Introduction

John S. Allen

In December, 1993,  I received a letter from the League of American Wheelmen[1] asking me to review a draft copy of a report of reseach on bicycling in preparation by the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The League was concerned about some of the conclusions the report had reached, and asked for comments from people who knew the research literature.

Careful reading of the draft version of the CPSC report revealed that serious flaws in data collection and interpretation rendered some of its conclusions unsupportable. Despite the League's discussing these problems with the authors of the report, the final version, Bicycle Use and Hazard Patterns in the United States[2], was published with few changes.

In response to the published version, I prepared a critique, which was published in Bicycle Forum magazine[3]. I republish that critique here. I have also republished a response from Gregory Rodgers of the CPSC[4] and my further comments[5], both of which were also published in Bicycle Forum. Where I accepted Dr. Rodgers's criticisms, I have made changes in my article rather than to include our full discussion of them. I also include a new summary.

John Forester has written another critique[6], which I recommend and which is republished here. The CPSC study itself is available online at the CPSC's Web site. I have provided a link to it in my table of contents.

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Footnotes

1) Jones, Susie (1993). Letter to John S. Allen of December 28, 1993.

2) Rodgers, Gregory, et al (1993). Bicycle Use and Hazard Patterns. U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commision, Washington, D.C.

3) Allen, John S. (1995), "An Analysis of Bicycle Use and Hazard Patterns". Bicycle Forum, no. 37.

4) Rodgers, Gregory (1995), "The CPSC Study of Bike Use and Hazard Patterns: Goals, Methodology and Response to Criticisms." Bicycle Forum, no. 38.

5) Allen, John S.(1996), "An Analysis of Bicycle Use and Hazard Patterns". Bicycle Forum, no. 41.

6) Critique by John Forester (1995).