Apparently, there’s more people getting injured on bicycles than the official statistics show, according to a new study:
The NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust report, obtained by Radio National’s Background Briefing program, has found a huge discrepancy between ACT police data and hospital records.
Official bike injury statistics are based on police records. But not all bike injuries are reported to police, and the report shows that 98 per cent of cycling injuries are not showing up in official statistics.
That’s an important piece of research, and those who’ve collected the data deserve praise for doing so. But when the authors start to veer in the direction of suggesting solutions, they get onto considerably shakier territory:
Professor Richardson says the figures show that road cyclists need better protection than a painted bike lane.
“I’m talking about solid infrastructure. I would much rather see segregation of cyclists from motor vehicles. I think that that’d be in the interests of both of them,” he said.
“I am very wary about cyclists and larger or faster vehicles sharing the same space. When human beings share the same space they do tend to bump into each other, whether it’s in supermarket aisles or lifts. And it’s certainly true on the roads.
“So I would like to see infrastructure that separates the cyclists and the large, heavy and quite dangerous vehicles.”
I am of course speculating without the benefit of seeing the entirety of the statistics reported – it’s possible that there is specific analysis in the report that suggest that cycle paths are safer. But identifying that the number of cycling injuries is higher than previously recognized does not make “common sense” solutions like those suggested by Professor Richardson correct. On the contrary, as Wikipedia notes, there is a substantial body of research that suggests that cycle paths actually make things worse, or, at best, provide little direct safety benefit.
Drew Richardson, from my preliminary googling, appears to have a considerable reputation in emergency medicine, but I doubt he’s an expert on road engineering. So it would be nice if people are to serve the role of “experts” in the media for areas in which they are not, they were to become a little more familiar with the actual state of research in the areas they are opining on.
Yes Robert, with such a blanket statement you really have to wonder whether they even read any of the literature on different cycling infrastructures around the world.
Good to see the old chestnut of ‘cyclists not paying for the roads’ shutdown within about two comments in that ABC News thread.
I’ve seen literature which also supports the statements in the Wiki article.
My only experience of a cycling accident which required hospitalisation, and which was not reported to the police, was my abortive descent of the Waterfall Way from Dorrigo in July 2000. There was no motor vehicle involved; I got into the rough at speed and failed to stay upright. Yet cases like this presumably make up a significant part of the statistic evidence on which Professor Richardson is argiung for commuter apartheid.
I also notice that users of Brisbane’s off-road bikeways tend to have a cavalier attitude towards things like keeping to the left on the bikeway, being aware of what might be beyond the next bend, taking due precautions when coming to a junction with a road, riding with sound equipment plugged into one’s ears, etc., etc., and I wonder whether cyclists who only use bikeways tend not to develop the same awareness of traffic rules, skills, discipline and good sense that one has to develop to cycle safely on-road.
When a driver of a parked car opens their door just as a group of cyclists is about to pass and takes out about ten of them do you report it to police? What for – stupidity? Threats to the driver, maybe?
Razor – you report it so they can add another data point to their SMIDSY statistics.
When the owner of a dog lets the dog run into your front wheel when you are on a clear cycle path and dping about 30km/h and end up with a broken collar bone do you report it to police?
I could go on and on with numerous examples of injuries not reported to police.
I fell off my bike in my drive way at a stand still and did a major ankle injury because I couldn’t unclip. What do I tell the police? I’m a dickhead?
That said – I stillthink the benefits in terms of health and fitness far outweigh the cost from injuries. All sports incur injuries. I see mnaging injuries just part and parcel of being involved in sport and life.
In my experience the big problem is where there aren’t bike lanes. As for separated ones, the only ones in Melbourne that I’m aware of (Swanston St) don’t feel as safe as the regular ones, but having also lived in Denmark, I think this is mostly because they are an oddity; people aren’t used to them so the get used incorrectly (people don’t look when cross and cars don’t look when they finish). It’s the main problem with cycling in general; the lack of awareness of cyclists. This isn’t any one person’s fault; it’s just that cycling needs to hit a critical mass before we become a constant object of awareness for motorists. Things like overtaking coming into a roundabout or turning left across a bike lane without looking.
One lot of data and evidence relates to accidents that take place on roundabouts where bike lanes merge with motor traffic. Fair enough. Logical.
The Wiki article however falsely claims that there is “evidence” that dedicated pathways are worse than riding on the road.
