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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?"
Google is your friend, it can show you every last killed and injured biker.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/Bicycles
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811743.pdf
OTOH there are 89 car related deaths each and every day in the US, those too do not make the front page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
It will show you every last *reported* injured biker. That's a very big and important distinction. Equally important is how many of those injuries were on public roads. Whether or not some kid on an off-road course injured himself is of little importance.
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.
Wear a helmet.
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
Unlike Andy Pruitt, I would not consider three broken bones in 40 years to be "safe". I have been cycling for about that long, but no more than a couple thousand miles per year on average, and I have never broken a bone, not cycling, not in any other activity - and my activities include flying (powered and unpowered craft), motorcycles, white water kayaking, and mocking senior management.
It's all the cars that are dangerous
Having seen a number of near-misses in London, no way would I cycle there. The main arteries are simply scary, the minor roads take too long and cross the main ones too frequently. Maybe the Greenway would make sense if both ends of the journey are in its vicinity.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Helmets should be required. for anyone riding in an automobile.
It would save thousands of lives every year.
It isn't. At least, not on roads shared with cars.
Most drivers treat cyclists like pests (and in fairness, I see a lot of cyclists who completely ignore all traffic rules and deserve the reputation).
Where I live, we've had the buses kill cyclists because the bike lane and the bus lane co-exist and the bus drivers don't look.
I gave up on any notion of cycling on the same road as cars 15+ years ago. Unless you have an entire network of bike lanes which are physically separated from the cars (and even those tend to be spotty), I wouldn't consider cycling on city streets to be even remotely safe.
I don't trust most drivers while I'm in a car, being exposed on a bicycle? No way in hell I'd be willing to do that anymore.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Based on personal experience I will say that cycling is dangerous, at least in a city. I used to ride a bike to work and eventually came to the conclusion that I was taking my life in my hands every time I did it. Having cars that close to cyclists, with such a speed and weight difference is asking for trouble, even with bike lanes. I remember bike and scooter lanes in Munich, Germany that shared space with pedestrians on the sidewalk. That seems much safer to me than having the bikes share the street with cars.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This article is written with a very specific kind of bicycling in mind. Note that everyone interviewed for this story was engaged in some kind of recreational or fitness cycling, which is notably more dangerous than cycling for transportation, since it generally involves much higher speeds (which also means biking on less dedicated bicycling infrastructure). It's particularly telling that in the part of the article where the various types of cycling are listed, transportation isn't among them, even though it is, by far, the most common reason for bicycling around the world (and notably the main type being addressed by bike sharing programs and all of the bike safety measures discussed in the Slashdot summary).
The 100+ temps can be dealt with using some amazing first world tech called a shower.. my office building has them on every floor.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Cycling carries its dangers, but cycling (even in a city) is probably less dangerous than not exercising at all.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Where I live (Vancouver, Canada) there's been a multi-year program to install bike lanes throughout the city. It's caused a lot of tension between drivers and cyclists because there's a sense amongst drivers (and pedestrians too, for that matter) that we're spending millions of tax dollars catering to a group who a) don't follow the rules of the road and b) feel that the rules don't apply to them. They ride fixie bikes with no brakes and no bells. They blow through crosswalks, shouting and terrifying grannies. They ride at night dressed in black with no lights and then shout at me when I nearly run them over after they blow through a stop sign. They ride on sidewalks right next to bike lanes - And there's zero enforcement for any of this, and none of the bike advocacy groups seem willing to shame the bad apples.
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
This is really the wrong forum to ask this question. Ask a biker forum - there is a commuting section on Bikeforums.net. Short answer though - it is safe, there are many cyclists who commute every day. You have to take some precautions, and it is good to be aware of the danger points - but that is true of any activity.
First, wearing a helmet is a really smart safety enhancing idea. The reason it's required in many places for motorcycles is the sheer cost of head trauma injuries, much of which is born by public funds in ER rooms.
I think there are different kinds of cyclists and some are more likely to suffer injuries than others.
In 30 years of cycling I've had one incident where I believe the helmet may have prevented serious head injury. I've had 3 incidents that resulted in any significant personal injury but no broken bones. I've had one serious car accident but sustained no physical injuries from it. I think that for how much ground covered by cyclists in urban areas it can be deemed a relatively safe activity. Not saying you will NEVER come to harm but if you are generally careful and take certain precautions it is unlikely. Of course, the down side is that if you are in a collision with a car your body is the fender.
Perhaps not, but not many people are going to drive to work in 3 feet of snow either. Does that make cars useless?
When the weather is conducive, people getting on bikes and reducing motor vehicle exhaust will make the city a more pleasant place to be. There are many places where people can walk or cycle enough that it is worthwhile. Take a look at Cambridge in the UK - the bicycle park at the train station has approximately two orders of magnitude more parked bikes during the day than the car park has parked cars, and there's plenty of wet weather in Cambridge. During the evening, the majority of traffic is bicycles not cars, which means residents get quieter streets since a bike makes a lot less noise (while waiting for the bus after pub kicking out time, I think I counted ten bicycles for every car).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I have been in Silicon Valley for 3 years now. Since moving here, I started biking. I bike almost every day to/from work. My health is great because of it, lost 60lbs and blood pressure is down from 140/80 to 110/55 on average. It's a bike friendly place to live, and in most cities there are more pedestrians than I ever saw in Michigan.
That said, I have been hit once and nearly hit dozens of times. The time I was hit was mild, causing a bent tire and no serious damage to me (we both saw what was happening and slammed on the brakes). I have had cars run me out of the bike lane dozens of times because they wanted a turn lane. It's dangerous and risky to ride even in a bike friendly place.
I realize it's a risk, but I take it to save money and improve my health. I'm not mad at drivers most of the time, because I realize how hard it is to see a bike without distractions let alone with. I'm extremely cautious driving in bike areas because of my experiences, but many people have no experiences riding and don't think the same way.
If I was the mayor, there is something I would change. That would be to have more patrols out in the open ticketing people when they act illegally and endanger a biker. Sometimes the signs requires reinforcement for people to believe the law. That said, the risk is mine to take. I could ride on busy streets here with no bike lane if I wanted, and see people do so. To me, that's too much risk. If I know the risks, whats the problem? I won't wear a bubble to ride a bike, and the nanny state should not attempt to make me. Just give people a reason to adhere to current laws and the rest will just happen. We'll never prevent every accident, so no need to try.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Bike helmet is not terribly effective. Large study of motorcycle accidents showed that the majority of damages were to the areas not covered by bicycle helmets. My personal experience confirms it. Search google images for "hurt report helmet", there is a nice illustration. I never ride my motorcycle without a full face helmet. On a bicycle I don't bother.
I used to commute by bike (only nearly died twice!), so I naturally started paying attention to such things.
Based mostly on fatalty rates, Orlando is typically rated the most unsafe city in the US for cyclists. When I started riding, I happened to be living there. This is actually no coincidence. The city has an ordinance requiring all new road construction to provide bike lanes. Biking to work was just not practical when I lived in the NE. When I moved to Oklahoma, I quit after a couple of years because it was just beyond unsafe (two lane roads with no shoulder and drainage ditches on the side. No bike lanes anywhere. Incensed drivers who honestly believe it is illegal for you to be on the road on a bike, etc.). So everybody who bikes here in Tulsa does it on special dedicated bike paths that cars can't get to, and they do it for recreation/exercise only. Nobody commutes on a bike.
The point is, the city I've been in that does the most to enable bike commuting is Orlando. People take them up on it too. Seeing a bicyclist there is nowhere near as uncommon as in a typical US city. So what does this extra ridership buy them? Why, it gives them a huge fatality rate, and a label as the most unsafe city in the US for cyclists.
So, more cyclists results in higher fatalaty rate. You do the math.
Google is your friend, it can show you every last killed and injured biker.
No it cannot possibly show you every last injured cyclist. Killed I could believe but definitely not injured because most cycling injuries never get reported including those that involve cars. I've been in numerous cycling accidents myself of which *maybe* one may have been documented somewhere because it required sutures. I've been in and around competitive cycling my entire life (father races) and I assure you that very few bicycle accidents are ever reported to the police much less the NHTSA.
As bike friendly as San Fran might be, it's no Boulder. After Amsterdam, an absolute mecca for cyclists, Boulder is the most bike friendly place I've ever seen, certainly in the U.S. by far. No fair to compare comments from a SF trauma surgeon with those of a Boulder doctor.
Bikers are given more protections, such as exclusive lanes and crossing lights. However, a good amount of them decides to ignore them and have a higher chance to smash against a car or a bus.
So, the real question is probably, how safe is biking when you drive them safely?
He broke his collarbone twice while racing and had two crashes on a mountain bike
Okay, you get the win on this one. Slashdot description is deceptive; thanks for the clarification these injuries were not in the street use the article is about.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
I lived in Philly til midway through my thirties. I rode a bike a *lot* - commuting, and, in fact, about 9 months as a bike messenger. No helmet.
I went down three times, and limped away all of them. Scraped hand. Once was due to a very bad seam in the street itself. Back then, *no* *one* wore a helmet.
Of course, back there, adults were supposed to ride in the street, not on the sidewalk, and in the street, you are suppsed to obey traffic laws like any other vehicle. If you ride your bike the way some self-proclaimed CotU (Centers of the Universe) drive their oversized, gas-guzzling SUVs, and think stopping for lights or stop signs is for weenies, well, there's a phrase for that:: think of it as evolution in action.
mark
I am over forty, don't bike, and have never borken ANY bone.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No one is going to bike to work in 3 feet of snow and/or 12 degrees.
No one is going to bike to work in driving rain.
No one is going to bike to work in 100+ degree temps. If they do, you won't want to be around them
You live in a very tiny bubble.
Cambridge Chicago in so many ways.
Probably more likely to be shot than hit by a car.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Should be "Cambridge != Chicago"
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Pick a safe route at an off-peak time, and you'll be all right. And don't be hard when the roads are slick--take the bus.
I've bike-commuted for about 9 years now and it has worked out beautifully.
Route planning is everything. I'll ride 25% further just to get the benefit of a lower traffic route or a wide shoulder. Timing is also key. In some places, half an hour can make the difference between peaceful solitude and rush hour madness.
It's probably safer than watching TV. You don't get diabetes, obesity and coronary artery disease from cycling. If cycling gets you off the couch, do it. Hiking gets me off the couch. I don't worry about stumbling over a rock or yep... getting hit by a mountain biker. I worry about my mid-section getting flabby. Statistically, it's far more likely to kill me.
