Take the Netherlands and the UK as examples where the figures for the above are the same. It is obvious to anyone making a practical comparison that cycling appears to be (and objectively is) very much safer in the Netherlands than in the UK and consequently cycling is vastly more popular in the Netherlands.

But Dutch people are ‘consuming’ the greater safety for cyclists inherent in Dutch traffic systems by cycling so much more that KSI casualty rates per 100k population end up being similar to that in the UK. Many similar disparities in actual and perceived safety will be concealed in the population based figures.

Given your earlier posting about your belief (see note below) that lots of horsepower plus quick acceleration consumes less fuel that slower acceleration, I’m starting to believe that you’re on a mission to establish that your preferred style of driving is best in terms of safety and fuel economy.

You did read the part of the posting that said:

Research suggests that pedestrians struck at 30 mph have about a 1 in 5 chance of being killed. At 20 mph the chance of a pedestrian dying is 1 in 40.

And you really believe that a speed bump is as distracting as talking on a cell phone?

Note: you actually didn’t state it as a belief but as a fact.

Kind of like the “Speed Kills” BS we feed the public. Sure, it’s probably true in residential streets with high population density one lane of traffic and lots of curves and turns. But really we should be looking at how many passenger miles are traveled various speeds.

It will become apparent then that, except for certain types of roads, Slow Kills.

And so probably does much traffic calming, consindering the mechanisms to slow people down is usually to scare or distract people. Slowing people down by using up their mental bandwith. Like the the pothole “traffic calming”. It’s like trying to improve safety by getting people to talk on the phone while driving, since they’ll drive slower.