Bike Fatalities Rising Quickly

Lizz Giordano reports: "After hitting an all-time low in 2010, bicycle deaths have risen 12 percent nationwide, the largest increase in two decades and outpacing the overall rise all traffic fatalities, according to a new report by the Governors Highway Safety Association." 

A big change in bike fatality data between 1975, when the report starts its analysis, and 2015, is that adults have become much more likely to die in a bicyclist-vehicle crash.

According to the report, which received funding from State Farm Insurance, in 1975 younger bicyclists accounted for almost 80 percent of fatalities, but in 2015 that number dropped to 11 percent. In 2015, 720 adults were killed bicycling, up from 212 in 1975. After steadily rising over the past four decades, today the average age of a bicyclist killed in traffic is now 45.

Among other data points found in the report, more evidence that separated bike lanes "are up to 89 percent safer than streets with parked cars and no cycling facilities."