I used to cycle. I didn't mind the 25 mph city streets, as long as they were wide enough to avoid car door openings. I hated faster roads. Braddock and Ox road area of Fairfax County, VA was the worst. I road on Braddock, and a driver yelled at me. I road on the sidewalk next to Ox, and a guy mowing his lawn yelled at me for riding where only pedestrians are supposed to be. Technically he was right, but my life was more important to me than your stupid law. I was not about to take my life into my hands and ride on the side of Ox road there. I see a lot more road riders in California where I live now, but I really don't want to join them. I could see myself cruising the El Camino and the little Main Streets on the Peninsula though. El Camino is 35 mph but the traffic is so bad it goes slower a lot. That's about the fastest road I'd ever want to be on. San Francisco? It's a madhouse. Fuggedaboutit. I'll see you on a mountain side, walking to get fresh air and exercise.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is of course a complex question. Sure, cyclist are more prone to accidents and air pollution than those who commute by private car or by public transport. Then again, cycling to work is a "free" daily exercise – a benefit too often overlooked. A Danish study published in 2000 found that in a group of 30,000 randomly selected individuals, those who did not cycle to work experienced a 39% higher mortality rate than those who did – even after adjusting for other risk factors. So considering the overall effect, it seems that cycling is actually safer than not cycling, probably due to its positive effect on your physical fitness.
In The Netherlands. Nobody wears a helmet, with a few exception for very young kids (Always flanked and shielded by a overly concerned parent.)
I could show a graph that nicely shows that helmets are correlated with higher death rates. (No the helmet doesn't kill, its because helmets are worn in countries with low separation of slow cyclists and fast cars)
There is also a correlation between more helmets (by law) leading to LESS cyclers. Its a burden.
Seperation of slow and fast traffic is BY FAR the biggest factor here. Then also consider the health benefit of the exercise.
Regular exercise will make you more healthy and prolong your life! So, on bike lanes, Cycling is Super Awesome Safe! No helmet needed.
ps, incidents are on the rise due to old folks going faster on their electric assisted bikes.
ps2 mopeds, scooters, especially those that clock 50km/h are more and more forced into the car lane in The Netherlands, the speeds fits better.
ps3 Watch your juveniles, those pesky 12-18 y/o have a high incident rate. They are also likely to be offended by a helmet..
'Lots of my colleagues do not want to ride after seeing these [city biking] injuries.'
No shit. A few years ago, one of my coworkers who regularly biked to work had me totally conviced to try it out. After weeks of encouraging me, I had finally made the decision "OK, next Monday." This was on a Thursday. That very Thursday night driving home from work, I went by an intersection that was directly on my planned bicycle route. I had to go around the EMT and police vehicles at an accident scene... as I watched the EMT pull a sheet over a body next to a crumpled bicycle.
That is pretty much when I decided bicycle commuting was not for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort
Cycling 7 miles is about as dangerous as smoking a cigarette. Our cities really should be cycle free zones.
I have actually seen all of these things, and many workplaces have shower facilities.
So, I would say all of your "no one is going to" are pretty much wrong. I've certainly seen cyclists out in snow storms, because you can buy studded tires for bikes these days, and rain gear.
Maybe you wouldn't, but it definitely happens.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Cycling seems fairly safe to me if you wear a helmet and you choose your routes to avoid cars.
Here in Minneapolis I notice what I would call a lot of "aggressive" cyclists -- people who run traffic control devices (stop signs, lights, etc) and get dangerously close to traffic that might otherwise change speeds/lanes/turn/etc very quickly. From the cyclists I talk to, it almost seems like cycling is taking on a political component, too, which seems to contribute to aggressive cycling or at least an aggressive attitude.
The other thing that kind of amazes me are the people who INSIST on cycling on a busy through street (like Lyndale through South Minneapolis) instead of moving over just a block on either side and riding on a nearly empty residential street, like Garfield or Aldrich. Or the bike racing gear wearers who insist on riding on the parkway instead of the bike path 25 feet away, in spite of the fact that the parkway is a single lane and the parking cutouts along the parkway are pretty narrow -- if cars are parked in the cutouts there's precious little room to pass a cyclist.
As long as people insist on riding in traffic and people kind of a jerk about it, it doesn't surprise me that there are conflicts a cyclist will lose simply based on mass.
Rarely will you find THE answer to anything. Biking is just one of the answers to some (many?) situations. Take college. I biked to pretty much every class. My crowning achievement was waking up at 8:56 before a test at 9 half way across campus and making it on time (thankfully it was downhill...and no I didn't do too well, hence being proud of just making it there on time). Sure, in the driving rain the answer isn't biking, its skipping class.
But seriously who said everyone has to bike? If 1/3 of people bike on nice days it would do wonders to reduce congestion and pollution. Speaking of, how many big cities get 3ft of snow on a regular basis?
I say its good to have the option.
No, the 100+ temps can be dealt with by not living in the fucking desert, and moving north. Of course, then you might have snow and cold-temperature problems, but in most temperate cities in the US these aren't problems except for a few days a year. They aren't a problem at all in the west-coast cities.
Cycling excludes many people, especially the elderly, the otherwise frail, and the uncoordinated. In the city, at least, they would be taking their lives in their hands.
It seems like an idea by the young and healthy, for the young and healthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in transportation programs (such as bikeshare) that many residents are physically unable to utilize?
Dutch, here. Not to work maybe, but to school, yes. As for the smell issue (45 minutes in a rain protective gear, or 30+C): have a shower. At least one school I attended had those (and probably still has).
Perl Programmer for hire
I've been a bicycle commuter for 35 years. An often neglected safety tip is to slow it down abit. Let the motorists race to work, and save yourself some broken bones.
There is never going to be "one answer" when it comes to getting around. Cars cause congestion and pollution. Bicycles are slow and lack protection from the elements. Busses and trains don't go where you want to go when you want to go there.
It doesn't mean you give up on the problem just because there isn't a silver bullet - you attack it from wherever you realistically can. Many cities have put bicycles to use for a significant amount of the year.
+1 Disagree
100+ temps are OK. I cycle in the low desert in Summer and don't have any problems. The slipstream has a sufficiently cooling effect for what is a low-power activity.
The three cities with the largest share of bike commuters are Seattle, Portland, and Minneapolis. Not exactly places known for nice weather. It's just a matter of dressing well and having fenders.
Cycling reduces stresses on the city street, and cycling infrastructure is dirt cheap compared to roads. I can get around the denser parts of my city (Seattle) much faster by bike than when I drive my car or take the bus. Even though it's really hilly and it is usually rainy.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Cycling would work fine if municipalities invest in it, and built bike roads totally separate from car roads. This is what they do in Copenhagen, and that isn't exactly a warm city, but it's the most bike-friendly city on the planet by most accounts.
I used to bike everywhere in my little college town in southwest Virginia, and it worked great, but that was because everything was close and there weren't a lot of drivers on the roads. It didn't snow often (maybe a few days a year), certainly not 3 feet, and it wasn't that cold most of the year. Dressing properly and warmly let me bike even when it was coldest; remember, when you're exercising, you generate a lot more heat so the cold isn't so bad. Rain can be dealt with with a rain jacket, but again it's rarely a problem. It never got to 100 in that area; that can be avoided by staying the fuck out of Phoenix and Vegas, which are hellholes and should be avoided for many other reasons. On the few days when the weather is too much, there was always the public town buses, which had bike racks on the front in case you got surprised by a thunderstorm and didn't feel like pedaling back home.
Yes, if you live in Phoenix or Minneapolis, cycling probably is a fantasy, but if you live in those places, maybe you should be asking yourself, "why the fuck am I living in a place with such horrible weather most of the year?" instead of worrying about alternative transportation modes. For people living in better places, the problem isn't weather, it's the cars.
While I agree three feet of snow is a problem, everything else isn't.
12 degrees? Drysuit.
Driving rain? Drysuit.
100+ degree temperatures? Wetsuit. And showering afterwards.
Granted, people don't want to get out of their comfort zones. So they're using their very heavy "tin umbrellas" to move around in bad weather. That doesn't mean biking in bad weather is impossible. And FYI, when there's 3 feet of snow, cars won't cut it either.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
What was the question?
If you live or work in SF you don't ever, ever, ever question bicyclist or bicycling. Those people will fuck you up. (People at work speak in hushed tones when complaining about bikes for fear of reprisals)
Of course they won't stop at red light, or stop signs, or cross walks; make up traffic law as they go along, and think that self righteousness will save them when they interface with a ton of moving steel (or with a person [1]). And that is when they're not riding on the sidewalks (even when a dedicated, fenced off, bike lane is _right_ there!).
Bicyclists: you move to fast and too unpredictably for me as a driver or pedestrian to keep us both safe. This only gets worse because every bicyclist seems to decide on the fly if in a given context they want to behave as a vehicle, or pedestrian.
If you are one of those few bicyclists who actually stop at a stop sign (say at 5th and brannan) then thank you... please remind your brothers and sisters that traffic laws help the rest of us keep them safe.
--locust
[1] Hi Chris Bucchere
I have biked in 3 feet of snow here in Copenhagen. And in -11 celsius. Perfectly possible with the right clothing, and if the bike paths are cleared (which there are here).
They're sort of framing the question as, "If you ride a bike, could you get hurt?" The answer is, of course, yes. But then, you can get injured while taking a shower. It's pretty sensationalistic saying, 'Lots of my colleagues do not want to ride after seeing these [city biking] injuries.' It's an anecdotal and emotional response, and it doesn't really help to explain the issue.
The question should be, "What is the rate (accounting for severity) of injury in a population, comparing bicycles and other alternate modes of transportation?" I'm sure that formulation could be improved, but a question like that is more appropriate. So if we encourage cycling in New York City, will the total number and severity of injuries increase or decrease? Could someone provide something factual or scientific regarding that specifically?
Because as a logical thought experiment, I would guess that if we stopped using cars for personal transportation completely and rode bicycles instead, I would guess that you'd see an increase in minor injuries (e.g. people falling and skinning their knees), but a huge decrease in serious injuries and fatalities. While we've commonly seen around 40,000 car-related fatalities per year (more than 10x the number of people who died in 9/11, every single year), if you take cars out of the equation, I would bet you'd see very few cycling-related fatalities. Even if you have a serious bicycle crash without a helmet, unless you're hit by a car or truck, you probably won't suffer a permanent injury.
A larger problem is simply the physical nature of biking in those temps. What percentage of the working population could do that on a daily basis and how far?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
In four decades of long distance motorcycling, long distance automobile driving and long distance running, I've broken neither my collarbone nor my hip even once. I have broken wind a few times, however.
http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=8632074 It would be nice if we could track the information on this kind of stuff more closely like out friends up north.
