Every once in a while these articles come out ranking the “Most Dangerous Cities” for cycling or walking … Here’s the latest…
No 1 WORST for WALKING? From this article that title goes to…Ta Da… Albuquerque, NM, based on 9.24 fatalities per 100,000 people.
The rest of the list is a bit surprising… After Albuquerque there is Memphis, Baton Rouge, Miami and Lexington, KY?
The “rate” of fatal crashes is what they look at, not the total number. For total numbers, Florida leads the league… by a LOT – and has for many years. There are still Florida cities within The Most Dangerous – Miami is no. 4 on the walking list… Lexington is there because it had 49 car crash fatalities, which is not a big number, but 22 of those were pedestrians! Lexington’s fatality rate for pedestrians is 3x the national average
In Ohio, Cincinnati was the “worst” as it ranked 37th nationally with a rate of 3.55 deaths per 100,000 people. Next was Cleveland at 3.27 and then Columbus at 2.65. Nationally, the US Rate 2.21 deaths per 100,000 people so all 3 Ohio cities were worse than the national average!
The article also looks at Cycling Fatalities and ranks US cities. For cycling the article says the 5 Worst are:
5. Tucson
4. Sacramento
3. Tampa
2. New Orleans
1. Stockton, CA
Other FL cities ranking poorly are Orlando [7] and St. Petersburg [9]
In Ohio:
Cincinnati was rated 37th for Pedestrian Risk and 81st for Cyclist Risk
Cleveland was 45th for Pedestrian Risk and 81st for Cyclist Risk
Columbus was 58th for Pedestrian Risk and 52nd for Cyclist Risk
The “81st” ranking is a little misleading as there was a 19-way tie for 81st because 19 of the top 100 cities had ZERO cycling deaths, including Cincinnati and Cleveland. Columbus had a rate of 0.33 deaths per 100,000, slightly BELOW the national rate of 0.35.
Ranking cities for cyclist risk is tough because very few cities have more than 1 or 2 cyclist fatalities and if a city DOES have a bad year and has 1 or 2 its “score” can change dramatically… Here, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus all typically have 0 or 1 or 2 fatal cycling crashes each year. Trying to “rank” cities based on relatively small numbers can means that 1 or 2 bits of data can skew the results dramatically. To me, it’s better to look at regions, or states when comparing these numbers.\
Ohio is the 7th largest state – people forget how big Ohio is because we don’t have an NYC or LA with millions and millions of people but we have several metropolitan areas that are fairly large – Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo Dayton, etc… Ohio has 11.8 million people and millions of regular cyclists who use roads, paths, sidewalks every day.
CA has almost 40M people.
TX – 31.9M
FL – 23.8M
NY – 20M
PA.- 13.1M
IL – 12.7M
OH – 11.9 M
GA – 11.2M
NC – 10.7M
MI – 10.0M
When you compare Ohio’s safety record to other big states we always fare pretty well. In July 2025 NHTSA released some data from 2023. They revealed a VERY large number of cyclist fatalities in the US – 1,166 – which was 2.9% of ALL traffic deaths.
Almost 50,000 cyclists were injured in traffic crashes in the US.
This data confirms the continuation of a very lousy trend UPWARD in the number of cycling [and pedestrian] fatalities since the 2008-2009 time frame. Prior to that cycling deaths had dropped dramatically each DECADE since the 70s. Since then…up up UP
NOTE how the chart of annual BICYCLIST fatalities mirrors teh chart of annual PEDESTRIAN fatalities at the top of the page. That is no accident – deaths of the most VULNERABLE road users has been on the rise – dramatically- with motorcyclists also in that group.
The “rate” of fatal crashes – i.e., Number of Fatal/100KPopulation – is a measure NHTSA looks at to compare “safety” in states/cities. Nationally, the “rate” of fatal crashes was 0.35 per 100,000, or 3.5 cyclists killed per million people. So if a city/state has 1M people you would expect 3-4 cycling fatalities if the area was on par with the national average. When looking at these “rates” the lower the number the “safer”/better for cycling…
For the top 10 largest states the rates of fatal cycling crashes for each state are:
CA – 0.37
FL – 1.03
NY – 0.25
PA – 0.22
IL – 0.33
OH – 0.19
GA – 0.22
NC – 0.42
MI – 0.24
Not only was Ohio’s rate of Fatal Cycling Crashes WELL below the average at 0.19, but Ohio has the LOWEST rate of the Top 10 largest states in the US! This was true even though Ohio had what was historically a very BAD year for Ohio in 2023 with 22 fatalities… usually we have 15-20! So our rate of fatal crashes is usually LOWER/BETTER than this…
And WHAT is going on in Florida? As I said, Florida leads the league in DANGER for all vulnerable road users. Florida’s population is roughly 2x that of Ohio. When ranking states by AREA, Florida is the 22nd largest state with almost 66,000 square miles of land. Ohio is 34th with almost 45,000 square miles. When ranking states by miles of ROADS, Florida is 7th with 275,000+ miles. Ohio is 9th with 262,000 miles.
But when it comes to KILLING PEOPLE on the Roads… Florida is way off the charts! The rate of fatal bike crashes is more than FIVE TIMES HIGHER in Florida [1.03] than in Ohio [0.19]. That makes no sense. People in CARS are KILLING people who are NOT in cars at ridiculous levels in Florida.
Part of that MIGHT be attributed to “weather” – maybe? Florida’s weather is more conducive to folks riding bikes, or walking, or motorcycling outside for more days of the year than, say, Ohio? Part of that MIGHT be attributed to Florida being home to more older drivers?
I think a better answer revolves around Florida’s “plan” for roads, which appears to have been to make them long and straight and wide and fast. SPEED KILLS people. Speed Kills. And Florida’s roads are set up for SPEED. If you are driving under 40mph on most FL roads you’ll get run off the road by NASCAR-wannabe pick up drivers all day long!
While there seems to be a lot of Gloom and Doom in this post, remember this… When I speak to groups about cycling, Bike Law, and safety I start with this point – CYCLING IS SAFE – in general millions of people go out, take a bike ride, have fun and come home safely every single day… every once in a great while something bad happens… the world I live/work in involves dealing with those tragedies but I find it helpful to remember that these are the shipwrecks, the plane crashes, which tend to get a lot more attention than the fact that ships rarely wreck and planes rarely crash…
Stay Safe!
[also…if you get this reference, you’re probably due for another colonoscopy…]
Tags: bicycle, city, crash, data, fatal, injury, insurance, municipal liability, statistics
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