Drinking and biking can be a deadly combination

"I yelled back," said Miskulin, a 33-year-old St. Francis, Wis., resident. A moment later, Miskulin had a broken collarbone, a scraped arm and a bent back wheel, and the driver had fled.

He is among the lucky ones. Boozing and biking can be a deadly combination.

A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that in 32 percent of bicycling deaths and 16 percent of bike injuries, the cyclists had been drinking.

Among those who were killed, 23 percent had blood alcohol levels of more than 0.1 percent. Among the injured, 13 percent were beyond 0.1 percent, which is the legal limit for intoxication while driving in many states.

Some European studies indicate that bicyclists with more than 0.08 percent alcohol in their blood can expect at least an 80 percent decline in their performance on psychomotor skill tests. A Finnish study found that cyclists with blood alcohol levels of more than 0.1 percent were 10 times more likely to be killed in an accident than sober cyclists.

With the booming popularity of bicycling in the past decade, there has been a greater emphasis on helmet-wearing campaigns and other safety programs.

"But the one thing that has been missing is drinking and biking," said Guohua Li, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins and one of the authors of the study.

In Li's study, the rate of drinking and biking was highest among males between the ages of 20 and 29.

Nationwide, cycling is the leading cause of injuries among all recreational sports. Every year, bicycle accidents result in 580,000 emergency room visits, 20,000 hospitalizations and 900 deaths.

Li estimated that as many as 20 percent of those who drink and ride bicycles have lost their driver's licenses because of drunken-driving convictions.

Even a small amount of alcohol can impair a person's ability to ride a bike. "Bicyclists are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol than drivers," he said.

Li said there also is a strong association between drinking and not wearing a helmet while riding a bike.

In his study, injured cyclists who had been drinking were five times less likely to wear a helmet than riders who were injured but had not been drinking. The study notes that head injuries contribute to between 62 percent and 90 percent of all bicycling deaths.

Li said that even though drinking cyclists are much more likely to get into an accident than sober cyclists, the vast majority of bicyclists do not drink and ride.

As a follow-up to his study, researchers have conducted random roadside surveys and voluntary breath tests of cyclists. Only about 5 percent had alcohol in their blood, Li said.