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Why Biking Injuries and Deaths Are Spiking In the US
HughPickens.com writes: NPR reports that more and more adults across the U.S. are strapping on helmets and hopping on bikes to get to work. Unfortunately, between 1998 and 2013, the rate of bicycle-related injuries among all adults increased by 28 percent, from 96 injuries per 100,000 people in 1998-1999, to 123 injuries per 100,000 people in 2012-2013. And while the death rate among child cyclists has plummeted in the past four decades, the mortality rate among cyclists ages 35 to 54 has tripled. Dr. Benjamin Breyer isn't sure what's driving the surge in accidents among Generation Xers and baby boomers, but one reason could be what's known as the Lance Armstrong effect. "After Lance Armstrong had all of his success at the Tour de France, a lot more people were riding, and there were a lot more older riders that took up the bicycle for sport."
The most recent National Household Travel Survey showed that the vast majority of the increase in bicycling between 1995 and 2009 came from Americans older than 25, with the biggest increases coming in the oldest groups. That has meant more men in their 50s and 60s on road bikes, riding at high speeds, Breyer says — a recipe for serious injuries. Though a rapidly growing share of older people would like to ride, American cities built during the last 60 years don't make it easy for most people to do so. At the end of the day, reducing cycling accidents may boil down to something simple: Making sure that bikers know the rules of the road — and that drivers know how to deal with bikers.
The most recent National Household Travel Survey showed that the vast majority of the increase in bicycling between 1995 and 2009 came from Americans older than 25, with the biggest increases coming in the oldest groups. That has meant more men in their 50s and 60s on road bikes, riding at high speeds, Breyer says — a recipe for serious injuries. Though a rapidly growing share of older people would like to ride, American cities built during the last 60 years don't make it easy for most people to do so. At the end of the day, reducing cycling accidents may boil down to something simple: Making sure that bikers know the rules of the road — and that drivers know how to deal with bikers.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that these older age groups show similarly troubling statistics for accidents while driving motorized vehicles. Hmm....
Always ride like absolutely NO ONE can see you...like you are invisible. If you purposefully always avoid situations where you are in front of a driver that perhaps doesn't look both ways...
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians all draw from the same general population and none of them has the moral high ground. But watch this thread devolve into endless, ignorant sniping among the groups. I have a car, ride a bike and walk to work and I see members of each group act incredibly stupidly and selfishly. It's just a fact of life that people are generally terrible and their actions frequently endanger and even kill one another, bu they'd rather withdraw into their little cultural groups to claim the high ground. And nothing ever changes.
Let's have all the 'bikers don't follow traffic rules and don't pay road tax and are arseholes' arguments in this thread, thanks!
We can have the other threads for more constructive discussion then.
I can't even count how many times a day a cyclist breaks a traffic law and almost ends up getting hit, in which case that would be entirely there fault! When cyclists start obeying the rules of the road, then we'll finally start seeing cyclist accidents fall.
More drivers.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
At the end of the day, reducing cycling accidents may boil down to something simple: Making sure that bikers know the rules of the road — and that drivers know how to deal with bikers.
Or install separate bike lanes separated by metal posts. Drivers don't want to damage their expensive cars.
As a cyclist between the ages of 35 and 54, these statistics directly concern me. That said, I'm a very experienced and highly-capable (not bragging) cyclist.
The is anecdata, I know, but a handful of people I know (~5) who took up biking and then stopped because of a serious accident have done so because they had an accident while biking after having drinks. I know biking wine tasting in Napa is also a thing.
In any case, my point is out-loud wondering what percentage of these accidents can be accounted for by drunken cyclists and/or cyclists with impaired/lowered motor skills.
Please, everyone, ride and drive safely and soberly. Commuting injuries and mortalities are just not worth it.
blog
and think that they own the road they drive on, and that said road is specifically for cars, and not for transportation.
"We Are The Cyclists" 2 minutes long
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFFrsvgu1Y
The number of drivers who are using smartphones has had a huge increase in the just the last couple years and I would be surprised if there wasn't a relation to car vs bike accdients.
How about we build separate infrastructure for bikes? Widen roads, add barriers, signals, the works. And while you're at it, how about adding more mass transit too?
USA: The only first world country with a third world transportation system.
OK, let's get this out of the way first:
We're going to hear a lot of "Bikers don't follow the rules! I once heard a friend of a friend who's grandma's hairdresser's second cousin once saw someone not stop at a stop sign on a bike, so I know it's true". So if you are a driver and want to claim bikers break road rules consider the following:
1) Have you ever broken a speed limit? Speeding contributes to accidents in far higher proportion than anything else. (Google is your friend). If you've ever exceeded the limit, you're a damned hypocrite if you complain about bikers breaking the rules.
