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by lapetitejort 965 days ago
How much damage can a sociopath do with a 7kg bike with no airbags?
1 comments

1) 7kg is on the featherweight end of the bike scale - that is not representative of most bikes on the road

2) A fair bit when you include the 80kg rider going at 24kph into an unaware pedestrian.

Are we actually going to compare the momentum of a bike in a vacuum? I will give you 20kg for a bike even, because the weight of the bike is so negligible.

100kg * 24km/h = 2400 kgkm/h

vs a car

If we cross-reference this with a list of pedestrian fatalities based on speed [1] Assuming a standard car size of 1000kg.

1000kg * 25kph = 25000 kgkm/h == 10% Risk of severe Injury

1000kg * 37kph = 37000 kgkm/h == 10% Fatality

1000kg * 51kph = 52000 kgkm/h == 25% Fatality

1000kg * 67kph = 67000 kgkm/h == 50% Fatality

1000kg * 80kph = 80000 kgkm/h == 75% Fatality

1000kg * 93kph = 93000 kgkm/h == 90% Fatality

I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but you're looking at momentums that are an order of magnitude smaller than momentums where people are at severe risk of injury with a car. I will choose to get hit by the bicycle every day of the week.

[1] https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve....

2016-2020 Data: https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian...