Nice to see the Herald highlight recent research by Auckland University on the fact that playing a game of rugby is about 35 times as dangerous as riding to same game (and back, for an hour’s journey each…)
That reminds me of an older blog where we highlighted the ACC’s results showing that there’s more injury claims from cricket than from cycling (based on average ACC costs per person/year engaged in these activities – which of course is a bit of a rougher metric than the Auckland Uni research).
And of course, cycling is a massive life-saver on its own, actively extending your life expectancy and reducing premature deaths – as other research also from Auckland Uni has shown.
Cycling is as close as we come to a golden bullet for our cities and for our health issues.
Of course that doesn’t mean that being overtaken by a truck at half a metre distance is safe or feels particularly safe. Emotion and perception plays a big role in choosing whether to cycle or not – so even though people cycling are much safer than most think, we need to create more urban cycleways with protected lanes.
Support this by signing the Gen Zero petition that CAA / Auckland Transport Blog / Gen Zero will present to AT later this month!