So how is a shower going to prevent you from getting heatstroke?
is the result of 90% of the fatalities of cyclists in london so dont try and undertake at junctions and that improves your chances a lot
Well in my ten years of active driving I've had whiplash a couple of times. While my thirty years of bicycling, I've had no major injuries, road rash about ten times, and occasional athletic type injuries you expect in an active person.
Did them all. And I'm not extreme. (You can shower at work, you know?)
But your point is valid. Most of the time I don't bike under those conditions.
I use a streetcar or walk.
Could cycles be made safer, both to reduce risk and to reduce the coordination required to operate one. As I posted elsewhere, cycling currently excludes the elderly (for whom one fall could be catastrophic), the frail, and the otherwise uncoordinated (young or old, one encounter with a car can be catastrophic).
Some ideas:
1) Certainly they could be made more visible to cars, especially at night. For drivers, the tiny lights are hard to pickup visually against the background of the city, and things happen very fast at automobile speeds. Plus, one tiny light doesn't give any clue to the dimensions of the rest of the bike (in contrast, think of the yellow lights that outline trucks).
2) Separate bikes from cars. The different rates of speed seem to make combining them inherently dangerous. Some places already do this, with dedicated, and physically separate bike lanes. Look up Amsterdam to see examples.
3) Better stability? Why not tricycles, which don't fall over when stopping or turning too sharply? I suspect there must be some drawback, but it's transportation, not a race.
I guess that depends on if the water is gas or electric heated.
A 10 minute shower is about 137 kg CO2 annually, extrapolate that yourself.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Dunno, but probably still a lot less than a vehicle with the AC running?
so i guess walking up and down stairs are deemed too unsafe for you?
It is not the first time (nor the last) that the car industry try to eliminate alternatives to their products.
Car accidents is one of the main causes of death in US, 1 in 108 (and maybe other causes in that report should be grouped in that category as are caused directly or indirectly by cars), while bicycles are 1 in 5000 (and a lot of them could be caused by cars). And those 2 are often ignored by the people that mainly fear being killed by a shark or terrorists that are 1 in several millons each.
Umm, actually I've done all those things. On a regular basis. Commuting all year long in Michigan (down to -5 F) and in California where it regularly gets > 100 F. Rain is not a problem. It's really not that hard, in fact you'd be surprised how many people are able to ride in what you consider impossible weather. It's simply a matter of dressing properly and using some common sense. Americans are soft, spoiled by car-centric thinking...
I've been biking back-and-forth to work for over a decade. About 12 miles every day both on bike paths and on streets. On a motorcycle you can keep up with the flow of traffic easier (especially when everyone is doing 35 in a 25) than on a bicycle so there's an immediate problem with cars and bicycles occupying the same space on the street which you don't have with a motorcycle. Also, two constants which have remained the same:
1) About 1/2 of all motorists do not like you being on the street and will speed around you dangerously close to make their point.
2) About 1/2 of all bicyclists do not like pedestrians being on bike path routes and will speed around them dangerously close to make their point.
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God no! Never lose the helmet. Never, ever. When on a bike, at any point, no matter how safe you are, you're about a half-second from smashing your forehead into the pavement. Never forget that.
I love bike commuting, and would love to do it if I didn't have a 30-mile commute over the hills. As a paranoid driver though, I've noticed I have some technical problems with bike lanes.
In Portland, many streets have bike lanes along the right side of the road, between traffic and the sidewalk. All in all, I think this is preferable to forcing cyclists to ride in traffic. However, it puts me in the position of, if I want to make a right turn, effectively having to turn right across a lane of a traffic, which would be otherwise illegal if that were a lane of cars and not a lane of bikes.
If I'm in a car stopped at an intersection next to a bike lane, and want to turn right, I have to do the following:
Look left for oncoming traffic
Look ahead for oncoming traffic turning left (my right)
Look at the far-right corner for pedestrians
Look at the near-right corner for pedestrians
Look to the right of me to see if there are any cyclists also waiting
Look in my right-mirror to see if there are any cyclists approaching from behind
Look over my shoulder to double-check my blind spot
By the time I've done that, enough time has passed that I want to look left again.
There are also places where, in order to turn right, you have to move to a new lane on the other side of the bike lane (which is now marked with dotted lines). This makes me paranoid to no end. It puts me in the position of effectively merging to change across an entire lane of traffic, which again would be otherwise illegal. Bicyclists generally go slower than cars and don't maintain the same spacings, so it is harder to judge at a glance how many cyclists there are and how fast they're going (one may have been passing another) to make sure they're all out of your blind spot before you quickly barrel across their lane.
I don't know if there are better solutions aside from creating entire bike-only roads and bridges, but I think there are technical problems with bike lanes that are likely to result in accidents that are not entirely the fault of either party. I do my best as a driver to be paranoid, and still constantly worry I'm going to not manage to spot a cyclist just that one time.
"When I'm stuck behind a bixi bike that I can't pass on the Maisoneuve bike lane, it's like driving behind a truck you can't pass."
How does this compare to driving behind slow ass cyclists that you can't pass?
It's a lot safer than my usual mode of city transportation, a skateboard.
I will happily furnish two chairs and as much liquor as you can drink, and we'll sit at the stop sign next to my house. One block away from a school, and one block away from a heavily frequented park. In a residential historic neighborhood with home values approaching seven figures. Speed bumps on almost every street.
You chug a beer every time a car rolls through the stop sign. You down a shot every time someone blows through it without even slowing down. You take a sip when cars bottom out on the dips. Shot for people texting or talking on mobiles. Just a sip for speeding. You want to up the ante? Add a drink for failure to yield right-of-way, or honked horn.
I'll take a shot for every car that doesn't break the law in some fashion.
I'll go home in better shape than you, by far.
Everyday on my bike, someone tries to kill me. Often enough on purpose. On my bike, it's very unlikely that I'll kill or maim anyone, whether I follow the law or not. Every cyclist I've ever talked to who has been in an car/bike accident (and that's just about all of them) was following the law at the time of the accident. And the car wasn't. Guess who got injured?
So the hell with you. Cyclists rarely hurt anyone, and car drivers kill cyclists every day.
As a dutch person you just proved to me you are a lazy fat wimp. Enjoy your heart attack.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ever heard of a Trike? My 85 year old father rides his all the time.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
"No one is going to bike to work in 3 feet of snow and/or 12 degrees.
No one is going to bike to work in driving rain.
No one is going to bike to work in 100+ degree temps. If they do, you won't want to be around them"
I see this every single day here. WE had some 100+ days and people were biking to work. All winter long I see people biking to work in the snow and ice (easy to get studded tires) I also see them biking in the rain constantly.
You must live in a small town because here weather does not stop the bicyclists. Hell a snowstorm doesnt stop most mopeds.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Thank you Slashdot Team, I was waiting this story. It's really great user friendly and smooth.
Trolling is a art,
I drive to work in a Civic in that. 3 feet is a normal snow fall for the week, It get's harder when it's dropping 2 feet an hour and the plows cant keep up with it, Then I'll just take the jeep through the 6 feet of snow.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not really, it kind of sucks, but it's not a big deal to ride in. Get some waterproof gear and you're good to go, don't even have to spend much, about the equivalent of two tanks of gas.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
bikers just need to cut risks:
1) Don't ride in the dark.
2) Don't ride in the middle of the street.
3) Don't go down hills at full speed.
4) Wear a helmet
5) Be careful at intersections
They don't have to be laws. Just what you do to live.
This article sums up my views [1] essentially, city planning is shite for bikers a lot of times, and salmoning is the workaround. The article has some great map-based arguments.
"Bikers who ride the wrong way up a one-way street or bike-lane are called salmon.
There are certain places in the city, particularly in neighborhoods with a lot of one-way streets, like DUMBO, that are difficult to bike around in without salmoning. To get from Point A to Point B legally, you'll need to bike up a hill, around a park, through a tunnel, and generally out of the way at least 5 blocks. Or, you can salmon: ride that tempting one or two blocks the wrong way, carefully pedaling slowly to avoid putting anyone in danger, giving reassuring smiles to the parents pushing strollers giving you the finger and the truck drivers honking at you to get out of the way."
[1] http://gothamist.com/2013/06/21/in_defense_of_salmoning_on_a_bike.php
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This attitude and aggressiveness can actually kill when it is used to intimidate cyclists using a weapon as deadly as any automatic firearm.
So true.
Experienced motorists in most cities have developed an unnecessarily aggressive way of driving. You maybe win on average a few seconds on every trip you make, but at what cost? You run a slightly higher risk of fender-benders. But for any cyclist, motorcyclist or pedestrian, you become a reckless murderer. Someone not in a car stands no chance against a car: likely outcomes include serious injury and death. And all this only, because few consider that they might ever run into an accident with a non-car, and think it's alright to risk having a few fender-bender for minuscule time savings.
Any motorist, who has problems grasping how irresponsible this is, should ask themselves what would happen to their own road safety, if all the big truck drivers had the same kind of road attitude as themselves. Driving a big truck like "aggressive drivers" drive their cars is obviously very dangerous for all car drivers, because cars in turn stand little chance against heavy traffic in an accident. Now, from the viewpoint of a cyclist or motorcyclist, almost everyone is driving a big-ass truck, and many of them drive with very little regard for road safety.
I am driving in a congested city area with a cyclist tailgating me. A pedestrian is not yet in the cross walk but showing signs of entering a marked cross walk so I start to slow down. Pedestrian enters the walk, the cyclist pulls out from behind me to pass on the right, accelerating as the pedestrian dodges the cyclist.
Yeah, these are only the "rude" cyclists, but you all know about No True Scotsman. "A man with red hair on a bike wearing a kilt almost clobbered a pedestrian in Aberdeen the other day." "No true Scotsman would ride a bike that way!"
Hand stands in a bidet? Ewwwwww!
No, helmets aren't perfect. But I've done my own testing, which I don't recommend trying at home: Fly over the handlebars and land on your head, with helmet and without. I did them several years apart, but still recall the results pretty graphically.
Without helmet: Mild concussion, disoriented for several hours, temporary double vision. Passerby took me to the hospital.
With helmet: Lay on ground for several minutes, examine damage to helmet, get up and ride home. Buy new helmet.
Helmets aren't a panacea, but the notion that they're not worth wearing is just wrong.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
A Chicago Alderman has suggested bikers pay $25 for a license and must take a safety class. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/clout/chi-alderman-wants-25-bike-registration-fee-20131023,0,7405166.story
Robot-controlled bikes that do the driving. You just sit back and pedal.
