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How Safe Is Cycling?
theodp writes "With new bike sharing programs all the rage, spending tens of millions of dollars to make city streets more bike friendly with hundreds of miles of bike lanes has become a priority for bike-loving mayors like NYC's Michael Bloomberg and Chicago's Rahm Emanuel. 'You cannot be for a startup, high-tech economy and not be pro-bike,' claimed Emanuel, who credited bike-sharing and bike lanes for attracting Google and Motorola Mobility to downtown Chicago. Now, with huge bike-sharing contracts awarded and programs underway, the NY Times asks the big question, How Safe Is Cycling? Because bike accidents rarely make front page news and are likely to be dramatically underreported, it's hard to say, concludes the NYT's Gina Kolata. UCSF trauma surgeon Dr. Rochelle Dicker, who studied hospital and police records for 2,504 bicyclists treated at San Francisco General Hospital, told Kolata,'Lots of my colleagues do not want to ride after seeing these [city biking] injuries.' On the other hand, Andy Pruitt, the founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and an avid lifelong cyclist, said the dangers were overstated, noting he's only broken his collarbone twice and hip once in four decades of long-distance cycling. So, is cycling safe, especially in the city? And is it OK to follow Mayor Emanuel's lead and lose the helmet?"
he's only broken his collarbone twice and hip once
Only? That sounds like proof of concept rather than a proof of overstatement.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
The best way to make cycling in major cities safer would be to
1) require a drivers license to cycle on city streets
2) require cyclists to obey all traffic laws (this is already true in many jurisdictions)
3) disallow cyclists (and motorcycles) from weaving between lanes to move ahead in traffic. Require them to use lanes in the same manner as other vehicles (you don't see 2 smart cars trying to share one lane of traffic)
4) enforce #1, #2 and #3 as aggressivley with cyclists as with automobiles, with the same penalties
I have seen more pedestrians run down (or nearly run down) by cyclists running red lights, weaving in and out of slow moving traffic, transitioning from using the streets to using pedestrian crosswalks to thwart lights or make lefts from a right hand lane across traffic. I cannot count the number of times I've seen aggressive cyclists in New York and Chicago weave through cars, use the wrong side of the road (!!!), etc. and then get upset when someone nearly knocks them over because they weren't seen being where they didn't belong.
If you require a level of competence (driver's license), require all vehicles using the roads to abide by the same laws (and enforce equally, with equal consequences), you'd go a long way toward improving cycling safety.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Given the speed and travelled distance difference between cars and bicycles maybe per-hour accidents would be a better metric.
Thumbs up for separating bikes from everything else, cars and pedestrians. Bike lanes on sidewalks in city centers are slow and dangerous because of pedestrians. I always prefer to share the road with cars: they're more predictable and I get home sooner.
I'm cool with bicycles except in the mornings when everyone is trying to get to work....you're passing someone, and BANG, you have to hit the brakes when you see a damned bike in the road with heavy traffic slowing shit down, when you're trying to make it to work.
I've likely almost killed a few idiots that I almost didn't see, especially in areas where the sun glare hits you in the early morning or late afternoon.
I know bikes "technically" have the same right to be on the road as cars, but let's be realistic in this day in age....there are times when it is NOT safe to be on a bike on a public road without a specific bike lane that is out of the main traffic lanes.
I like to ride a bike for exercise, but I'd damned sure not be out on the road during rush out without a being on a motorized vehicle.
You mean it's not safe to be on the road with YOU.
Waaah waaah waaaah. YOU need to get to work, so the cyclist is supposed to get out of YOUR way?
Seems like YOU are the problem.
I'm cool with bicycles except in the mornings when everyone is trying to get to work....you're passing someone, and BANG, you have to hit the brakes when you see a damned bike in the road with heavy traffic slowing shit down, when you're trying to make it to work.
What a coincidence, I'm cool with cars except when I'm trying to bike to work. I'm biking along a road, staying as far to the right as I safely can (avoiding broken road edges, parked car doors, etc), and suddenly *BANG*, I've got a car driving 2 feet behind me. Cars have their place and all, but I'm just trying to get to work, can't the car drivers leave earlier or later in the day?
I've likely almost killed a few idiots that I almost didn't see, especially in areas where the sun glare hits you in the early morning or late afternoon.
Perhaps you're driving too fast for conditions if you've "almost killed a few". Speed limits are *maximums", driving below the speed limit when conditions warrant it is always legal. Another option would be to pull off the road and wait until conditions improve to the point where you can see safely - a good rule of thumb is that if you can't see a human shaped object on the road, then you can't see well enough to drive.
I know bikes "technically" have the same right to be on the road as cars, but let's be realistic in this day in age....there are times when it is NOT safe to be on a bike on a public road without a specific bike lane that is out of the main traffic lanes.
You can take "technically" out of that sentence - bikes have the same right to the roads as cars do (except in certain specific situations). Trust me, cyclists would like more bike lanes too, but car drivers whine about loss of lanes and/or parking everytime one is contemplated.
I like to ride a bike for exercise, but I'd damned sure not be out on the road during rush out without a being on a motorized vehicle.
Bikes aren't just for exercise - try commuting on one.
I'm driving at a speed that is safe for the automobile traffic around me....most of us are.
That appears to be a problem with your driving. You don't drive at a speed that's safe for the automobile traffic around you, you drive at a speed that's safe for the road you're on, and apparently you're on a road that's frequented by cyclists. If you were on a limited access highway, maybe you could get away with your style of driving, but anywhere else you need to drive at a safe and prudent speed and expect obstacles in the road - bikes, pedestrians, stalled cars, dogs, cows, etc. I once narrowly avoided a refrigerator that was left in the middle of the road after it fell off a truck.
We aren't expecting to have to slow quickly or stop for a slow moving, non-motorized vehicle suddenly appearing in the middle of the road.
I wouldn't lump all drivers in with yourself, not all drivers have such little control of their vehicle they fear running over cyclists.
Face it...the roads are built and meant for motorized vehicles. It is the smaller bicycles that have to be on the lookout and use judgement on when it is save to ride and on what roads.
Actually, many roads were first built because of lobbying by cyclists -- it wasn't until cars came later that bikes were pushed off to the shoulders.
You can go on and on all you want on laws and insurance, etc....but what good is that going to do for you when racked up in the hospital for months, and that's even if you survive a duel with a 3000+ lbs metal vehicle going about 3-4x as fast as you are?
Oh, I understand my mortality when I'm on my bike, and since I know i'm not going to change the laws of physics, I've continued to encourage my legislators to write laws that hold cars more responsible when they are at-fault in collisions with cyclists. If car drivers thought they might face jail time for side swiping a cyclist, or hitting a cyclist "because I didn't see him" or "I was going too fast to stop", then perhaps they'll drive a little more carefully.
Hopefully it's just a temporary problem and self-driving cars will make car-bike collisions much less common.