But, outrageously, the footnotes supplied do not support such a conclusion and this statement “These conclusions are supported by the experience of countries that have implemented segregated cycling facilities” is fraudulent.
The accidents are all on roadways where dedicated paths merge with car roads, and indeed most often at the point of a merge.
The German footnoted article relates to bike lanes, i.e. painted line marking the bike path rather than a physically separated bike roadway; the US (Palo Alto) study relates to a situation where cyclists are struck at intersections with motor traffic, when coming out of a dedicated bike path onto a motor traffic road and suffer a greater incidence of injuries and frequency of accidents than being struck from behind on a shared roadway; the Milton Keynes study is all about injries on roundabouts where cars sideswipe cyclists sharing the road surface with them.
My point is that the chances of being run over by a car on a pathway which does not admit motor vehicles is practically zero. Richardson is not shown to be wrong at all.
Razor: My friend did that (not unclipping) and fell over and bent the frame of the bike :0 (the bike store had the good graces to admit it shouldn’t happen and replaced the bike that was only 10 days old, it was a Giant)
Funny, a new British study came out yesterday too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/03/cycling-roads-accidents-hospital-admissions
dj – unless I am required by law to report something to Police I am not going to spend my time dealing with them.
Maybe the health system should try and collect the data through GPs and EDs.
As a general rule i have found that every time I go out for a proper ride (+20km) then I will have at least one “incident” that I would classify as a “near miss” that I had control over. That is an incident that if I hadn’ been watching the vehicles/cyclists/pedestrians/dogs could have happened. In a week of riding I will generally have a “near miss” that I didn’t have control over but that I survived. In a year of riding I generally will have one accident. That is based on ten years experience and applies to my type of cycling under the specific conditions I ride in. It will be different for others.
One morning in the dark I was riding along a dual use path down a steep hill, lit up like a christmas tree. A Hilux ute over-takes me and then immediately turns into a drive way into a car park and stops across the path. I locked up everything and skid into the side of the Hilux. Small ding in the panel of the Hilux, sprained right wrist, fortunately no visible damage to the steed but handle bars and brake hoods all out of alignment. The female driver winds down the window and just says “My indicator was on”.
Razor, I think you failed to see my tongue planted firmly in cheek, so here it is in plain sight
Following on from Sir Henry, I find these debtates about road versus segregated a bit “road path riders ride like this, and segragated path riders ride like this“.
The reality, sadly, is that – just like drivers – some cyclists are idiots that engage in reckless and uncommunal beahviour. These cyclists in my five years of living in Canberra (never saw enough when I lived in Springvale in Melbourne) are sometimes on dedicated paths, and sometimes on road lanes.
I would argue in a city like Canberra, where there are large numbers of cyclists, wide roads, and general driver awareness, the proposition of sharing a lane is far more congenial to me than in Sydney, for example.
My wife got hit by a car, broke her jaw in three places and lost several teeth. This was at night, in south melbourne. Car didn’t stop, no witnesses, what value was there in reporting it to the police? Alfred hospital emergency department may or may not have been told and recorded that it was a bike accident, but I really can’t remember.
A better separation between the car and the bike probably would have reduced the likelihood of this accident.
Sorry dj – sense of humour failure on my part.
Rockstar – Giant have an excellent reputation for honouring their Warrantees. (Disclaimer – one of my bikes is a Giant, no claims made.) Maybe my ankle wouldn’t have been so badly damaged if my frame had bent – and it was my Giant I fell off/on).
Prof Richardson says, “I would much rather see segregation of cyclists from motor vehicles.”
Merkel writes, “cycle paths actually make things worse, or, at best, provide little direct safety benefit.”
Wikipedia tells us, “Cycle paths can be particularly dangerous at intersections with roads [...] For urban roads with many junctions, accident analysis suggests that segregated cycling facilities are likely to produce a net increase in the number of collisions.” [My emphasis]
A cycle path intersecting a road is not “segregated.” In other words, cycle paths are dangerous when they are not segregated.
Arguing that we should not have segregated cycling because when it intersects the motor vehicle traffic there are accidents is like arguing that we ought not to have railways because cars get struck on railway crossings. Where different types of traffic with vastly different amounts of momentum (mass x velocity, train > trucks > car > cyclist > pedestrian) intersect, there will be accidents in which the one with less momentum suffers most horribly.
