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Ridership up, crashes down: “Safety in Numbers” in Minneapolis
The average annual number of bicycle/motor vehicle crashes in Minneapolis between 1993 and 1999 was 334. Since 2000, the number has dropped 20 percent to 269.
Why? Are fewer people in Minneapolis riding these days? No.
In fact, according to the US Census and American Community Survey data, the number of Minneapolitans regularly biking to work more than doubled between 1990 and 2008 (3,000 to 8,000). This increase is supported by the city’s counts, which show a 174 percent increase in bicyclists in downtown Minneapolis between 2003 and 2008.
[Click on graphs for larger images. Note: The flat grey line between 1993 and 1999 is because the Census did not have yearly counts until the ACS came around in 2005.]
“People are so used to seeing bicyclists — love them or hate — and they don’t want to hit them,” Shaun Murphy, coordinator of the city’s non-motorized transportation program, told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. He also told the Tribune that the “hot spots” for bike-motorist accidents are not located around the University of Minnesota, where bicycling is common, because drivers there are so used to watching for bikes. Here is that heat map:
The data from Minneapolis are just the latest example of this counter-intuitive relationship between more bicycling and fewer crashes that has become known as the “safety in numbers” concept after the famous 2003 study from Peter Jacobsen. New York City has shown a similar trend (source: Transportation Alternatives): 
As has Portland:
Also see this follow up work on Safety in Numbers in Australia.
This is the kind of news we love to report on. Thanks to UrbanVelo for drawing our attention to it. Please let me know (darren [at] bikeleague.org) if there are any Safety in Numbers examples that I missed.
Darren Flusche
League Policy Director
Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.
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February 9th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Bicycle Life has a presentation that contains an argument for safety in numbers.
http://tinyurl.com/4kd2cmv
While I believe that there is some effect along the lines of the popular explanations — increased visibility, greater awareness, and so on — I believe that we should be careful about simply observing the relationship and declaring it a rule since we have not identified the effect. For instance, suppose the cycling simply appears safer such that “safer people” start cycling. In this case, the real unobserved risk associated with cycling has not changed. It is still the case that most crashes are without another party such that if these new riders simply ride slower there would be less reported crashes. I can conjecture a lot of reasonable hypotheses that we are unable to discern, but would suggest different strategies for increasing safety.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, “bike crashes have grown 8% in the past two years. Ridership has grown only 3%.”
http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2011/02/09/odd-ends/
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/caboforum/GT3s1cLm4Rg/discussion
February 10th, 2011 at 7:32 am
[...] Ridership Up, Crashes Down: “Safety in Numbers” in Minneapolis The average annual number of bicycle/motor vehicle crashes in Minneapolis between 1993 and 1999 was 334. Since 2000, the number has dropped 20 percent to 269. [...]
February 10th, 2011 at 11:36 am
[...] Image via League of American Bicyclists [...]
February 10th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
[...] via League of American Bicyclists Studies have long linked cycling safety to the number of cyclists on the street — the old [...]
February 10th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Nice data on Minneapolis.
Agree with Geoff and Mike. The numbers in some cities are quite good and should be publicized, but I’m not convinced its wise to simply chant “safety in numbers” without digging deeper for causation on crash rates.
Safety is still about being a safe rider, not assuming that you can be safe-by-the-numbers alone.
February 11th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by isoamu and PersonalMobility, Matthew Baker. Matthew Baker said: More cyclists = safer streets – League of American Bicyclists: http://bit.ly/esbQbm #urbanplanning #smartgrowth #transportation [...]
February 12th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
It’s false to assume that policies for filing police reports of bicycle crashes don’t vary over time. In Virginia, for example, the property damage threshold for requiring a police crash report was increased from $1000 to $1500 a few years ago. For this reason, the much smaller (and thus more variable) numbers of fatal bicycling crashes are a more valid measure of bicycling safety.
Nevertheless, an inverse correlation between trip frequency and/or mileage and crash frequency has long been well established for ALL travel modes. Furthermore, if this so-called “safety-in-numbers” effect did not exist, it would demonstrate that bicycle programs and bicycle advocacy are a complete waste of time and money.
February 15th, 2011 at 3:48 am
Your article came in a good time for us. We have a compulsory helmet law in Israel. The NGO I’m a member of (Israel Bicycle Association) is on its way to change it in our Parliament (called “The Knesset”) so that it will not be mandatory for urban adult cyclists. Of course, one of the main arguments is “Safety in Numbers”. Your article brings some more evidence to this logical argument.
February 16th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
@Eran… Safety-in-numbers is important in the debate over the efficacy of bicycle helmets, because compulsory helmet laws have been shown to discourage bicycling. [1] Charles Komanoff has concluded that in “diluting the effect of ‘safety in numbers,’ compulsory helmet laws could have the perverse effect of increasing serious injury rates among those who continue to cycle.” [2]
[1]Robinson D.L (1996). “Head injuries and bicycle helmet laws”. Accident Analysis and Prevention 28 (4): 463–75. doi:10.1016/0001-4575(96)00016-4
[2] Komanoff, C. (2001). “Safety in numbers? A new dimension to the bicycle helmet controversy [Letter"]. Injury Prevention 7: 343. doi:10.1136/ip.7.4.343-a
February 18th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
[...] Bernstein, Transportation Nation) The latest data comes from Minneapolis ‘ League of Bicyclists. (hat tip: Streetsblog) which shows steadily fewer bike accidents as [...]
June 16th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
[...] Today the city boasts the second most number of bike commuters in the United States, behind Portland, Ore. It is also perhaps one of the safest places to bike. As bike commuting has risen steadily, crash rates and real numbers of crashes have gone down. [...]