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A comment on We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes. Parent comment

Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by fiblye on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @02:59AM (#21331869)
Look up skin cancer rate maps. It’s no joke in Australia. People die and often.

And then you have most populated regions in Asia with 40 degree summers with air so humid that taking a deep breath makes you cough. People still ride bikes, but there are days where it’s deadly to do so for long distance commuting. That’s not including typhoon periods where you’re liable to be whacked with debris and die (because work isn’t canceled for any reason).

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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by jakecopp on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @04:47AM (#21332575)
Cars kill 65% as many people as skin cancer in Australia.

Skin cancer is estimated to kill 1,725 in Australia in 2019 [1].

During 2018 there were 1,135 road deaths [2].

I think we could reduce the number of road deaths far faster than the number of skin cancer deaths would increase.

[1]: https://melanoma.canceraustralia.gov.au/statistics [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by missosoup on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @06:04AM (#21333025)
> Cars kill 65% as many people as skin cancer in Australia.

Which would become closer to 18% if the number of individuals exposed to prolonged sun time doubled (e.g. by promoting Cycling). We literally run public awareness TV campaigns telling people to stay out of direct sunlight as much as possible regardless of what protection they're wearing.

I don't think you realise it but you're proving the point.

Bikes are fine when the weather is favourable, but a lot of the people commenting here just don't grasp the fact that in some parts of the world, unfavourable weather doesn't mean you might sweat a bit, it means that the weather will make you sick and kill you in short order. The same people that dismiss warnings when visiting countries like AU and then leave with their skin peeling off.

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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by fiblye on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @04:59AM (#21332643)
Honestly, that's impressively high. Imagine how much worse it'd be if everyone spent their days walking around in the sun. There'd be more than enough skin cancer to offset the lost road deaths.
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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by kaybe on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @05:28AM (#21332821)
Would shading all (/the majority) of the bike lanes be prohibitively expensive or doable? Encountering a problem should not make us come to a full stop and give up.

edit: Or bicycles with roofs, similar to the car solution?

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