the status quo than on bikes in the hypothetical scenario. I'd argue that the model I've used is very generous to the cars. In reality, the extra numbers of cyclists would result in a lot less cyclist fatalities due to the strength in numbers phenomenon.

 

[Punx0r]

OK, so, would you agree that cycling is no more dangerous than driving a car as long as your cycle mileage doesn't exceed 1/15th of your driving mileage?

I was curious enough to do a quick search for cyclist-pedestrian collisions and they are indeed relatively rare: they constitute 2% of fatal pedestrian collisions in urban areas. With the chances of a pedestrian being injured by a cyclist 1.2 times less than by a motor vehicle and the chances of being killed 2.5 times less on a per-mile-travelled basis.

The total number of pedestrians killed by cyclist from 2009-2013 is 14 (1245 for cars). The total seriously injured is 334 (20181 for cars).

http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/pedestrians4rrv2.pdf