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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Hinterthuer. Got a minute?

There's a new prescription¹ for communities that want to make their streets safer for bike riders: just add more bikes. A team of international researchers looked at cities from Australia to Denmark to California, and found that more riders meant fewer run-ins with cars. The researchers presented their findings to a cycling safety seminar on September 5 in Sydney, Australia.

What's surprising, the researchers say, is that biker safety doesn't seem to correspond to a city's efforts to cut down on accidents. Run-ins between bikes and cars had little to do with miles of bike lanes or lower speed limits. But if the number of bike riders in a city doubled, the rate of bike-car accidents dropped by a third.

Apparently², motorists learn to share the road better when they have to deal with more bikes on their daily commute³. Also, more cyclists means more drivers who also bike, which makes them better aware of fellow bikers. The researchers call it a virtuous⁴ cycle—run-ins with cars drop with more bikes on the road. And safer cycling means more people strap⁵ on a helmet and join the revolution.

 Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Hinterthuer .