And it you truly wanna be green, you can get a little gas engine, which is much better for the environment than the food for the additional calories you need, especially if it's "local grown" snotty stuff you drove to a farm to go get.
Just sit back and be green and safe and smugly cool at the same time!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I will agree that very few, if any, people will bike to work in the snow.
Biking in the rain or in hot weather is not that big of a deal. I cycle to work all year long, the only days I won't ride are if there is snow, or there has been a very heavy frost and the risk of black ice is high.
The rain is just water and between my rain jacket and good lights on my bike, a quick shower at work cleans me up completely.
Cycling may not be the answer for everybody, but most people decide they are not going to make cycling work for them before they even get on a bike and try.
One of the things that often happens is that I suddenly start feeling minor pain in my knees and stop and check my seat alignment. After riding for a month and a half the seat has slipped maybe a centimeter, and throws my leg alignment off. I need an extra long stem on my bike A serious bicyclist knows that fit is important.
Bad fit can mean several things, physical damage to the body --most often to the knees, rapid fatigue, and difficulty controlling the bike.
I don't see how people using a "bike sharing" bike can hope to get a good fit. Which just gives bicycling more of a bad name. Only pretend to be bicyclists like Rahm Emanuel and Bloomberg push them. I don't remember Emanuel's predecessor the second Mayor Daley ever pushing them, and he was a real cyclist.
In plenty of places in the US, snow and cold temperature are a problem for about 6 months of the year :)
Are you talking cold, or subzero cold? Biking in the 20s (F) isn't that much of a problem, just dress warmly, especially your head (I'm sure someone could come up with an insulated bike helmet for this). Being outside at length in subzero temperatures isn't such a great idea however, but that's not a problem in that many parts of the US, only places like ND, MN, etc. And as I said before, if you live in places like that (and it's not a summer-only home), maybe you should be asking yourself why. I live in the northeast now (north NJ), and it doesn't get below 20F here much at all. It snows some, but nothing major, and it's all plowed up in a few hours, and even so, that only happens a handful of times a year, if last winter was anything to go by (I've only lived here a year). For the rare really crappy day, there's always the bus.
I don't think I'd ride a bike in NYC until this criminal gang is disbanded.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What that actually says that he was in three life threatening situations and got lucky; because almost any kind of impact that breaks a bone has a significant probability of killing you.
I can't drive in 3 feet of snow. I can bicycle in the snow, but not 3 feet of it. I learned that merino wool is awesome this way; I've never been able to handle the cold before, since I never knew how to dress and just slapping on a huge fucking coat doesn't help!
Many people cycle to work in the rain. That's what goretex rain jackets and rain pants are for. In the hot summer, I find a warm rain much more pleasant; waterproof panniers to carry my dry clothes do well for me.
I biked around in 106F temperatures for hours while a coworker died walking around outside a shopping mall in it during the same time (half hour of exposure). She had water and long skirts; I had Nuun-adultered water and was wearing a Zensah compression shirt (UnderArmour Heat Gear feels like a balloon; Zensah actually makes me feel cold...). There are also ice vests, but I've never needed to go that far; however, when I'm driving the wheels hard, I quickly fatigue from the heat I generate on my own, which is why I love rain cycling--superior cooling means I never fatigue!
My employers have always had showers on-site; however, I shower before I leave and then change out into a completely new set of clothes--cotton undershirt included, rather than my compression baselayer. Becoming dry prevents the bacteria from feeding and producing stench. Shaving your armpits helps immensely as well. I give my hair a quick rinse in the sink (the salts clean it out anyway), comb the water out, then use two paper towels to dry it (it takes about 20-30 if I don't comb it out first). The whole process takes about 5 minutes; my fastest time changing was 89 seconds, then I had to pack up my bike clothes and wash my hair.
Urban sprawl layouts suck. In some places, the terrible layout doesn't present physical barriers--bicycling is easier than driving--while in others, the whole cul-du-sac bullshit fucks up transit in general. If you're less than 5 miles from work, though, bicycling is the way to go.
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Another person checking in to say he's done all of these things. And it's really not that bad in most cases as people who have not done it seem to think.
First of all, most of those weather conditions are actually very rare. Even bike communiting every day in Canadian winter is not that bad in a city. Most roads are sufficiently poughed, that snowfall depth really is irrelvant (just make sure you have suitable bike tires). And you'd be surprised how warm you stay when cycling; it was often more of a problem for me being overheating than being too cold in the winter. That's why dressing with layers is key! So you can adjust...
Significant rain (at last where I am, which is pretty average) is usually not an issue. Rain comes and goes; shift your schedule slightly and watch local weather radar and you usually can find a relatively tame window to travel through. Days where it rains hard all day are relatively rare.
Other weather is mostly a matter of some simple gear. People would be amazed when I'd show up from a torrential downpour on my bike, get into the office and strip my rain pants, shoe covers, and rain jacket, gloves, wipe my glasses & face, and be 100% dry. It's no big deal; but just an alien concept to them. The people driving to work could be wetter than me! (Because they had to run from their car parking.... and where not equipped for the weather.)
Riding a bike year round makes you very intimate with weather, and it's not bad at all (usually). In fact it feels quite wonderful to have that connection with weather, and not be controlled by weather. I describe above staying completely dry biking in rain; but actually the other lesson you learn is that actually it's not so bad being wet either! You just go with it and learn not to worry about it...
Most of the people complaining about bikes never try it! Try it! It's great, and a whole new perspective. (Unless maybe your bike is exceptionally crappy.)
Especially since you can get taxpayer funding for your development using LEED "Gold Certification" grants, just for putting in a bunch of bike racks (and maybe some electric car charging stations, not that there's any significant need for them.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
No it's not. Because I'm not making an argument.
The post I replied to said "no one will ever" and listed a series of things. I can tell you factually that, having seen people do those things, the assertion is false. Just like most categorical statements.
I never suggested there would be thousands of people doing it. But people do in fact do those things. I've been out in snow storms and seen quite a few cyclists in fact. And in the rain. And on hot days.
At no point did I assert that a lot of people would do it, merely pointed out that claiming nobody would ever do it is patently false.
I'd suggest you do the same, but it might be difficult to tell where the ass ends and where the head begins.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
According to today's Province in Vancouver, BC, it is faster to bike downtown than to drive.
Faster.
Think about that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Lots of my colleagues do not want to ride after seeing these [city biking] injuries.
And I don't want to drive after seeing a few injuries that resulted from automobile collisions . . .
Motorists are more reckless and dangerous than cyclists.
In pretty much every study conducted on bike-car accidents, the majority of them have been caused by motorists breaking the law, not cyclists. In Toronto, it's something like ~83% of bike-car collisions were the fault of the motorist, not the cyclist. You can see that data here:
http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/
The basic results have been replicated in many other cities as well. IIRC in NYC it was even worse, with like 90%+ bike-car accidents being caused by motorists...
And don't cops have better things to deal with like gang wars the lead to little kids getting hit in the cross fire?
but what about one that runs over a pedestrian because he was riding on the sidewalk?
If you bothered to google this: cyclists are involved in collisions with .6% of pedestrian injuries in NYC that warrant a trip to the doctor, ER, or a police report.
The other 99.4% are motor vehicle drivers.
The statistics do not account for whether the cyclist or pedestrian is at fault. Quite a few pedestrians rely on hearing to tell if a vehicle is coming - I have people step right into the road in front of me all the time, and it's particularly annoying since I'm more likely to be injured trying to avoid them and hitting something or crashing, or glancing off them and then crashing. They're likely to only get a bruised rib, whereas I'll probably get a broken arm.
Please help metamoderate.
I've ridden an average of about 5k miles/year for the past 15 years, including 45 miles/day in almost daily commuting in busy traffic times.
I've had precisely zero accidents and zero injuries during that time, probably because I don't run stop signs or red lights, and try to be a courteous rider on the road. I see a lot of the same cars every single day, and they've seen me. When you don't ride around like a "critical mass" dickhead, chances are you're not going to get yourself into any trouble with traffic.
In The Netherlands, everyone bikes without a helmet, from young to old. I always find it interesting to see other countries, US included, to take the 'helmet' so serious when it comes to safety. Instead, we learned a long time ago that separate bike lanes and proper rules (biker from right ? -> right of way, always) come first.
I guess until the time comes that cars are no longer the 'holy cow' (as we call it) of transportation, you better not use bikes at all: a helmet will not save you.
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What gets me is that by simply removing bikes to their own lane, without taxpayer-subsidized parking that injures them (doored), all of which is paid for by property taxes anyway, the accident rate plummets.
But, after all, we should preserve roads for their original purpose - bicycles and horse-drawn wagons.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oh please - when it drops 3 feet of snow or more you just ski or use a skidoo.
Every real snow person knows that.
Driving a truck in 3 feet of snow is risky, especially with black ice on bridges.
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Cyclists are a menace? Last week I was cycling on a bicycle lane, following the traffic code correctly. One fucker of a van driver nearly ran me over when driving out of some parking spot and when I complained about it he punched me in the face and drove away. I cycle a lot and every day there is at least one idiot in his thrice damned tin can who cuts me off even though I've the right of way, parks on a bicycle lane, passes me within a few centimeters, runs the red light or blocks the crosswalk.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I ride to work in the Bay Area, 4 days a week. Or more. Depends. I'm even doing it at night now. I have lights and stuff. I work and live in the east bay, so, there is less traffic.
I have almost been hit a couple of times. It's amazing how people don't look. Even at night with my lights on, I've had people almost turn into where I was going. It's like they are blind.
Oh the flip side, cycling to work saves me about $10 a day. Takes about an hour to get to work, and an hour back. I'm hoping to continue over the winter riding to work.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
And every driver should wear one.
It makes you look like the Stig.
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Oh, that sounds just fine! I was going to play football with killer robots, but cycling sounds only slightly more dangerous!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
As a cyclist, I'd like to weigh in that it's the cyclists' fault.
As a cyclist, I'd like to weigh in that you're full of it, and engaging in thinking/logic that's a cousin to the basic logic employed by racists. You cite some guy riding extremely dangerously as an example of how everyone rides. You rely on an anecdote, which is not evidence. And then you state that this behavior is what causes all/most injuries, which is victim-blaming.
Turns out, there's plenty of studies on this subject, from all across the world, using various methods. They typically find between 66% and 90% of collisions are the fault of motorists, and the cyclist was doing nothing wrong or improper when they were hit. The top causes of injuries in most cities are doorings (which in many places is automatically the door-openers fault, even if it's not specifically codified into law, as virtually all jurisdictions make opening a door into the path of "traffic" illegal), right hooks (driver passes you and then immediately slows/turns, cutting you off and blocking your path), and left-crosses (left turn in front of you, illegally failing to yield to oncoming traffic.) None are the cyclist's fault.
