Bicyclists and other cyclists include riders of two-wheel non-motorized vehicles, tricycles, and unicycles powered solely by pedals. Throughout the remainder of this fact sheet the term pedal-cyclists will be used to identify these cyclists. The first automobile crash in the United States occurred in New York City in 1896, when a motor vehicle collided with a pedal-cycle rider (Famous First Facts, by Joseph Kane). More than 52,000 pedal-cyclists have died in traffic crashes in the United States since 1932 — the first year in which estimates of pedal-cyclist fatalities were recorded. The 350 pedal-cyclists killed in 1932 accounted for 1.3 percent of the 27,979 persons who died in traffic crashes that year.In 2007, 698 pedal-cyclists were killed and an additional 43,000 were injured in traffic crashes. Pedal-cyclist deaths accounted for 2 percent of all traffic fatalities, and pedal-cyclists made up 2 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes during the year. The number of pedal-cyclist fatalities in 2007 is 14 percent lower than the 814 fatalities reported in 1997. The highest number of pedal-cyclist fatalities ever recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) was 1,003 in 1975. Pedal-cyclists accounted for 13 percent of all nonoccupant traffic fatalities in 2007. (Author/publisher)
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