As more and more people dust off their bikes and take to the streets, it’s become common to roll up to an intersection and find a bunch of people on bikes already there.

Last week I rode my bike from my apartment in Brooklyn to my office in Midtown Manhattan during the morning rush hour and found myself almost constantly surrounded by other bicyclists.

Normally I have to dodge speeding truck drivers and garbage trucks while negotiating an endless series of gaping potholes created by the crush of trucks. But my mini mass escort kept the truck drivers at bay and it was smooth sailing all the way.

I wasn't just imagining this safety in numbers feeling. Research has shown that doubling the number of cyclists on the road tends to bring about a one- third drop in the per-cyclist frequency of a crash with a motor vehicle, and tripling the rate of cycling cuts the crash rate in half.