The reason you're engaging in this victim-blaming is for a psychological self-defense mechanism. See, it's scary when a cyclist gets hit or killed, especially if they weren't doing anything wrong. That means it could happen to you. In order to protect yourself from that danger mentally, you see yourself as superior. "I ride safely." "I follow all the laws." "I have really bright lights." "I'm not riding a cheap bike, mine's better and well-maintained." Tada! You now ride proudly and feeling "safe."
Well, guess what? I follow the law. I have years of experience riding in the city. I know all the protect-yourself techniques. I have great lights. I ride a really nice bike with great disc brakes and it's well maintained. I've still been hit.
or slammed their brakes on and caused a lot of (probably harmless, but expensive) rear-end collisions. I would fully support the cop who arrests your fucking ass for that
The officer would ticket the driver of the vehicle that rear-ended the other for failing to follow at a safe distance. Nice try.
Please help metamoderate.
Motorists are more reckless and dangerous than cyclists.
In pretty much every study conducted on bike-car accidents, the majority of them have been caused by motorists breaking the law, not cyclists. In Toronto, it's something like ~83% of bike-car collisions were the fault of the motorist,, not the cyclist. You can see that data here:
http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/
The basic results have been replicated in many other cities as well. IIRC in NYC it was even worse, with like 90%+ bike-car accidents being caused by motorists...
That's odd, because after reading the report, it's clear that the researchers were focused on understanding bike-car accidents and in preventing future ones, not in determining who was at fault. But don't take my word for it, read the study! "Although they may refer to the actions of only one party, these labels are not intended to assign fault." (Emphasis mine.) Or, "Thus it cannot be said, for instance, that more cyclists than motorists caused collisions by disobeying traffic control."
On the other hand, why should I be surprised that a cyclist doesn't bother to read the study they referenced, or that they automatically assume they're right regardless of what's actually in front of them? Such behavior matches perfectly with my observed actions of cyclists on the road!
Road driving excludes many people. the poor who can't afford a car, insurance or fuel; people with poor vision, especially the elderly; the otherwise frail; and uncoordinated.
It seems like an idea for the young and wealthy, for the young and wealthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in paved roads that many residents are unable to utilize?
and his hip once? Wow. I've been driving for 50 years, and haven't broken anything, and I drive a _lot_. Bought a new car a year ago last March. It now has 65,000 miles on it, and I put 'em all there. Tell me about bike safety.
I learned also the hard way, that a green light for me, a stop in my favor, or a right of passage in my favor (me coming from the right without stop) automobile suddenly decide on a whim I have no right, and fuck the stop, red light, or right of way. Automobilist complain a lot about cyclist, but boy oh boy with 6000 to 7000 km a year I can tell you that there are enough killer in car seat which probably got their driving licence in a vending machine.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
In the US at least, cyclists (and pedestrians) killed by motor vehicle operators are generally treated as freebies. To the degree that drivers avoid running over them, they're probably motivated more by an innate sense of decency and/or the annoyance value of having to stop for an hour or two until the police sweep up the bodies and then tell you not to do it again and send you on your way. Until this changes, cycling will not be a particularly safe activity here.
Motorists also don't realize that if you hit a pedestrian or cyclist at speeds above 25mph, it will very like result in death. What seems like a minor "fender bender" ends up taking a life.
Most motorists have no idea how to deal with cyclists. Some speed up overtaking a bicycle, some slow down and everything in between. There is no standard guidance of what to do and so everyone does their own thing. Some drivers will go all the way to the left when passing while others will pass just inches off you even when the road is empty. People simply don't know how to deal with bicycles on the road.
If any additional resources should be spent, they should be spent on driver education and enforcement of laws that protect all road users from stupidity and irresponsibility.
Except that none of that works. People are going to be stupid no matter what you do, and there's no way to hold them accountable. What are you going to do when someone does something stupid, and a cyclist dies? Put them in jail forever? Good luck with that. Even if you did do that, it's not going to change peoples' behavior much, or magically turn them into excellent drivers. The simple fact is that lots of people just plain suck at driving, and there's absolutely zero you can do to change that. You might as well try to make everyone into an NBA-level basketball player or a Mozart-level musical genius. Not everyone is competent, or can be, but everyone has to be able to drive in most places in the US because that's the way we've set up our infrastructure (stupidly).
Laws with teeth and the enforcement staff to apply them is the only way to do it.
How's that working out for the War on Drugs? Or Prohibition? Rigid enforcement rarely gives the results its promoters are looking for. Most of the time, it's a giant failure when you're fighting against basic human behavior.
Asking for an entirely new bike-specific infrastructure is pointless.
No more pointless than trying to get lots of people to risk their lives riding bicycles among all the speeding, texting SUV drivers and uninsured drivers.
In three decades of driving, i've broken a bone exactly...never, as a matter of fact. Saying you'll "only" get three broken bones is not exactly encouraging.
So you're going to put a large part of the US population in jail? We already lead the world in incarceration, but there's only so much our economy can take before collapsing.
If Moscow was at the same lat/long as Minneapolis, it would be the same city. Moscow's latitude is almost 56 degrees, whereas Minneapolis is at 45 degrees. But your main point is correct in that Moscow and Minneapolis have similar average January low temperatures, around 14 degrees Farenheit.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
It's caused a lot of tension between drivers and cyclists because there's a sense amongst drivers (and pedestrians too, for that matter) that we're spending millions of tax dollars catering to a group who a) don't follow the rules of the road and b) feel that the rules don't apply to them.
If we applied that logic, we'd stop building roads entirely.
In my city, I routinely see people driving down the road with their headlights off in the middle of the night. Cops don't care.
Crosswalks? I stop at crosswalks on my bike for peds; drivers frequently blow by me, even when I intentionally swing further out into the lane to help the ped cross.
Despite an anti-texting law, drivers are constantly staring at their phones, and it's quite common to see a light change, and they just sit there, staring at their phone. I've watched driver sit through an entire green light cycle if there wasn't someone behind them.
Our red lights can't be taken at face value because there's a good chance for up to several seconds after the other direction has had a red light, some asshole will fly through the light above the 30mph speed limit; you have to look both ways before entering an intersection with a green light these days. Sometimes people just drive through lights that have been red because they don't see any other traffic.
That represents substantially more of a threat to public safety than someone on a bike going through a red light, where they by and large only place themselves at risk (and thus have a vested interest in crossing safely.)
The only reason you think cyclist-red-light-running is such a problem is because you're used to drivers doing it constantly, cyclists are a minority, and you're a driver.
Please help metamoderate.
This is incorrect. In any study regarding bike-car collisions I have seen, the overwhelming majority of them are caused by motorist negligence.
In other words, the bikers that were hurt were stupid enough to assume that the motorist was in any way paying attention. You can hugely reduce the risk by making that assumption and acting accordingly, including beady ready to swerve out of a bike lane if a car weaves into it.
It may have technically been the motorist at "fault", but from my biking experience on real roads if you just assume cars have no idea you are there you will save yourself from many a near miss and/or accident. I'd rather be alive than smug.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll confess to going through red lights. Not all of them though. But ones where there is not any pedestrian or car traffic. Also, in lower Manhattan there is a section I go through where it is less dangerous to go through the red lights. If I had to go through that when it was green, I would be constantly near cars trying to run me over. Going through the reds in this one area allow me to get ahead of stuck traffic and not get run over.
My suggestion would be to change the law to have bicycles stop at red lights and proceed if there is no traffic or pedestrians going through.
For the vast majority of my trip, I'm in a physically separated bike path and I'm all for that.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I have read the study, and I was aware of that caveat. However, you're misunderstanding the point - it was meant to address issues of legal culpability (e.g. fault vs. cause). Since the data were based on actual police reports, the researchers are basically disclaiming themselves from any claims of legal responsibility.
All you really need to do is look at "Table 3.2" in "Chapter 3: Key Findings" and sum the numbers for incidents caused by cyclists vs. those caused by motorists. The results are quite clear.
On the other hand, why should I be surprised that a cyclist doesn't bother to read the study they referenced, or that they automatically assume they're right regardless of what's actually in front of them? Such behavior matches perfectly with my observed actions of cyclists on the road!
I have nothing against motorists, but you certainly seem to have a bias against cyclists.
I could respond in kind, and assert that it certainly seems like it was you who didn't bother to actually look at the numbers or make a good faith effort to understand what was being said; and simply cherry picked a single comment out of context which appeared on first glance to support your preconceptions. I could also go on to make similar unwarranted assumptions about your behaviour, and claim that they match my observed actions of motorists on the road as well (they do in fact)
But you know what? It's not constructive, my own observations about motorists are likely biased in many ways (e.g. availability heuristic etc...). Making unwarranted assumptions about others based on biased preconceptions serves no one any good. So, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you did read the study and the numbers and simply misunderstood them.
In the future though, I would caution you to read things a bit more carefully before making unwarranted assumptions about another's behaviour or comprehension based solely on your own perceptions and preconceptions. It's always better to take a second look, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
So what you're saying is that you don't give a damn about me when I'm cycling because you've been witness to other people being reckless fools on their bikes? That's sure what it sounds like. Should I conclude that all drivers are a menace because I see so many cars speeding, running stop signs, and cutting people off? Should I conclude that all pedestrians are reckless because I've seen so many jaywalkers?
I have ridden 4000 miles this year, mostly for exercise, mostly during non-rush hours. The routes I ride on have stop lights. I can tell you a bike at a lone intersection does not trigger many lights to change. So, the question is, at that point, should I wait for a car to trigger it, or go push the pedestrian button to cross in the crosswalk? So which am I then, a pedestrian, or an automobile? There is some ambiguity here that I've thought about many times. I have to admit, that when there are no automobiles around or in sight, I go ahead and run that red light, only after coming to a stop, unclipping, and evaluating the situation.
I can also say from experiencing squeeze outs from drivers that it almost starts to seem like they are purposefully trying to run you off the road. I ride on roads with fairly good shoulders and I can say that with high frequency I get someone passing me with the car tires inches from the white line. You have a whole freaking lane people. I stay well on my side of the line, you do the same. Show some common courtesy.
It is up to you ... to anticipate the other guy doing something stupid and unexpected. They surely will.
This is the only rule you need to live by to drive, cycle, run, walk, or travel any road safely. Travel under the expectation that you need to anticipate someone else's dumb move and you will find yourself prepared for the majority of situations (note that I didn't say all of them, because someone out there will find a way to blow your mind one day).
