Important news for cyclists and bike commuters

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Photo by Scott Bridges

​A new study released Monday found that California leads the nation in bicycle-related deaths.

Scott Bridges

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A new study released Monday found that California leads the nation in bicycle-related deaths.

The report from the Governors Highway Safety Assn. showed that 338 cyclists were killed in collisions with motor vehicles between 2010 and 2012. Florida was second in the country, with 329 deaths, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Nationally, cyclist traffic deaths soared from 621 in 2010 to 680 in 2011 to 722 in 2012 -- a 16 percent increase. Motor vehicle fatalities, on the other hand, rose by only 1 percent during this same time period, according to the Times.

Nationwide, bicycle-related deaths comprise 2 percent of deaths on the roads, but that figure rises to more than 4 percent in California (and about 5 percent in Florida). In fact, just six states -- California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Michigan and Texas -- accounted for 54 percent of all cycling traffic fatalities from 2010 through 2012.

The statistics show that adults age 20 and older comprise 84 percent of bicyclist fatalities in 2012. When records began being kept in 1975, that number was 21 percent.

And here's another statistic: two-thirds or more of fatally injured bicyclists were not wearing helmets.

Another contributing factor is booze. In 2012, 28 percent of riders age 16 and older had blood alcohol concentrations of .08 percent or higher, i.e., over the limit.

"What's notable here," Allan Williams of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety told the Times, "is that the percentage of fatally injured bicyclists with high BACs has remained relatively constant since the early 1980s and did not mirror the sharp drop in alcohol-impaired driving that occurred among passenger vehicle drivers in the 1980s and early 1990s."

Scott Bridges has covered the Los Angeles scene for over ten years as a journalist and food critic. Follow him on the Huffington Post