The answer is to have genuinely segregated traffic. Trams and cars smash much more often than do trains and cars for the simple reason that trams and cars share the same roadspace, while trains have a dedicated space of their own apart from a few intersections. Give cycles a dedicated space of their own and watch fatalities and injuries drop.
I travel every day on this route by bicycle. On the roads I am in danger of collision with a car. On the bike track along the side of the M1 with a large concrete barrier and an earth berm between me and the traffic I am in no danger from cars.
Genuinely segregated traffic of the different types leads to less fatalities and injuries.
As to commenting outside one’s specialty, if that is not allowed then Merkel had best delete his own article, since he is not a specialist in trauma medicine or road engineering or city planning or risk management or anything like that. If Merkel can comment, so can Prof Richardson. The common-sense truth is that anyone can comment on matters to do with the public good. How we transport ourselves, and how safe we are during that transport, are matters which concern everyone.
This is going to sound very weird but I actually enjoy riding on the road in traffic. I prefer it to bike paths.
It surely couldn’t be that difficult or expensive to create points where bikes could cross main connecting roads but motor vehicles couldn’t. (I’m thinking tunnels and overpasses. It might even be that pedestrians could use them too.
Razor #16, doesn’t sound weird at all. That’s also been my experience.
In Perth the main north south freeway has dual use path along it. The older part of the Northern End is a buggers muddle. The newer parts have nice paths.
What I would love to see is a cyclist only high speed path hard beside the train tracks. Off ramps at each station. Haven’t worked out the route through the city. Wouldit fit throughthe tunels?
Robert,
exactly what expertise do you bring to the table on the subject of people opining beyond their academic expertise? Where’s your doctorate in Know-it-all-ology. I suspect you don’t know as much about this as you claim!
Seriously, my wife and I go for walks down at Birdsland sancturary. Coming the other way aboout a month ago was a young lady walking her bike in a dazed state. Her knees were ripped to shreds, broken collar bone, broken elbow. Terrible state. We took her to William Angliss. But there was not a car in sight when she had the accident. She hit a rick and went over. I wonder what the breakdown stats are for bicycle accidents. I can think of a few bike accidents that didn’t involve cars but involve dirt tracks and young kids doing tricks (wrongly).
Kiashu: You miss my point. Professor Richardson can comment on anything he likes. So can I. But by putting his hat on as “Professor”, he is awarded special expertise on the matter. Whether it is his intent or not, he is being used as an argument from authority.
If one is making an argument from authority, one should generally have the courtesy to a) be an authority, or at least b) state the opinions of genuine authorities.
On this topic, like 90% of the other things I post on LP, I have no special expertise. On maybe another 9%, I have a better understanding of the processes of science and engineering, expertise in interpreting statistical data. Maybe 1% of the LP postings I do are on topics where I can genuinely claim relevant professional expertise (this was a rare example).
On the general issue of cycle paths and safety, I would not for one moment claim the Wikipedia, or the studies it links to, as the last word on the matter. But there is a fair bit of evidence casting doubt on the safety benefits of cycle lanes. As for complete segregation of cyclists from traffic, no city on Earth is going to be able to manage that. Not even Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Beijing, or Freiburg achieve anything like that.
For what it’s worth, as far as enjoying cycling, I’m actually with Razor. For fit recreational cyclists, bike paths are generally a pain in the arse to ride on. But that has very little to say about whether they’re safer or not.
On-the-job training. Much better than this high-falutin’ book-learnin’ stuff
I use a cycle path a few times a week for part of one of my commutes. It is not appealing to use but provides the best option for that particular commute due to the two major roads that would provide a similar distance having no space for bikes at all and several dangerous spots (including one which would basically mean death if you or a car driver made even a slight judgement error) which I am happy to avoid.
The path itself has numerous tree/bushes poking across it (some at head level), several blind corners, several blind entrance points, is surfaced with uneven pavers and necessitates a high level of caution due to the previously mentioned factors and both pedestrians and other cyclists who don’t take the same precautionary approach.
I actually come off the path and back on to the road eventually because the road is better than the path once those nasty spots are left behind and the road has a bike lane that has been there for a long time and drivers are used to the way cyclists use it.
