Bicycles more dangerous than terrorism?

back to the OP

what the article fails to do is make clear that its actually about peoples misapprehension of risk

that more people die whilst cycling than as a result of terrorist action is clearly true

however more of the public will be concerned about themselves being killed in an act of terrorism than in a cycling accident

to compare these simplistic numbers is an oversight as they do not actually convey any sense of the relative risk - however there is no method to actually quantify the risk

the paper pertaining to relative risk has then been used as the basis for a lazy article stating that bicycles are more dangerous than terrorism

clearly there is an error here in the simplistic comparison, bicycles are an object, terrorism is a social movement

if you compared the numbers of people killed per bike and then the numbers of people killed per terrorist activity you would have a very different headline!

well said james
Exactly the article here is to blame the guy who wrote the paper is purely looking at peoples perception of risk. The journalist just skewed his argument into a story about cycling v's terrorism