I have an older version, but effectively the injury/death rate is mostly effected by poor decisions by the cyclist, not the car.
First off, "the car" doesn't do anything. The driver does. You're attributing behavior to an inanimate object, something I see people do constantly.
Second: several decades of research proves your claim wrong. Most collisions are due to the driver doing something illegal, sometimes simply failing to yield because they think they have right-of-way over someone on a bicycle.
Australian helmet cam study: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/study-blames-drivers-for-bike-crashes-20101122-18330.html
London study: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/drivers-to-blame-for-twothirds-of-bicycle-collisions-in-westminster-8602166.html
UK-wide study: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study
Toronto study which found cyclists at fault in TEN PERCENT of crashes: http://www.examiner.com/article/study-claims-cyclists-at-fault-only-10-percent-of-crashes
The list goes on. Keep in mind that studies which are based off police reports that aren't carefully analyzed are typically faulty because police very often incorrectly side with motorists, don't interview cyclists, witness statements are wrong, etc. It's common to review a report, see obvious signs that the motorist did something illegal, and police do not cite them, and often cite the cyclist.
This guy was hit and two witnesses and the driver claimed he ran a red light; police tried to give him a ticket for running the light. He knew he hadn't. He found video from a traffic camera showing very clearly that he was cut off by the driver - what we call a "left cross": http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19284/it-must-have-been-your-fault-cmon-you-are-a-biker/
It should make you stop and think to consider that many cyclists ride with helmet cameras. There's a reason - drivers lie, police don't believe us (or very often we're incapacitated or otherwise unable to defend ourselves), and witnesses are discriminatory towards cyclists or simply don't understand traffic laws or think they saw what they didn't.
Please help metamoderate.
The soon-to-be-ex-mayor of Seattle is pushing hard for bike lanes everywhere, but it's probably the single issue that will cause him to be thrown out of office.
Seattle'c cyclists have an overwhelming culture of disregard for traffic laws, disdain for pedestrians, and no respect for other vehicular traffic. For example, on one of the major arterials I commute through, fewer than 1 in 5 cyclists stop for ANY red light over the busiest 2-3 miles. If traffic is busy, around 1 in 4 will just ride on the sidewalk thru groups of pedestrians (which is illegal) without signaling (which is illegal) without following traffic OR pedestrian signals (which is illegal). No one knows what the green bike lanes mean to vehicle traffic (there's no clear law), and the "sharows" (chevrons + bike icon painted on the road) are intended to encourage lane sharing... but there's no public guidance or traffic law specific to them, and they've been plunked down all over the place with little planning (e.g. on narrow high-speed roads for which NO slow vehicle is appropriate) -- which leads to confusion from motor vehicles and even more reckless behavior by cyclists. And to compound the whole mess, cycling is very seasonal here (it rains some in Seattle, and the city is only slightly less hilly than SanFran)... so most lanes are very lightly used (zero to maybe a couple dozen riders a day) outside of summer months. It's funny how the mayor's cycling lobby is really loud about how many miles of bike lanes implemented (i.e. motor vehicle capacity reduced, and idling/pollution increased), but dead silent on usage metrics (which isn't a little low, it's a lot low... like an order of magnitude low WRT justifying removal of MV capacity).
I have a decent bike, and I ride. My adult-size kids commute to school by bike+bus. I *like* cycling. But ironically Seattle's inane and badly-planned bike-lane implementation, combined with the reckless/arrogant road behavior encouraged by the likes of the nutbag Cascade Bicycle Club*** has created such confusion and hostility on the road that I don't feel safe riding anymore.
(***Just because I ride does not mean that these arrogant idiots represent me. If you live around Seattle, think about that next time you see my kid riding home from school, after you've been stuck behind a Cascade-sponsored rolling roadblock. And think about your vote for Mayor, as you sit idling on Greenwood Ave, recently cut down to one single lane, in a 3-block backup ... and no cyclist in the bike lane as far as the eye can see. )
I think not...(*poof*)
Make sure to wear gloves too. Nothing nastier then putting your hands on ice cold handlebars in subfreezing weather. even if the bars are well padded.
This article is very, very typical of someone who knows enough about cycling to ask questions, but not enough to answer them. I work in the transportation industry. I live car-free. I teach bicycle education. I work with regional transportation agencies, police departments, city planners/councils, and universities to facilitate the use of non-driver-only transportation.
The title of the article should be more direct to the reader: "How Likely Am I to be Injured While Riding My Bike?" That's what people want to know, after all. "How likely am *I* to be hurt?" Most people are concerned with the risks associated with bike commuting or running errands on two-wheels, so let's focus on that. So, let's omit all recreational mountain biking and all competitive (and "training") rides from the data for now. Next, we must differentiate between collisions and solo falls. Most importantly, differentiate between those who have received official bicycle education and those who have not.
Make all those controls and you'll find that an educated cyclist riding on a road where the average speed is 40mph or lower with a small variety of visibility tactics will have an injury only very rarely. And it will likely be due to environmental hazards.
A preferred list of questions for every bike injury logged:
Has the injured bicyclist received bicycle-specific education? (League of American Bicyclists Traffic Skills 101, Cycle Savvy, Other)
Why kind of riding prompted the injury?
Recreation Paved (roadways, sidewalks, off-street paths)
Recreation Off-Road (dirt, etc.)
Recreation Mixed Terrain (Bike Touring)
Competitive Paved (including training)
Competitive Off-Road (including training)
Utility Paved (Commuting, Errands)
Utility Off-Road
What caused the injury to the cyclist?
Collision (automobile)
Collision (bicycle)
Collision (pedestrian)
Collision (animal)
Collision (mixed)
Solo-Fall (road condition)
Solo-Fall (other)
Strain/Sprain/Other Condition (torn ligament, seizure, etc.)
Which visibility tactics/items were implemented by the bicyclist?
Central/Left of Center Lane Position
High Visibility Colors
All Legally Required Reflectors
Reflectivity Beyond Requirements
Tail Light
Headlight ("see me")
Headlight ("see you")
Which of the following faults were performed by the cyclist?
Neglect to Yield to Right of Way
Inappropriate Lane Position
Travel Against Traffic
Speeding
Other
None
Which of the following faults were performed by others involved?
Neglect to Yield to Right of Way
Inappropriate Lane Position
Travel Against Traffic
Speeding
Other
None
Where did the injury take place?
On-Road, in an intersection
On-Road, within 200 feet of an intersection
On-Road, 200 feet or farther from an intersection
Off-Road
On a Sidewalk
On an Off-Street Path
What is the average speed on the road at the point of injury?
5-20
21-40
41+
Sure, let the bike do whatever the hell they want. That will certainly make things better. They are stupid enough as is. I almost scored a bike last night in fact, he RODE though the crosswalk against the walk light while the cars have a left turn arrow. I hope they poop their pretty little shorts when i lay on the horn 12" from em.
I refuse to take responsiblility for these yahoos that don't follow ANY rules, pedestrian OR car.
I really wish they would quit riding down the sidewalk on the main drag too. Car drivers do NOT expect "pedestrians" to come down the sidewalk at close to 20 mph.
This highlights my primary argument, cars and bikes are incompatible and having them share the same space is absurd.
They travel at different speeds, have different levels of maneuverability, and if someone runs into you with their car, even if it kills you, they'll probably walk away with a ticket and maybe a broken windshield.
I commuted for years by bicycle in LA. I've always wondered if it was increasing or decreasing my life expectancy.
On the one hand, my heart and body were getting a lot of exercise. On the other hand, I was sucking in a lot of pollutions and despite being a pretty careful rider I seem to get into an accident with a care once every three years.
(If you are curios, I walked away from all the accidents but a few of my ribs may never be the same again.)
My friend and colleague Tom Bowden gave this great talk at the 2013 Bike Summit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiOIP4lkjgA
And I have never ever not even once seen a car blast through a late yellow going to red, roll through a stop sign, go left across traffic, swerve into other lanes, etc... Drivers are always courteous and follow the rules of the road 100% of the time, probably even staying just under the maximum speed while looking for puppies and kids they can stop and pull off the road.
What universe are you living in? Car and truck (and bus) drivers are just as bad as any cyclist.
I have had cars run me out of the bike lane dozens of times because they wanted a turn lane.
That's actually the law. My brother failed a driving test in Daly City because he failed to merge into the bike lane when turning.
Have a nice time.
The elderly and frail get that way by not getting enough exercise. If you don't stress your muscles as you age you lose muscle mass quickly. If you maintain an active life style and stress your muscles you can maintain high level of physical intensity well into your 60's and 70's.
Most people don't simply because it is simply hard work and they don't like to exercise that is hard work. It also takes a fair amount of time and commitment.
We have a local rider who rides at our Velodrome at 84. Its hard to keep up with him on the road as well. [Our track has steep 46 degree corners, you have to maintain a speed over 30km/h simply to stay on the track.]
Ok, how many times do we have to repeat that it was IN RACING..
Please tell us you have been racing your car and not had any injuries ...
NASCAR bikes for Seniors whoda thunk it... Only turning left, right?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Around here you're allowed to ride two abreast (presumably so two cyclists can ride together and talk with each other) but you can't go three abreast. You're also supposed to ride on the road rather than the sidewalk, and "...as close as is reasonably practicable to the right hand curb..."
There are limited options for dealing with lousy cyclists (and I say this as a cyclist).
1) Enforce the rules. This basically requires bike cops (to catch the bad cyclists) and many people would rather see them enforcing other rules.
2) Publicity campaign. If the bad apples don't care about perception, this doesn't help.
Some drivers believe that the cars have the right of way even when a bike is present. Where you claim someone failed a test, I'm guessing that no bicycle was present in which case the car does have the ability by law to use the lane.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Why I resigned from my stupid cycling organisation.
http://kmccready.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/cycling-deaths-i-resign-from-cycling-action-network-can/
Short version:
1. dooring (a cyclist riding into a car door as it’s being opened because the cyclist is too close). Dumb cyclists should NEVER ride in the door death zone. Attempts to blame car doors (kids in back seat? drivers who haven't been born with x-ray vision to see through door frames?) are dumb
2. attacking coroner's report which said wear bright clothing. (how dumb is that?)
3. No helmet stupidity - any protection is better than none, even if you accept the dumb arguments presented.
work in progress
In the interest of full disclaimer, I am the author of CycleMaps, a popular cycling app and a very keen cyclist.
