People participate in the traffic-free Summer Streets program in New York City. Lev Radin/Getty Images
When it comes to cyclists sharing road space with cars and trucks, certain locations are more dangerous than others.
Tucson, Ariz.; Detroit, Michigan; and Jacksonville, Florida were the deadliest major cities for cyclists in 2020.
Florida, Louisiana and Arizona were the deadliest states when it came to motor vehicle accidents involving cyclists.
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American roads have become increasingly dangerous for cyclists and others who use pedals.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the United States, many turned to bicycles for safer transportation and recreation, sparking a bicycle boom in the United States. In the spring of 2020, bike shops across the country faced increasing demand and the country struggled with a nationwide bike shortage.
But while motor vehicle traffic plummeted in 2020 as the pandemic froze many trips, accident fatalities of all types increased 6.8% from 2019 to 2020, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
In 2020, 938 people who rode bicycles and other two-wheeled, pedal-powered non-motorized vehicles, or tricycles and unicycles (referred to by NHTSA as pedal cyclists) were killed in motor vehicle accidents — 9% more than the 2019 figure, the NHTSA reported. According to the National Safety Council, several hundred other cyclists have been killed in non-traffic accidents.
But certain cities and states tend to be particularly cyclist-unfriendly. Tucson, Arizona, was the deadliest major city for bicyclists, with 1.26 deaths per 100,000 people, according to NHTSA data on U.S. cities with more than 500,000 residents. Detroit, Michigan was the second-deadliest with 1.2 deaths per 100,000 people and Jacksonville, Florida, third with 1.09 deaths per 100,000.
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The safest major cities for bicyclists and other types of cyclists were Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta, GA; El Paso, Texas; and Denver, Colorado, where no cyclists died in car crashes in 2020.
At the state level, Florida and Louisiana had 0.78 respectively in 2020, according to NHTSA, Arizona, Michigan and New Mexico were the next deadliest states for cyclists.
The story goes on
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In 2020, no cyclists died in motor vehicle accidents in Montana and South Dakota, and Nebraska and Virginia had the second-lowest death rates among US states.
A cyclist rides along Lake Michigan’s Port of Montrose with the Chicago skyline in the background on October 14, 2022.Beata Zawrzel/Getty Images
The vast majority of cyclist fatalities — 79% — occur in urban areas, according to a data sheet from NHTSA. And the percentage of cyclist deaths is higher during the summer months, according to NHTSA. Over the past decade, the percentage of cyclists killed by motor vehicles has increased slightly, from 2.1% in 2011 to 2.4% in 2020.
There are a number of ways to measure how hospitable an area is to cyclists. The League of American Bicyclists, a national advocacy group, ranks US states for their friendliness to bikers based on a number of factors including infrastructure, funding, education, traffic laws and practices, policies, and planning. The league ranks Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington as the best states for cycling, and Wyoming, Nebraska, and Mississippi as the worst.
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