Tennessee Bicycle Crashes Over the Years

 Another cyclist fatality  in Tennessee reminds us of the constant need for vigilance while riding on public roads. I am a member of the Bike Walk Tennessee Legislative Committee and part of our focus is to make biking safer in Tennessee. My view is that has more to do with motorists than cyclists but that’s a discussion for another day. I spend a lot of my time on my day job dealing with numbers so I decided to look at crash data from the Department of Safety and Homeland Security for “pedalcyclists” (the official designation). This is information provided to the state by local police agencies so I have to wonder about the quality and completeness but it is official. One thing that stood out is the tremendous variation from year to year and that’s what made me wonder about the data. This is for 1996 to 2010 although the 2010 numbers are not finalized and may be artificially low. I was promised that it’s being updated.  

  

  

There is an apparent downward trend especially from mid-decade.

	Average	Change	Percent
1996 to 2000	465
2001 to 2004	499	34	7.4%
2005 to 2009	404	-95	-19.0%

The high was 593 in 2004 and the low (prior to 2010) was 345 in 2005 an extremely large year to year change. The average for the entire period was 445 per year. Almost 60 percent of all crashes are in the four urban counties of Tennessee.

Cyclist Fatalities in Tennessee

The number of bicycle fatalities in Tennessee is actually quite low averaging 6 a year since 2003.

Year	Pedalcyclists
2003	4
2004	4
2005	7
2006	7
2007	6
2008	7
2009	9
2010	4
2011	5
2012	8
Total	61
Average	6.1

I suppose we can be glad the numbers are relatively small but one death is too many. The average number of pedestrian deaths from 2009 to 2012 was 79. While it is a somewhat grisly thought as more people ride and we ride more miles the opportunity for crashes and fatalities will increase.  All the more reason to continue pushing for increased law enforcement, safety education and awareness by bicyclists, pedestrians and especially motorists.