Here in the UK, cycling has increased massively in popularity in the past 4 years or so - the country has had some successes in international cycling competitions, plus London has a very strongly pro-cycling mayor. This has led to the rise of a large number of very casual cyclists - which I think is a very good thing. However among them you get a non trivial number of people that think it's magically fine to drive in the dark without any lights or high-viz jacket, cycling on the pavement scaring pedestrians, or running all red lights. This leads to a lot of antagonism between drivers and cyclists and basically can give us cyclists a bad name. On the other hand, there are drivers that have been known to do massively stupid things, like hit a cyclist, not stop, and then tweet about it.
I am very optimistic about the future as mass cycling in big western cities is still quite a new phenomenon, so I think that things will gradually ease out. In the mean time, if you want to be safe, my advice would be:
* Obey the rules of traffic. Always.
* Make your self visible. Drivers just need to see you
* Be obvious. Make it 100% clear where you intend to go. No surprises. A driver that sees you and knows where you will turn, will not cut you over
* Respect. Pedestrians, drivers, cyclists.
* *NEVER* overtake lorries / trucks from the inside. They cannot see you.
* Learn how to drive. This way, you will learn how to obey the law and (perhaps more importantly) you will understand how it feels to drive next to a cyclist and what kind of perception drivers have
* Where possible, avoid big streets. It's much more possible than you may think. Get a bicycle case for your smartphone. Use (shameless plug) my app, google, or anything else you may like
be safe, and enjoy cycling!
I used to love riding my bicycle as a kid. I'd ride everywhere... Sometimes much farther afield than I should have...occasionally requiring my father to drive and pick me up.
When we moved to Vermont, it became a necessity, as I often had to ride to school because the bus schedule conflicted with my other obligations, and the high school was in Middlebury and I lived in East Middlebury, a couple miles away.
Now, I'm from New Jersey, and people here in New England love to complain about Jersey drivers...but a lot of the drivers around here are raging assholes. If you ride a bicycle in the street in town, people practically try to run you over and then yell at you to ride on the sidewalk...which will get you TICKETED.
One day when I was riding home from school, I think it was the second to last day of the year or something, I was about to lean into a turn at the bottom of this hill-- you get going really fast there --when some dipshit in the back of a pickup truck coming the other way yelled "Heads up!" and hit me with a water balloon.
Lost it. Caught a pedal on the road. Flipped. Slid about five yards on my side, tangled up with the bike...which was totaled. I would've been dead if it weren't for my helmet, I know because when my head bounced off the asphalt, the side of my face got close enough that it grabbed my sunglasses and ripped them off as I slid down the road. No broken bones, but my nose was bleeding, and I was scraped up and bruised pretty much everywhere...and I was pissed as hell. I had to limp home like that, rolling my ragged-ass bike along with me.
I'm fairly sure that was one of the catalysts for my developing agoraphobia. Because, fuck people. Can't even ride a bicycle in rural New England without having to worry about some dickless shitbird trying to stupidly murder your ass.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
The elderly and frail get that way by not getting enough exercise. If you don't stress your muscles as you age you lose muscle mass quickly. If you maintain an active life style and stress your muscles you can maintain high level of physical intensity well into your 60's and 70's.
Most people don't simply because it is simply hard work and they don't like to exercise that is hard work. It also takes a fair amount of time and commitment.
Active or not, as you age your bones grow brittle, and other body parts become much more injury prone, and you heal much more slowly. I know someone 75, very active who recently had a simple bike accident, the tire hitting the curb at a relatively slow speed and them falling off. They injured their knee, required surgery, and will be unable to walk for months.
It's too easy to call people lazy. It's like calling poor people lazy. Life is much more complicated than that.
Road driving excludes many people. the poor who can't afford a car, insurance or fuel; people with poor vision, especially the elderly; the otherwise frail; and uncoordinated.
It seems like an idea for the young and wealthy, for the young and wealthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in paved roads that many residents are unable to utilize?/quote.
A good point, but riding a bike is still much more physically demanding and risky than driving a car. An elderly person in a minor car accident pays for some repairs. One in a minor bike accident breaks a hip, which sometimes is the end of their mobility.
Seattle isn't pro bicycle as much as it is anti car. The bicycles are just being used as traffic calming devices. Like human speed bumps.
the likes of the nutbag Cascade Bicycle Club
Some years ago, I decided to look at one of their Sunday rides around Mercer Island. I rode my bike down and, knowing the terrain, I decided to ride around the island in a clockwise direction. The road shoulder is much wider on the inland side, which I figured would produce less conflict with vehicular traffic. I think I was the only bicycle that day riding in that direction. Other bikers (across the road on the narrow shoulder) were literally screaming at me that I was riding the wrong way. Crazy fuckers.
Have gnu, will travel.
Remember, when measuring how many red lights people run, that
- all cyclists have the opportunity to run the light (they can go to the front of the queue)
- after a single car driver stops, no more car drivers (in that lane) can run the light.
If you measure the number of people who run the light, out of all those that have the opportunity to, you might be surprised.
That's sad. I am a respectful cyclist, obey signals and signs and such. But it is the cars, who see ALL bikers as a menace, that pushed me off the road. So while you are right about a large number of cyclists behaving irresponibly, that guy on the bike you just fucked with, well, that was me and I was just commuting to work and believe in the laws as much as you do. At least I did until you did that. Now I'm afraid for my safety and more willing to break laws to keep myself safe.
You are escalating the situation instead of growing up and acting the adult, even when tons of people aren't. But I suppose "everyone else is doing it" is justification enough for you.
..which kinda makes me the definitive expert in this topic.
"Cycling excludes many people, especially the elderly, the otherwise frail, and the uncoordinated. " ?
Really? Especially the elderly ride bikes in Holland. You might think it looks frail because in your country old people that don't ride a bike often look like frail little uncoordinated weaklings. In Amsterdam they cut you off & ignore red lights.
Riding bikes is safe. But it has to be part of your system, you can't expect to pick up riding the occasional bike at 30 and thinking you master it. Riding a bike in Holland is almost identical to walking: it's almost part of your body. Handling & reactiontime of most bikers is amazing. Everyday people miss other people by inches. Knowingly. We are horrendous in traffic but horrendous isn't stupid: we almost always know what we're doing although it must look like total madness to foreigners.
You get this feeling for riding bikes when the amount of bikes is easily twice that of the entire population. As a matter of fact in Amsterdam, you don't buy bikes, you lease them.
From the junkie that probably stole your own bike a few weeks earlier. And the month before that. And the week before that.
To answer the last three questions:
Yes
No
No
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Everyday on my bike, someone tries to kill me.
Y'know, I've heard other cyclists say something similar. Yet, I've been riding for years and I can safely say that I have never had someone try to kill me.
Did you ever think that maybe it's you? There's an old saying where if you think you're cool and everyone else thinks you're an asshole, they're probably right. If you're offending other people enough that they want to kill you, perhaps you should consider how you treat others.
but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in transportation programs (such as bikeshare) that many residents are physically unable to utilize?
More bicycles leads to fewer vehicles which leads to less traffic, less pollution, less dependence on oil, and less cost for businesses that rely on deliveries. More bicycles also leads to a healthier population which leads to less burden on the healthcare system.
Arguing against public funding for bicycle lanes because some people can't use them is like arguing against public schools because people over 18 can't use them.
If you count cars rolling through the stop signs, you'd have to count the same for bikes. Just saying...
By biking you get into better shape and thereby become healthier (lose weight, less risk of heart disease and so on...). So that's one aspect that should be weighed against the danger of biking. There's no such health benefit with other forms of commuting (unless you're jogging to work).
I have read the study, and I was aware of that caveat. However, you're misunderstanding the point - it was meant to address issues of legal culpability (e.g. fault vs. cause). Since the data were based on actual police reports, the researchers are basically disclaiming themselves from any claims of legal responsibility.
All you really need to do is look at "Table 3.2" in "Chapter 3: Key Findings" and sum the numbers for incidents caused by cyclists vs. those caused by motorists. The results are quite clear.
We're reading the study quite differently. I think it's quite clear that the researchers were interested in neither legal culpability nor determining which party made the "worse" error in judgement. They quite clearly state that listing an accident as caused by one party or another is for classification purposes only. In the quotes I included above the researchers disclaim both fault and absolute cause.
It's always better to take a second look, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
In general, I agree with you, and I do appreciate your civility. But the biking community has gone beyond my ability to tolerate their behavior. I am tired of getting screamed at by cyclists when I'm crossing with the light (that they're running). I'm tired of having to think, every time I share a road with a cyclist, "when am I going to need to slam on my brakes to avoid killing this guy?" and usually needing to do so. I'm tired of getting thrown around my bus when it gets cut off by a cyclist. (Which happens slightly less than once a week, and I'm not an everyday bus rider.) I'm tired of being startled when driving home late at night by cyclists in dark clothes with minimal (if any) reflectors, much less lights. I'm tired of getting almost run over by and yelled at by cyclists on the sidewalk that they're not even supposed to be riding on.
I've been physically logging egregious bike and vehicle behavior for the better part of a year now. And no, neither group is perfect. But the number of cars I've seen causing others to slam on their brakes hard, running stop-signs and red-lights, and generally grossly violating the rules of the road is less than a score. Meanwhile, it's literally a rare event to see a cyclist actually stop, or even slow down for a red light or stop sign anywhere but the heaviest traffic. And if they do, they inevitably weave through vehicles, cut them off, and cross intersections as it pleases them, without regard for signals, nor even one way streets.
The biking community needs to start policing itself, because it's reputation is (rightfully, imnsho) lower than that of Congress. I used to be a (small-town) cyclist, but now my bike hangs unused in the garage, in no small part because I don't want to be thought of as "one of those assholes" by my friends, colleagues, and random citizens. (Seriously, when the bus slams on its brakes to avoid creaming a cyclist who cut it off, the whole vehicle is filled with cries of "hit him!" or the equivalent every time.)
Cyclists rarely hurt anyone, and car drivers kill cyclists every day.
It doesn't give you the right to be a jerk. No matter how much others are law-breaking jerks, you don't get a free pass. Nor do they. Being a jerk is wrong, and especially being a jerk in the public sphere (e.g., on a road or sidewalk) is wrong. When someone else on the road is behaving like a jerk, you must not be a jerk back, because you can bet that it will cause problems for others who aren't being jerks as well, and that escalates the danger levels hugely. And all because you can't keep your temper in check.
