The LBI Incident
A Connecticut man was injured while riding a bicycle on Long Beach Island when he collided with a car, police said.
The 49-year-old man from West Hartford, Connecticut, whose name was not released, was biking south on Central Avenue in Barnegat Light when a car traveling the opposite direction attempted to turn into a gas station, police said.
The bike struck the passenger side of the car near 18th Street, Lt. Chuck Schnell of the Long Beach Township Police Department said in a statement.
The man was flown by helicopter to a hospital, though no further information about his injuries was available, Schnell said.
Horrific Statistics
Just in 2014, 4,884 pedestrians and 726 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles. There were more than 50k injuries for the bicyclist as well. As there isn’t any more relevant data for 2015 and 2016, we are sure that this number is higher.
Bicycling is dangerous as just under two people every day of the year in the U.S. This is a slight decline from 2013, when 749 were killed - the highest number of fatalities since 2006, when 772 were killed, and a major increase from from the 682 bicyclist fatalities reported in 2011.
These numbers represent just over two percent of the total number of people killed and injured in traffic crashes in 2014.
The number of estimated bicyclist injuries climbed to 50,000 in 2014, up from 48,000 in 2013. Injuries have hovered around 50,000 in recent years with 52,000 injuries in 2008, 51,000 in 2009, and 52,000 again in 2010, 48,000 in 2011, and 49,000 in 2012. However, these figures have not always been so steady. Injuries totaled 68,000 in 1993 and slowly fell to 41,000 in 2003, only to rise again. Like walking injury figures, research into hospital records shows that only a fraction of bicycle crashes causing injury are ever recorded by the police, possibly as low as ten percent.
Thoughts?
Is Long Beach Island safe for the cyclists? Are they responsible for the accidents with driving irresponsibly or is it vice versa? Let us know your past experiences and your thoughts in the comments below.
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