Between 2001 and 2010, 8,281 bicyclists were involved in crashes in eight counties in Southern New Jersey (Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean and Salem). During the same period, 63 cyclists were killed according to new analysis by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

"Cape May County is the most dangerous with a crash rate of 8.42 crashes per 10,000 residents," said Matthew Norris, South Jersey Advocate for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Atlantic and Cumberland counties were close behind.

The data shows that many crashes were clustered to specific roads, with certain roads being the most dangerous in more than one county. "US 30, White Horse Pike and Routes 130 and 47 were particularly troubled areas in terms of crashes," said Norris. "We are calling on the Department of Transportation to make improvements to accomodate bicyclists by adding bike lanes where appropriate or making wider shoulders in rural areas for bikers to use."

"The health benefits of cycling far outweigh the dangers, but more needs to be done to improve safety on roads in South Jersey," said Norris. "We have older infrastructure that was built to accomodate cars-only. We really need to go further and accomodate all road users."

Almost all of the dangerous roads are arterials which typically have two or more lanes in each direction and allow for travel speeds of 40 mph or greater.

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