Biking to work is a great way to get a little bit of exercise and enjoy the morning sunshine before spending the day in the office. And, perhaps not surprisingly, according to a new report from the Alliance for Biking and Walking, residents of cities with high percentages of people who bike and walk to work have lower obesity levels, lower blood pressure, and fewer cases of diabetes.

“It’s not surprising to see that we have a correlation between public health and levels of biking and walking,” said the president and CEO of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, Jeffrey Miller. “Still, it’s good to have the data. It’s a very positive thing that we need to highlight.”

Of course, bicyclists who want to get to and from work will need to make sure that they are careful, as bikers around the country get in accidents every day. On Monday, in Rochester, NY, a 59-year-old man was struck by a car as he entered the busy intersection of Magnolia St. and South Plymouth Ave. The bicyclist was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital but the driver did not even receive a ticket.

Interestingly enough, the cities with the largest population of bikers and walkers actually have lower accident rates, according to the study. States “with higher pedestrian commuting rates have lower overall pedestrian fatality rates and vice versa,” the report notes.

For example, San Francisco, Portland, and Washington D.C. have some of the nation’s lowest bicyclist fatality rates at just .9, 1.1, and 1.1 deaths per 10,000 daily commuters, respectively, despite having some of the highest volumes of people who commute on their bike. Conversely, more than 35 in 10,000 daily bike commuters are killed in Detroit and Memphis.

The number of Americans who choose to ride their bike to work has more than doubled since the year 2000. While many are doing so in an effort to improve their overall health, others want to stay away from the gas pump to ease the burden on their wallet or just avoid the hectic nature of rush hour traffic.

Whatever the case may be, if that trend continues, the number of bicycle commuters who get in tragic accidents might decrease all across the country and accidents like the one in Rochester will not have to show up on front pages quite as often.