2) Why do other countries like Denmark, The Netherlands etc not have these problems, even despite not wearing helmets, cycling like crazy people etc?
3) The vast, vast majority (that big G again for those who want the stats) of bike deaths are directly and entirely attributed to driver error, not cyclist error.
I know you're going to be upset by this, but I'm sick and tired of having to point out the same crap every time there's a bike story.
...because I hated running and it hurt my knees. Which is much the same reason George W. Bush took it up.
It's also easier to do in the Texas heat than running, thanks to the airflow, and doubles as a means of transportation.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
and Lawyers buying $3-5k bikes they have no business riding. If you're into road biking you know about this and if you're at the lower end of the economic spectrum they're the bane of your existence. They moved into the sport back in the mid 2005. I was shopping for my first real road bike and the price of a decent carbon fiber frame shot up a grand (Boeing's new planes didn't help either). I ended up with an Aluminum Cevelo (which ironically some old person hit me on and ruined :( ... ).
:P ).
Anyway you've got rich people in OK Shape buying ridiculously fast bikes. I see them all the time at the little charity runs I like to do. If you're smart you steer as clear as you can. They don't have the riding chops to handle the bike they just bought but they're usually in OK enough shape to be dangerous (the fat ones end up on cruisers
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There you have it: people are strapping on helmets.
There have been some studies linking the rise of helmet use (or its mandatory character) to higher accident rates. Presumably because people feel safer wearing a helmet and don't pay enough attention to their environment any more.
Cyclists shouldn't be sharing the road with two ton steel boxes. Yeah yeah I know you have the same rights as cars but get real. From a physics standpoint you'll always lose. Cycling on roads is a death wish.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Too many cars on the roads. Bad roads. Bad drivers. 2 tons versus 2 stones. Which wins? I let the ER staff tell you.
And don't you forget about me.
two-thirds of fatalities are of those with no helmets.
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
1) Fraction of the population bicycling. The stats (in the summary) were expressed as a fraction of population in general, though it was also mentioned that, post the Lance Armstrong publicity, more people were cycling.
2) New populations of drivers with different driving styles. Back in the mid-20th century I noticed that driving styles in several regions of the US were substantially different. But (with the possible exception of how traffic lights were treated in Boston) both I and others have noted they are nowhere NEAR as different as all of them are from the style(s) of the influx of drivers from Mexico and other countries from south of the border.
This is especially an issue with the undocumented, who often don't have licenses, insurance, or US driver's training, and have a strong incentive to avoid police involvement, which may lead to leaving the scene rather than calling for medical assistance for a victim.
I would be interested in seeing stats on vehicle/bicycle accidents broken down by country of origin and immigration status of the driver (though I doubt the media would publish the results of such a study even if it were done.)
As for the progressively higher fatality rate with older cyclists who have gotten into an accident, that's not surprising at all. Older bodies are more fragile, injury-prone, and heal less readily.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
As people take up longer and longer rides, that means more and more of them biking on roads that have no shoulders, narrow lanes and people driving pretty fast... I've seen this myself over the years, side roads I like to drive on because they are scenic also attract more and more bikers. But eventually probability will catch up wit the bikers on this road - either the biker will swerve to avoid some part of a poorly maintained edge, or a car will drift over to try and escape a large truck coming the other way, and the biker will lose - right or wrong, it doesn't really matter if you are dead now does it?
The thing I like about biking is how much control you have over risk. But some people do not exercise that control intelligently.
I also think bike helmets may have something to do with this as well, as wearing helmets leads some people into thinking they are safer than they really are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is your answer right there. These helmets make the riders think they are safe when the evidence indicates they are not. Thinking they are safe makes them careless and so there are more accidents. Clearly we should outlaw helmets. QED
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I don't care if it's against the rules... the fine is like $100 and I've never been fined.
Anecdotal example here. I've been hit by cars 3 times when I had right of way and the car was clearly in error. From several other close calls I can confirm that from my experience Automobiles who arent paying attention are the cause of the vast majority of these deaths. Either something fundamentally needs to change in the effort people put into paying attention while they drive, or a lot more bike lanes/paths need to be built. Otherwise as cycling continues to become more popular these deaths will continue to rise.