As far as I’m concerned, bike paths need to be segregated from road traffic and pedestrians, and in the latter case my preference would be for a fence. Every morning cyclists whirr past me from behind with no warning of their approach whatsoever and usually close enough that only a slight deviation on my part from a straight line would have had me in front of them with no chance to swerve. Who’d come off worse in that situation? Maybe the cyclist, after I’d spent some time punching him the face and kicking in his ribs. There are rules, and while people often attribute blame to motorists over cyclists, my observations lead me to believe that most cyclists act as if they had some privileged exclusion from them. Much as you’ll see motorcyclists overtaking on the wrong side and weaving between cars across lanes, many bicyclists cede right-of-way to no one.
It is trivial to prove that cycle paths are not safer than integrated road cycling, that is for anybody that has cycled for more than 6 weeks in a row.
- cycle paths exit into traffic into unexpected places like footpath exits
- most cycle paths are shared facilities with slower foot based traffic, causing clashes
- cycle path demarcation on the road places cyclists directly into conflict with parking cars and opening doors
- cycle path demarcation on the road puts cyclists outside the scanning area of turning traffic
The study of under reported accidents seems like a good start, but the real value is going to come from segregating the statistics into commuters, sport cyclists and recreational cyclists. Then the clip-stackers, bunch crashes and kids doing stupid stunts can be analysed seperately from the regular commuters and we can get some better idea of how utility cycling can be made safer.
Robert #21:
Once again I agree. The last sentence raises the important issue of where safety fits in the preferences of cyclists, of commuters of other kinds and of those making policy on transport. If we were to privilege safety above all other considerations, we wouldn’t be doing much cycling – or motoring, or motorcycling, or leaving home in the morning. I think that those of us who like to cycle at a reasonable speed over longer distances and interesting terrain trade off (whether consciously or not) a relatively greater risk to our physical safety against the benefits of greater fitness, greater mobility and more interesting and exciting cycling experiences, amongst other things. A society which doesn’t allow its citizens to make personal choices which involve such trade-offs is not one I think I’d enjoy living in.
Back to the root of the argument – it really gets my goat when an Academic writes to the newspapers in letters and signs of as Prof/Dr and their Department and University when commenting on a topic unrelated to their discipline.
Not to mention the slower wheel-based traffic and the slower paw-based traffic!
It is a sorry business. For twenty years I used a bicycle as my main mode of transport. Not any more. Just too dangerous. I’ve abandoned the road after being KO’d twice (once with and once without helmet- the latter prior to mandated helmets) and both times motor drivers were at fault. I’ve been chased by a loony in a large truck for no apparent reason, spat on, had bottles both full and empty and other objects hurled at me from moving vehicles and I’ve been otherwise persecuted, threatened and abused by shrivel dicks (they are always male)in motor vehicles. All this was despite an always legal riding style. I don’t know what it is with m-v drivers and their aggressive attitudes to cyclists. There is no justification for throwing a couple of hundred weight or more of moving steel at someone on a bike. None. And they do it to young people as well. Creeps.
Speaking of ‘slower paw based traffic’, I’ve recently been involved in a local Council stoush, in which the Council proposed a regulation that dogs shouldn’t be allowed within 5 metres of a bike path. There was a lot lot of things wrong with this proposal. Some of which include the fact that the ‘cycle paths’ are shared pathways, which include pedestrians with dogs and that some of these shared paths ran through off-leash dog parks and the proposed rule would excise large amounts of the parks involved.
Anyway, the Council experienced the wrath of local dog owners, many who are cyclists as well, and proposed changes went down the gurgler.
anthony – trust me it is equal opportuntiy abuse – I’ve copped a mouthfull from female drivers, too.
Fine – as a cyclist and a dog lover I think that is a ridiculous suggestion. Cyclists need to be aware of thier surroundings and ride in an appropriate manner and dog owners need to control their puppies (and their dogs – boom tish).
To 22, I add having a brain and using it in scientific analytical mode. This, after all, is the essential differentiator between an expert and everyone else.
Some of those injuries are self inflicted by hipsters cycling while using their iPhones.
Yep, Razor. We need to share public space. That was the dog owners point.
Although it does not apply in this case with Prof/Dr Richardson, sometimes academics get dragooned into some expertise by enterprising media. I know a sociologist who reluctantly became an expert on the ‘aussi barbeque’. One helpful weekend response to a journo enquiry and this bloke was forever the go-to man on anything to do with bbq’s. It drove him mad but he was too polite to extricate himself from the appointment.
