"Dangerous States" Where Insurance Companies Hope to Sell You Coverage

Hope to sell you policies and make bigger profits.

Insurance Business America, on online publication, has an article, "The Most Dangerous States for Cyclists" - it's a little strange to read.

Florida is the most hostile state for bicyclists, with 6.56 cyclist fatalities per million people in 2011, according to data from the US Department of Transportation. Louisiana and Oregon follow close behind, with 3.93 and 3.87 deaths per million.

This publication is arguing for special bicycling insurance policies - "For cyclists in these states, certain insurance policies are vital." They even get the League of American Bicyclists to provide an endorsement: ""Claims against any of your existing policies may result in an increase in premiums," said Scott Williams, membership director for the League. "But filing bike-related claims under a bike-specific policy may protect you from rate increases—and provide additional, supplemental coverage." Plus the national authority on bike law, Bob Mionske - "And cyclist insurance isn’t just for people who bicycle professionally, says bicycle attorney Robert Mionske. Producers would do well to recommend cyclist insurance to all clients who regularly ride a bike and don’t have proper coverage elsewhere."

Comprehensive cycling policies are only $250 to $300 a year for most riders, this article says, and concludes that, "there is a "big movement" in the insurance industry for bicycle coverage, which may pay off handsomely for producers in at-risk states." Yay, more profits for insurance companies!!

Probably it is better if people outside of an industry don't read these sorts of things.


Bicycle insurance was around before there were cars, as a matter of fact

Ad from the Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 15 Oct. 1895.

Russian Boy Madly Cycling, 1977

On my Flickr account where I keep images of cycling from various public domain sources I also have been uploading digitized photos from when I was in Russia, in Leningrad mostly, in the 1970s.

I only seem to have a few that involve bicycles, and all are of children on bikes.


Taken when I was living in then-Leningrad in spring, 1977

This little boy probably wasn't happy that I was taking his picture, so perhaps that explains his rush. This generation of urban Russians probably included many who didn't learn how to ride a bicycle - Russia is a much smaller market for purchase of bicycles than the U.S., even today - something like 4 million bicycles sold in 2012 versus close to 19 million in the U.S. (including kids' bikes). While at first glance it looks like a reasonable little bike, it is actually rather sad - I don't think those can be inflatable tires but are rather solid rubber (or something) so it would be a fairly rough ride. Everything about it looks under-built. On the plus side, it cannot have been particularly heavy, which is the downfall of most modern kids' cheap bikes - overbuilt of cheap heavy metal so that a kid's bike weighs as much as an adult's bike


For Lenin's birthday, Soviets would do a public spring cleaning on one weekend in April

This photo, also taken in 1977, shows two children with what appears to be better bicycles - small wheels but with inflatable tires, at least. (The second one is towards the middle and facing away from the camera.) So perhaps for some "upper middle class Soviet urban folks" (or whatever one would describe them as) of that period, having a bicycle for one's (usually only) child was not unusual.

Arlington (VA) Survey of Area Cyclists

This short article summarizes a study of Arlington cyclists.

Here are the survey results. The survey results include information gathered in 2009 and 2011. Apparently they stopped riders on the trail to administer the survey.

The point of the survey, besides understanding who bikes in Arlington and why, was to assess the BikeArlington program.

BikeArlington scored high satisfaction ratings in the survey. 79% of respondents reporting they were satisfied with the service, and more than half (54%) of BikeArlington users have already recommended the program to someone else. Most importantly, almost half of those who used BikeArlington services reported making a change in their biking behavior!!

I confess I don't think of BikeArlington as a service and other than providing rider instruction and managing the bike trail system and bike lanes, I don't know what they do, in the sense of being able to "recommend the program to someone else." And making a "change in their biking behavior. . . ?" Hm.