So, you haven't gotten killed yet!?

I hear it all the time, "So, you haven't gotten killed yet", as though my route to work takes me through Mogadishu. It is quite amazing how skewed peoples ideas about cycle vs motorist safety is.

The thing that bugs me about the Gulf News article from the previous post is that so many of the people interviewed wanted to cycle, but haven’t given it a try because they feel it is unsafe at the moment. It is completely possible for all of these people to cycle, there is absolutely nothing stopping them besides fear. Granted, if someone isn’t already a competent cyclist, riding here could be unnerving. But I would argue that in terms of safety, riding on surface streets here is no more or perhaps even less dangerous than driving on the highways, and many people (even if they are slightly wary) have no trouble driving down Sheik Zayed Road despite this happening quite frequently:

Bicycles rarely burst into flames

A quick search for local accident statistics reveals that there were 1056 motorist deaths in 2007 in the UAE out of 6,813 accidents. With an estimated 2007 population of 4.4 million that means you had a 1 in 645 chance of getting in an accident and a 1 in 4,200 of dying as a motorist, and that assumes everyone who lives in the UAE drives (which is clearly not the case if you’ve ever been over to Deira you know what I mean). In fact, there is a handy modal split pie chart in the RTA’s Pedestrian and Cyclist Design Manual (A copy of which I obtained from my crack team of super secret operatives):

As you can see, in 2006 a mere 36% of the population drove, with another 12% hopping a ride with the drivers, and 3% going via taxi, which added up is only 51%. Heck, even add in the non-public buses at 24% (I don’t think public buses have a very high accident rate and generally don’t use highways) and you have about 75% of the population on the road in a vehicle. That changes your chances to 1 in 484 of having a collision, and 1 in 3,125 of dying.

It is harder to say how many people currently use the bicycle as their main means of transport. The BMP undertook an evening bicycle census at 20 locations throughout the city and counted 3,500 cyclists. Let’s compare this with a similar survey in NYC recently which counted 22,700 cyclists over a 12 hour period. Note that Dubai counted 3,500 cyclists in a short evening period, whereas NYC’s count was for 12 hours (7AM to 7PM). So apparently, per capita (NYC has roughly 8.1 million residents, compared with Dubai’s 1.5 million residents), Dubai has a higher percentage of cyclists than NYC! (though the demographics are decidedly different; I have yet to see a hipster on a fixie here, but I am sure it will come). We do know that cyclists as a mode share in NYC

We do know that cyclists as a mode share in NYC run around 2% of the population. From comparing cyclist counts we see that the two cities aren’t too dissimilar, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that 2% (and perhaps up to 6% according to the chart above) of the population of Dubai uses a bike as their main mode of transport. Therefore we can guess the number of cyclists in town to be around 30,000 to 90,000.

In terms of bicycle safety, the BMP states there were 70 to 83 reported collisions per year. That means, even if you take the lower cyclist population estimate (which I think is a bit low) there is a 1 in 428 chance of being involved in a collision. It isn’t stated what percentage of these collisions were fatal – so I’ll compare it with the vehicle accident statistics – at 1 in 484, you are pretty much statistically more or less as safe as in your car.

Note, accidents are rarely accidental; be it careless driving, speeding, recklessness, or pure stupidity (which isn’t confined to motorists). Case in point, the BMP cyclist counts noted a whopping 50% of cyclists riding against traffic which massively increases the risk of collisions at driveways and intersections. They also note that 2/3 of collisions occurred during the evening, which seems quite plausible given the number of my subcontinent homies I have seen sporting lights (zero) on their Atlas Goldline Super Extra Export Quality bikes as they ride the wrong way down the street sans helmet.

OK, so, lots of statistics, what does it all mean? From my perspective it means the perception of a complete lack of safety is overblown. Dubai has a fairly robust number of cyclists, who despite riding without lights or much sense seem to manage to not get into accidents any more than their crazy vehicular neighbours. So, if one were to say, wear lights when riding at night, ride on the right side of the road, signal when changing lanes and wear a helmet, their chances of survival seem fairly high – in fact perhaps higher than if they were to drive down Sheik Zayad road to work every day.

I am not lost on the actual (rather than perceived) safety issues with riding in Dubai. They include, but are by no means limited to: fast wide roads with no shoulders, huge round-abouts with traffic exiting from three lanes over, right hand turn lanes and their impatient overtaking right hand turning drivers, random construction barriers, massive high speed on-off ramps at highway crossings, lack of clear routes around huge highways, and of course the ubiquitous clueless driver (with an oversized engine).

However, having ridden quite extensively in several big cities, including: New York, LA, San Francisco, London, and Paris, I can say rather authoritatively that (other than the design of the infrastructure), the problems and risks of cycling are not that much different here than anywhere else.

There are quite a few cyclists from all walks of life in those cities, but it wasn’t always that way. Last Sunday’s NY Times had an interesting article about cycling in NYC now vs then.


While I don’t agree with everything Mister Sullivan says (and the headline doesn't exactly help out cycling much), the jist is – at one point, not so many people were cycling – it was considered dangerous and whacky, and slowly that has changed. This has not come about solely due to the striping of bike lanes, but through a slow concerted effort (still very much ongoing) to change the perception of cycling in the city.

Hopefully the same thing will happen here. Though, this being Dubai it will most likely come about in a different manner. If the RTA decides to implement the BMP, Dubai would easily outstrip NY in miles of bike routes within a manner of years. But if you build it, will they come?