Yeah, we couldn’t possible segregate cycle from motor vehicle traffic. Just like we’ve been totally unable to segregate pedestrian from motor vehicle traffic. It’s so stressful to be walking in the gutter along a busy road all the time.
Come on, let’s be serious.
I think the real problem is one of perspective. You speak of the “fit recreational cyclist.” If cycles are only used for recreation then they don’t need any special infrastructure anymore than jetskis do. But if they are transport then they need their own infrastructure.
Yes, where the different infrastructure intersects there will be incidents. Well, so what? Around a quarter of road deaths are pedestrians, last I heard. Is this an argument to get rid of pedestrian traffic? No. These things happen. By sound policy we can minimise them, but not eliminate them.
Richardson speaks with the authority of one who’s just completed a study of when and where and how incidents occur. So he’s well-qualified to speak about how to prevent them. Saying that the authour of a study on cycle injuries is unqualified to speak on roads and paths is like saying the authour of a study on STDs can’t talk about condoms. Don’t be daft.
Use your bike for transport instead of recreation and you’ll get a different perspective. Don’t wear lycra. Just get into your normal clothes and go from A to B. Do it for a month or two, and a lot of other stuff will start to make sense.
Razor: re. equal opportunity abuse. Is it a gender thing then? Male cyclists are abused by male motorists and the opposite for women because the cyclists are not in a motor vehicle and that somehow deranges the gender ID of the abuser. Whew. It is weird out there.
The assertion made by the author in the head article of this thread rests on a false premise. Professor Richardson is correct, the Wiki article linked in support of your assertion is a load of rubbish and a fraud. Follow the footnotes numbers and read the articles referred to – they do not support the summary. This is unacceptable.
Kiashu, I commute by bike every day, as well as riding competitively.
As for complete segregation, what proportion of intersections have pedestrian overpasses/underpasses?
I agree with Rob and Razor about roads being most enjoyable. For safe, fast commuting cyclists also need roads – if it’s to be segregated, it needs to be another road network. We’re talking about lanes approx 3 m wide, two way (total 6m). Can’t see that happening.
I generally do not feel as safe on bike paths. They add to trip times. Have done Eastlink once (Chelsea to Yarra Glen, tho’ Eastlink only to Ringwood), and it’s ok with some great stretches, but there are far too many stops and blind turns.
Can we all play the cycling version of ‘prolier than thou’?
I wear lycra and have commuted to study/work pretty much every day for the last 15 years (and before then regularly but not every day).
I did not own a car or have a driver’s licence until a bit over 2 years ago.
@Kiashu Don’t wear lycra. Just get into your normal clothes and go from A to B. Do it for a month or two, and a lot of other stuff will start to make sense.
I ride to 17ks each way to work in Brisbane each day and I wear lycra. Have to, otherwise I get chafing and ingrown bloody hairs in my groin. Not to mention a cotton tshirt sticks to your body once you get a sweat up.
Try lycra clothes – they are practical and comfortable. Just don’t think that you should only wear lycra (unless you are very young and tight-bodied).
Anthony #38, I would say that in general the sort of motorist with a penchant for abusing cyclists has a well-tuned radar for the gender, age, size and physical capabilities of individual cyclists. Most of my near-misses (and my two gentle shunts) have been the result of inattention or incompetence rather than hostility, and I prefer the sound of profanities from motorists passing me a metre away to the sudden thrust of acceleration as I am t-boned by someone who bears me no ill-will but just hasn’t noticed me in front of them.
Segregation of cyclists is a farce – too expensive, can’t be maintained (ever see a road sweeper small enough to fit down a segregated cycling path?). Too prone to vandalism and stupidity like bottle smashing. Too prone to safety issues that put off female cyclists (Brisbane stalker for example). Lower speed limits for motorists in urban settings are far more sensible and practical. A blanket 40km/h in urban/shared areas seems reasonable. After all, nobody complains about school zones.
re: Paul @44.
Yep, all of my serious car-inflicted injuries were inflicted by inattentive or presumptive drivers rather than malicious ones. In all cases they were genuinely remorseful and I had to actually console one of them while I stood shaking with a gaping wound in my leg made by their front bumper bar. In all cases I had no problem with getting my bike repairs paid for by them.
I would say I have possibly encountered more malicious behavior while driving than while cycling, which probably reflects the driving culture of where I live, which is renowned for being ridiculously aggro and inconsiderate.
