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Comment by omnicognate | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what the stats are on those bike trailers. I see people using them in traffic and they look plain terrifying: a child dangling out in a flimsy canvas pod behind the cyclists's back, too low for drivers to see when close, surrounded by vehicle wheels... yikes.

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There shouldn't be anything inherently dangerous about them, a car shouldn't be getting that close to the back of a bicycle really. I've seen some that have a tall flag-like thing, I guess that's to help show that there's something behind the bicycle

Shouldn't doesn't mean doesn't. Seems to me that common sense suggests they're pretty dangerous to use in traffic, but I'm not claiming that is actually the case. I'm just wondering what the stats are - the only real way to know.

For context, I live in a major city. I've seen people pulling these things round busy multi-lane roundabouts and the like.

Many people seem really careless with their children on the road. Another example is walking out into a crosswalk with a stroller without looking both ways. Yes, it's my responsibility to slow down. But for god's sake don't assume I'm going to!

Those aren't strollers they are traffic testers.

Agreed...

I was thinking about this other day with my 4 month old. We were looking at four or so houses to purchase with a real estate agent. We were having to load her in and out of her car seat in the car repeatedly which is not fun (she cries when you set her in the thing). One of the houses was 1/2 a mile or so away and it crossed my mind that I could just hold her in the back seat while we coast through a few intersections. I then pictured the outcome of a minor accident and decided that it was worth the additional effort to ensure that my kid wouldn't be ejected.

Everything we do is a risk calculation and some people have decided that the risk is worth the convenience or cost.

I suppose my thought was illegal while toting your child around in a bike trailer isn't so there is that factor too...

Those kid trailers seem very dangerous, I ride my bike in cities all the time (NYC and SF) and get very close to reckless drivers. I have to imagine being a passenger in a bike trailer, in a city, is quite a risk

The most common accident from biking is falling. Much of the danger of falls are removed for a child in a proper bike trailer. With a flag and reflectors helping visibility my intuition tells me that it is much safer for children in trailers. Safer than riding their own bike or with a child seat on the adults bike.

Most people I know who regularly bike in SF (for commuting at least), have been hit by a car in some capacity.

I have no idea why parents use those bike with the kids in the back. Why not just use a car? It's not even like those bikes are particularly cheap. The ones I see sell for thousands of dollars.

It must feel very gratifying to be able to say, "hey, you shouldn't have done that" after a driver crushes your child into a paste. Never rely on what drivers "should" or "shouldn't" do.

As a motorcyclist, I'm well versed in not relying on drivers. SMIDSY all day. My point is that it should be safe; if it isn't, something is wrong with the system.

In Germany many bike trailers have a small brightly colored flag on top, so there's an object in your field of view even if it's very close to your car.

There's a subset of cyclists that don't seem to have fear. Not me though. When I take by kiddo of out I'm very careful with route planning. They're harder to see because they're lower down, but the kid literally can't fall out of it if I take a fall. That, and it effectively has a roll cage.

The stats are that probably hardly anything happens with them. Dying on a bike is extraordinarily rare in the first place. For example in my city of some 4 million, 30 people on bikes die a year which seems like such small odds.

Merely because so few people bike in a commuter/traffic heavy setting.

I decided to go ahead and do some ballpark math. about 2% of my city bikes to work:

36/80,000 = 0.00045

80% drive a car and about 250 die a year:

250/3200000 = 0.000078125

So its not quite a full order of magnitude more dangerous, but either way I'd say your odds are pretty low in either case. Even lower if you choose to bike safely, such as taking less busy residential streets vs commercial arteries or even opting for the sidewalk on those busy arteries, wearing helmets and using lights, using defensive bike strategies like avoiding lefts in favor of utilizing a perpendicular street, not being drunk, etc. I bet out of those 36 deaths in my city, none took place on like a 25mph residential street.

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