The Deadliest Year for Pedestrians and Bicyclists in Three Decades
"According to statistics compiled and released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were more pedestrians and bicyclists killed last year than in any other year since 1990. In fact, on average, there were 17 pedestrians and two bicyclists killed every day in vehicle accidents, despite an overall decrease in the total number of fatal vehicle accidents nationwide."
Our Take:
Bicycle accidents have been on the rise for the past decade, even though car accidents are decreasing AND cities are becoming more bike friendly. One would expect that this would lower the accidents, but that's far from the truth.
Today's cars are equipped with latest safety features like automatic braking, lane monitoring, and blindspot monitoring, just to name a few. But the bicycle landscape hasn't changed much in the past few decades. If you went back in time to 1980 and asked someone the question "what do you think when I say the bicycle safety", chances are that they will say a helmet. Ask this question again in 2019 (almost 40 years later) and the answer would remain the same, helmet.
We need to look for bicycle safety beyond the helmet, and that's what we at SafeSense are trying to accomplish. We want bicycles to have access to the same high tech gadgets that are keeping cars safer.