“For fit recreational cyclists, bike paths are generally a pain in the arse to ride on. But that has very little to say about whether they’re safer or not.”
.
I think this all depends on the bike path. If they’re set up in an even half-decent manner (like Gardiner’s Creek Trail), I’d ride on them any day (and do — in fact I ride on that trail most days). I also know many other people that would ride far more often if there were more trails like this. Alternatively, if it’s like the Beach Road trail, where it’s made like a footpath, it’s basically unrideable. To some extent it’s also the other users. Gardiner’s Creek isn’t too bad because most users (excluding the occasional dog and some generally older people who seem to think it’s fine to ride on the wrong side of the trail) are aware that there are lots of cyclists that are using it to commute. Beach road is a disaster because it’s basically set up and is heavily used by families, dogs, etc. . It would also be simple to make trails like Gardiner’s creek better. All they would have to do is paint a line down the middle like a road, and no doubt people would stick to the correct side better. It beats me why they don’t do this.
dj: I used to wear bicycle clips and cycle t’ mill int’ rain. Carried revolutionary pamphlets down pantaloons and was able to convert trusty Malvern Star to implement of class warfare in moments. Blame the collapse of the working class as a class for itself on the wearing of lycra.
I think I hurt a female driver on Monday when I (also) couldn’t get a pedal out. When I got up it looked like she was having an asthma attack.
The only “proper” accident I’ve had in the last cople of years was on a bike path when a tourist stepped back onto the path to take a photo.
When I lived in Canberra I was lucky enough to be living in a suburb which had good cycle paths (actually shared-use, I suppose) all the way to the city and around Lake Burley Griffin. On that particular route, most road crossings were via tunnels or traffic lights, either at actual intersections, or controlled pedestrian/cycle crossings, so it was quite a relaxing experience to cycle to work or for exercise.
The only time I was involved in an accident was by the lake in front of the Art Gallery/High Court area where a woman allowed her labrador to stray right in front of me and I wasn’t quick enough to take evasive action so ran into it. I must say I was more concerned for the dog than myself, although the rest of the ride home with bleeding knee and arm was a tad uncomfortable! (The dog was ok and almost licked me to death.)
I haven’t seen much evidence of similar set-ups when visiting Sydney or other capitals (I realise of course that they are all huge cities and I have usually stayed within the tourist, business precincts) and certainly where I am on the Gold Coast it’s the street or nothing in most cases.
Where the Professor gets into trouble is in making recommendations that don’t follow directly from his research. Even if the research suggested that segregation reduced accidents, that wouldn’t be sufficient evidence that the state should invest in the infrastructure to support such segregation. For that, you need to comprehensively weigh the costs and benefits of the supposed solution. On the benefit side you want a comprehensive analysis of the benefits in terms of reduced probability of accidents (by type of accident) with some metric that values the benefit of reduced accidents (costs to the hospital system, lost days of work, lost years of life, etc). On the cost side there is of course all the outlays in expenditure that would be necessary to support a particular intervention. It is only by weighing both sides carefully that one can come to a well thought through conclusion as to whether the proposed policy solution is appropriate, and this is something the Professor has not done.
I’ve only had two serious accidents on my bicycle – one on a bike path when I got run over by a big bloke on a mountain bike (I’m small on a small roadie) on a blind corner. The other really only involved me, a toe strap and a big bump leading to a gyro death wobble. Didn’t tell the police about either of those, despite being KO’d in the latter. Personally I blame toe straps, gear levers on the down tubes and 24″ front wheel. If we get laws about that, then I’m leaving the country.
However, I do think we should have segregated bike paths so we can keep big blokes on mountain bikes separated from the likes of me. You know it makes sense.
I much prefer riding on bike paths than bikelanes, with an even larger gap between bike lanes and being out in traffic. Why? Because I know that I am trying to avoid collisions with other inhabitants of the path and (other than the dogs) they’re trying to avoid collisions with me. Since I’m going faster than the pedestrians most of the responsibility is on my shoulders.
On the roads I know that many of the car drivers simply do not care whether they hit me or not, and a very small minority would quite like to add me as a notch on their bumper bar. The difference in our mass means they can take me out with no significant damage to them. If a cyclist hits a pedestrian both get hurt, so both have an incentive towards care.
However, that’s just my personal take – I’d value statistical evidence over personal preference when deciding on urban planning.