If you really want to get back at them, phone the number plates of the most jerkish drivers into the cops and say that they were driving erratically. You might also speculate, but not conclude, that they might be under the influence of intoxicants. After all, drunk drivers are a hazard to lots of people...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This discussion is awfully American and to a Dane like me it seems that most the people posting here (I haven't had the time to read it all) is ignoring that other countries, amongst them my own, has a lot of experience with minimizing the risk of bicycling. It goes without saying that bicycle-riders, like pedestrians, are vulnerable to a moving ton of steel like a car, but for pedestrians you have side-walks. In Denmark a lot of the bicycle lanes are elevated just like a side-walk and this is definitely making it safer to ride in the city. Bicycle-lanes is working for millions of Dutch and Danish bicycle-riders, so I think that the whole discussion is more about culture and the difficulties to adopt new infrastructural concepts than anything else. Footage from Copenhagen : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXw_t172BKY and this is a video posted by another dude further up the posts also from Copenhagen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbXIXQGQVZM
We're reading the study quite differently. I think it's quite clear that the researchers were interested in neither legal culpability nor determining which party made the "worse" error in judgement. They quite clearly state that listing an accident as caused by one party or another is for classification purposes only.
I agree that we are reading it differently, and I admit your interpretation of the researchers' interests is a possible one - but it is far from clear. It certainly isn't clearly stated that the labels are for "classification purposes only" anywhere. Do you mean this quote?:
The categories are defined by the driver- or cyclist-actions that describe each event most succinctly. Categories named "Ride Out..." refer to the actions of a cyclist, while "Drive Out..." refers to the actions of a motorist. Although they may refer to the actions of only one party, these labels are not intended to assign fault.
Again the "assign fault" in the above quote means legal culpability. Possibly it means physical "cause" as well, but this is doubtful, as they are quite clear about making a specific distinction between "cause" and legal "fault" later on (when discussing cyclists riding on the sidewalk):
As you can see here, they are saying that while a cyclist riding on a sidewalk who gets struck by a car at an intersection might be found legally culpable they attribute the actual cause of the accident to the motorist's behaviour
Nowhere do they say the bins are arbitrary classifications. The bit about "...that describe each event most succinctly" indicates that the bins ARE related to the behaviours which precipitated the collision. Furthermore, their bin types are derived from (and meant to be comparable to) those of the Federal Highway Administration's (which you can find here: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/pedbike/96104/). The FHA's crash types are specifically defined as:
These crashes can be classified or "typed" by their precipitating actions, predisposing factors, and characteristic populations and/or location that can be targeted for intervention.
So, the type classifications they're using are very much meant to indicate which behaviour precipitated the collision (and who's behaviour needs to be corrected)
In the quotes I included above the researchers disclaim both fault and absolute cause.
I believe I have already adequately addressed your first quote, but your second quote: "Thus it cannot be said, for instance, that more cyclists than motorists caused collisions by disobeying traffic control." is taken entirely out of context. It's from a section dealing with other secondary contributing factors that may have played a role in addition to the main cause. The sentence you quoted is referring to their inability to make an accurate comparison of cyclist caused collisions due to disobeying traffic control vs motorist caused collisions due to disobeying traffic control - because secondary contributing factors were not recorded in all cases. Here's the same quote with the relevant preceding context:
It's quite clear from that section that
20000 deaths per year involve a motor vehicle
10000 involve a pedestrian
600 involve a cyclist
0 involve a self driving car
Clearly the government should mandade that we all get self driving cars immediately ! The statistics clearly support this.
Last weekend I was going to an art show and ended up taking the bus. This entailed waiting for about 30 minutes at a suburban intersection heavily traveled by both cars and cyclists(Reservoir Road and Foxhall Road in Washington, DC). Bikes in groups coasted up to the light (not the stop sign), slowed to look for cross-traffic and then, even if red, pedaled on through.
My guess is that, if your suggested survey was done at that corner with me drinking when a car shot the red light and you drinking when a bike rider did, you'd be long dead of acute alcohol intoxication before I was high.
Dismissing that bike riders' habits are a part of this issue by blaming it all on bad drivers is wrong.
My son-in-law is a cat 1 rider and logs upwards of 15 k a year in training and even he gets irritated by some of the behavior of bike riders.
I thought I'd check my email first, before gertting on my bike. Thanks a whole lot, /. Admittedly, the OP has a point. Of all the oldest friends I have from my school days, half have died due to bike accidents. HALF!! I may be a *little* safer than them as I use an electric bicycle, but I live in Can(Cannot)ada where we are restricted to 66.6 % of the power Americans are allowed to have for an electric bicycle. Here the Gov't has to approve and regulate everything, just like any commie country. And because we're limited to 18 miles per hour, drivers consider us a danger on the road and actually encourage accidents..
You mean, no American is going to ... :-)
http://m.dac.dk/da/nyheder/?contentId=34844
Actually where I live it's the safest place to ride. That's where the bike/shared-use lanes are and where drivers are used to seeing and most of the time respectful to cyclists.
Once you get out into the suburbs, you'll encounter a much different environment. People are obsessed with their over-sized cars and obsessed with getting to whatever useless task they are on the way to. You're much more likely to be cursed out, have objects thrown at you and just plain ran off the road out where the housing's cheap (in every sense of the word) and the driveways are full of "toys".
More and more people are riding, but I fear it may be a "millennial thing" and that the majority will simply migrate out to the burbs like they're supposed to do once they reach the standard child rearing age of 22 (at least around here that's the standard)...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
No one has good statistics, for example, on crashes per mile ridden.
In the Netherlands the chance of getting seriously injured or dying in a traffic accident is 4.7 times larger on a bike than in a car (per kilometer). The Netherlands probably has the safest bicycle infrastructure in existence so if we can't do better the situation is clear: riding a bike is much more dangerous than using a car. Note that cycling includes mountain biking and other sports accidents while motor sport accidents are not counted in the car fatalities.
Another thing to consider is that many bicycle related fatalities are related to carelessness of the bicyclist while in cars this is less so. As a bicyclist you probably have more control over on your own fate than you do in your car, where technical problems and the simple fact that you may be a passenger are also a factor. When acting carefully, bicycling is probably much safer than the numbers indicate.
However, that only takes accidents into account. While there are a lot of them, we're still talking about a only few accidents per billion kilometers driven while most people don't get much farther than about 100000 kilometers in a lifetime. So obviously by far most bicyclists never get involved in a serious accident at all. Even though driving a bike is 4.7 times more dangerous than driving a car, the risk is still _extremely_ small.
On average, bicycle accidents are responsible for a shortening of the life expectancy in the Netherlands by about a WEEK while regularly riding a bicycle increases life expectancy by several MONTHS! So while the chance of dying in a bicycle accident is much larger than the chance of dying in a car accident, the certainty of dying when never riding a bike is much larger than when not doing so;-)
Also interesting to note is that additional exposure to polluted air while riding a bike lowers life expectancy by up to a few WEEKS. Obviously that's much more than the traffic accidents.
But that's the Netherlands. Bicycling may very well be MUCH more dangerous in countries that aren't equipped with a ridiculous amount of bicycle lanes. If the chance of a lethal bicycle accident is 10 times or so higher in the USA, the car is probably the better choice. Given the lack of data and given my experiences bicycling in other countries I really wouldn't advice riding a bicycle in actual traffic anywhere but in Netherlands...
Sources (in dutch):
- Article on the 4.7-number: http://www.swov.nl/rapport/D-2012-05.pdfâZ
- Health benefits of cycling: http://www.groen7.nl/gezondheidsvoordelen-fietsen-veel-groter-dan-risicos/
- Accidents/kilometer: http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheets/NL/Factsheet_Risico.pdf
- More numbers: http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4492/Nederland/article/detail/3323533/2012/09/28/Ergernis-en-ongelukken-op-drukkere-fietspaden.dhtml
0x or or snor perron?!
"noting he's only broken his collarbone twice and hip once in four decades of long-distance cycling"
Where I live in upstate NY - we have hundreds of miles of trails made from abandoned railroads and the towpath along the Erie Canal system (including both the present-day Barge Canal and original Erie Canal that was abandoned around 1919). Other than the risk of riding off the trail and hitting a tree or falling in the canal - other than road crossings, it's pretty safe.
I try to avoid streets where possible - too many people on their phones or texting. And yes I wear my helmet - always.
No one is going to bike to work in 3 feet of snow and/or 12 degrees.
No one is going to bike to work in driving rain.
No one is going to bike to work in 100+ degree temps. If they do, you won't want to be around them
Pussy.
I cycled every day for three months in the snow one year while visiting Germany, out in the country, minimum 8 miles to any destination of interest. I was actually too damn hot with what I was wearing! No one who whinges about this stuff has actually tried it, you know.
The bicycle is a high tech climate control device. You use it with shorts and a t-shirt, you get automatically air cooled! You use it with weatherproof snowboarding type stuff, you get central heating! What a miracle of engineering!
Many of you are missing the point by focusing on accident rates of cyclists - they, pedestrians and motorists have accidents and always will. The important part of cycling is its health benefits - the health risks presented by obesity mean that you are far more likely to die of not exercising and being fat than you are of cycling with or without a helmet. Plus, the more people that cycle, motorists get used to seeing them and used to driving considerately - this means fewer accidents of all types. This is why compulsory helmets is wrong (it puts people off) as are scare stories such as this one. All activities have a risk - these should be offset by potential benefits and mitigated reasonably and proportionately.
There's a move on here in Toronto to get the police to report 'door prizes' as accidents. Once this starts, people may realize that cycling in the city isn't as rosy as it seems, at least not if there are cars sharing the same streets. Toronto is about as backward as a city can get on this while Montreal, more European perhaps, is ahead of the curve. Given that Montreal has much more intense winters than Toronto, it should be the other way, you'd think. My utopia would have every second or third street devoted to bikes, no cars allowed. It won't happen but it'd be nice.
Currently I have this problem, that I share with many others. My city invests in this transport infrastructure that I am legally not allowed to use without spending hundreds on acquiring something called a 'licence' , and is impractical for me because of extortionate running costs, because of being grossly surplus to my requirements, and not to mention the initial financial outlay that I would have to spend on equipment to enable me to actually take advantage of it, using money that I would much rather spend on... ohh... just about anything else, for example chocolate biscuits or imported cheese or hand jobs. The system seems to have been developed by a culture that fell into a jibbering fever at the prospect of not having to do any physical exercise in order to get from one place to another, and is now spending trillions of dollars bombing defenceless desert dwelling peasants back into the stone age in order to support the economic balance that enables this lifestyle, simply because they have the audacity to live in a region that is rich in resources and didn't offer to share. Devoting this amount of public resources into such a dubious system seems questionable to me, but it then I am not an economist, health professional, historian, oil industry executive or city planner, so what the fuck would I know.
http://www.bicycling.com/senseless/index.html
Clear, Dark Skies
he said there are 3 rules for a long life: 1. don't smoke. 2. don't climb on ladders. 3. don't ride bicycles.