Even if cycling boasted a 0% fatality rate, tell most people that if they cycle rather than drive the 4 miles to work they’d be safer, healthier, less likely to die of heart disease, less likely to injure others on the road, saving money on petrol and car maintenance, saving time and money on parking, not getting stuck in traffic, easing congestion, causing less damage to the road and causing less damage to the environment I believe they would still say “So? Driving’s easier.”

My Mum always worries when I go out on my bike. Despite the fact that cycling is less dangerous than driving.

On the plus side, the economic downturn in the UK does seem to have encouraged more people to get on their bikes, and hopefully those people will continue to see the bike as a viable (i.e. safe) means of transport if/when the financial situation improves.

I never really though about myself as a cycling campaigner, just a fat bloke who loves his bike!

The CTC and a few others have been trying to convince people to cycle, using statistics, for a long time now.

It hasn’t worked. People don’t seem to respond too well to a jolly “You’d have to cycle 41 million km to be likely to die by bike!”

It doesn’t actually matter what the numbers are – if people don’t perceive walking and cycling to be safe, they won’t do it. It’s no good quoting stats at these people, then just telling them to get out and “mix it up with traffic”. Vehicular cycling just about works for us, but it clearly doesn’t get bums on bikes.

Also – i think the figures per km give a much more useful picture than the figures per hour travelled by each mode. I know cycling campaigners often prefer the latter, as it makes cycling look better – but if we want people to swap the car for the bike, it’ll be over the same journey distances, not journey times.

It seems to me the ONS numbers represent a much inflated assessment of the dangers of cycling. A cyclist takes significantly longer to cover the kilometre than a car or train does.

It would be interesting to see fatalities expressed as a function of time spent using a given mode of transport.