The utility cyclist wrote:Cunobelin wrote:There is unequivocally the fact that males over 65 years form a major portion of the fatalities with 2/3 of all cycle deaths being in this range.
Because 18% of the deaths were E-Bikes and 31 out of the 38 E-Bike deaths were males over 65 there is an assumption of increased danger. What has not been done is to look at just how many of these individuals would have had the same outcome on an ordinary bike.What E-Bikes have done is effectively increase the number of over 65 year old riders. The fact that the number of accidents doubled may just reflect the booming sales in this age group. That is twice as many on the road, twice as many accidents.
Also a possibility is that as an already at risk group increases both in numbers and age, other factors such as the ability to react in traffic and respond to obstacles is decreased as a function of the rider's cognition rather than bike style
It is also noticeable that the research admits that "Statistics Netherlands does not go into the causes of the crashes", so we have no actual idea of what caused these deaths.
There is absolutely no hard evidence that E-Bikes are the issue, it is purely conjecture.
Please cite your source of doubling of over 65s cycling?
fact is you're guessing and the numbers do not add up to make your point valid in any way.
As one gets older the easily available speed of an assisted bike means this increases the situations when you unable to react/brake roperly - if you can have on tap a speed that is 50% faster than you can cycle you're less likely to be able to adapt immediately or indeed be able to work out the speed/distance/time problem when braking and reacting to unfolding scenarios.
So yes it is the type of bike, because the bike enables faster speeds than normal by its very design and indeed is part of the selling point of e-bikes. Human beings are humans in their thinking, even one member here talks about the fun side of going faster on an e-bike, everyone is affected, you can't help it though some have more control than others.
If as you say cycling in the over 65s has doubled that a massively significant number in a country where over 65s already cycle a lot, that would be removing a heck of a lot of motoring, so why is the under 65 age groups with low rate buying e-bike having fewer deaths and the over 65s having a massive spike that is on the same factor as uptake? That doesn't stack up in any case because fewer motors and those over 65s are actually per mile travelled more dangerous in terms of reactions when coming across people on bikes, safety in numbers etc. When you have circa 60 deaths where segregated crosses a road then reducing the over 65s out of motors should see more improvements in cycling deaths because you've removed a significant proportion of motorists.
Sorry but it doesn't add up with your explanation, there's only one that does and that's the huge increase in e-bike use.
That came across wrong....
There is a massive increase in sales, and all the articles and references state this is being driven by the over 65s. However there are no actual breakdowns of the figures.
What I was saying is that there was an increase in accidents, but did that match the increase in sales?
If the number had doubled and accidents had doubled - sorted.
The reason that the over 65s is important is that they were the most vulnerable group already that has an inordinately high accident rate, so an increase in their numbers (605 of fatalities, yet 3% of total distance cycled)
In order to justify the claims that e-bikes are the major catastrophic disaster one needs to sort out the confounding factors.
For instance, is it appropriate to give lessons to e-bike users only when the whole age group is at risk.