Calif. leads nation in cycling traffic deaths
By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
If you are going to be killed by a car while riding a bicycle, there’s a good chance you are male, older than 20 and living in California or Florida.
That’s the finding of a report issued Monday by the Governors Highway Safety Association that also noted that between 2010 and 2012, U.S. bicyclist deaths increased by 16 percent.
California, with 338 cyclists killed in collisions with motor vehicles, and Florida, with 329, had the highest totals during that period, the report said.
They also had the largest increases in annual cyclist traffic fatalities from 2010 to 2012. Florida’s deaths rose by 37 to 120 in 2012 while cyclist traffic fatalities in California rose by 23 to 123. California had the most bicyclists killed of any state in 2012.
Nationally, cyclist traffic deaths jumped from 621 in 2010 to 680 in 2011 and 722 in 2012. The 16 percent increase was far greater than other motor vehicle fatalities, which rose by just 1 percent during this same time period.