The Minneapolis-St Paul MN Star Tribune had a brief story this past weekend about newly released city data that supports the notion that more cyclists on the road actually results in fewer bicycle-car collisions.

Recently crunched city data show the reported cyclist-motorist accident rate dropping as the number of bike commuters grows. For 2008, the most recent year for which complete data were available, the crash rate was one-quarter that of 10 years earlier. Moreover, a trend line shows a steady decrease in the crash rate even as the number of commuting cyclists more than doubled.
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Familiarity breeds safety, one city bike advocate believes. “People are so used to seeing bicyclists — love them or hate — and they don’t want to hit them,” said Shaun Murphy, coordinator of the city’s non-motorized transportation program. Murphy said the map of hot spots for bike-car accidents doesn’t show major issues around the University of Minnesota because drivers there are so used to watching for bikes.

Read the entire article at www.startribune.com.