Safety in numbers is the belief that individuals are more confident when engaging in certain activities as part of a group. This concept applies to animals and humans, including traffic safety. Large groups provide a statistical advantage of safety, while also raising awareness of the presence of individuals. Cycling activist groups encourage cyclists to travel in large groups to raise overall awareness of their presence.
Safety in numbers is the term for the statistical belief that individuals are more confident when engaging in certain activities as part of a group. At first glance, this seems like a common sense prediction. The greater the number of individuals in a group, the lower the probability that an event, good or bad, will happen to a given individual. Research, however, has shown that other factors may be involved in real-life scenarios. The phrase is used by biologists to describe the activity of large groups of animals. A similar concept appears to be at work in human activities such as vehicular traffic.
The concept appears to be one of the reasons why animals congregate in large groups such as herds, flocks or schools. This is confirmed by observation. When a group of animals is being chased by a predator, the predator targets animals that are too old, small, or weak to keep up with the rest of the group. Evolutionary biologists believe this has the effect of eliminating unwanted genes from the group, a process they call survival of the fittest. Statistical scientists see it another way. If a predator attacks a group of 10 animals, each individual animal has a 10% chance of being killed. If the group numbers 100, the individuals have only a 1% chance that the predator will knock them down.
This is an effective survival mechanism, and many species have developed ways to benefit from it. Periodic cicadas, insects that famously emerge in large numbers every 13 to 17 years, are thought to coordinate this behavior to benefit from safety in numbers. Predators will only consume a small percentage of the overall group; the rest of the cicadas will be able to eat, fly and reproduce in peace. Biologists refer to this survival technique as predator satiety. Numerous species of plants and animals practice some form of this technique.
There is evidence that numerical safety applies to traffic safety, especially regarding bicycles and pedestrians. Numerous studies have shown that fewer collisions of motor vehicles with cyclists occur in areas or times where cyclists are present in large numbers. The common explanation is that motorists who see a large group of cyclists or pedestrians will slow down and look at the road more closely, while drivers in general are concerned with other vehicles and not looking for smaller, slower road traffic. This contrasts with the purely statistical advantage of safety in numbers applied by plant and animal species.
Cycling activist groups, aware of this factor, encourage cyclists to travel in large groups whenever possible. Their intent is not simply to play on the safety of numbers, but to raise overall awareness of the presence of cyclists at all times. Motorists who learn to drive carefully near large groups of cyclists are more likely, according to the theory, to drive carefully around individual cyclists. To this end, monthly group cycling events called Critical Mass are held in cities around the world, aimed at raising awareness among cyclists in general.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