If you want a meaningful statistic about the dangers of cycling, the injuries and deaths per 100000 people are at best a bad choice, but more likely it's lying with statistics. Obviously, if more people ride bikes, more cyclists will get into accidents. What you want to know is if the increase is lower or higher than the increase in the number of cyclists (or the miles on a bicycle). In many countries, more cycling leads to more safety for the individual cyclist, because motorists become more aware of cyclists and their typical behavior, and because more infrastructure is built for cyclists or at least with cyclists in mind.
That is completely meaningless, dumbass. The actual statistic is that a third of the fatalities are on riders wearing helmets, but upwards of ninety percent of bike riders are not wearing helmets. So if helmets were not a factor you would expect only about a tenth of the riders to be wearing helmets and if they helped at all then even lower, Clearly the helmets are causing problems, not preventing them.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I just assume vehicles are going to run me down. I never trust any vehicle with a drive holding a cell phone. I've seen too many people pull right out in front of me with a cellphone and I'm stopped within 3 feet of the car watching them go in front of me obliviously.
Never ride on PCH in California if you have any grey matter left.
Bike trails are the only half way safe method of biking.
Fast road bikes with skinny tires are simply asking for problems from fragile tires to higher speeds. I don't do that.
I do agree with the author that Lance Armstrong influenced people to do aggressive cycling without thinking that Lance only races with other bicyclists going the same direction. I've done aggressive riding and gone down a couple times, but never had a serious injury beyond a scrape. That seriously altered my attitude.
2/3 of cycling deaths are riders not wearing helmets.
7/9 of cycling deaths caused by impact with motor vehicle.
... do I ever see ANYBODY display even the slightest bit of situational awareness..
Fixed that for you. To be fair, I've never seen a Google car around here. They may be the most advanced life form on the highway at present.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Browsing the articles, it is not entirely clear what numbers are changing. Is this post really about "as more people use bikes, more people have accidents and die on bikes"? If so ... well, duh ... that is to be expected. If more inexperienced bikers are suddenly on the road, well ... then a higher accident rate among that group is also to be expected. Not sure where the news is here.
I remember reading some articles about how the push for wearing helmets on bikes, actually reduces overall health benefits as fewer people choose to do biking because they do not like the helmet - as on average the health benefits of physical exercise will outweigh the few additional injuries and fatalities, even without helmets. Just saying. Don't remember the source, this was a while ago.
In my country biking has gained popularity, and it is really a pain how some small winding roads get cluttered with cyclists during summer - even worse if you encounter a "train" of 20-30 cyclists which is impossible to pass. I hate the "everyone has equal rights to the road" argument, and how politicians keep always catering to cyclists. Roads are a shared resource, and I would say that getting cars where they need to go, should be the main priority. The one biker's supposed right to do whetever he wants wherever he wants, should be balanced against the need of the people in the seven cars behind him to get where they are going on time, and not having to add 10 minutes buffer.
Listening to radio today some local politicians were proposing that bikers should get a general right of way in order to reduce biking accidents. Yes, because that should really reduce accidents and friction in traffic, drivers suddenly now having to pay attention both left and right, reverting a habit which has been ingrained for 10s of years.
Most cyclist fatalities are from being hit by cars. (Not from just falling off their bikes.)
The disproportionate toll on older people is because their connective tissue & bones are less able to withstand being hit by a car.
The period 1998-2013 is a time during which use of distracting-ass mobile phones became popular among drivers who should be concentrating on not hitting people with cars.
but we drivers need to try harder to exterminate all cyclists... it can happen in our lifetime
I wonder how much of the spike can be attributed to the cell phone killers.
I would be interested in seeing stats on vehicle/bicycle accidents broken down by country of origin and immigration status of the driver (though I doubt the media would publish the results of such a study even if it were done.)
I also expected the politically-correct volunteer censors to mod down the posting - and my expectations have been met. In 30 minutes it's received at least one down-mod (or one more down- the up-mods).
One of the downsides to Slashdot's mod system is that it can be abused to create an echo-chamber by
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Your 2/3 number is absolutely meaningless without numbers on how many are wearing helmets and how many are not, once you see those numbers if you have any understanding of math an no blinding biases you will see that helmets have a negative effect.
The 7/9 number is meaningless. Did you think that some people thought deaths were caused by impacts with cotton balls or bunny rabbits? It has absolutely nothing to do with my comment.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
There weren't cell phones in every car in 98-99. That has changed. Younger riders have been going to MTB for a good 20 years, whereas older riders are *still* on the road bikes of their younger days, bikes whose demise had been predicted more frequently than Dvorak with Apple.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
bike trails are safe if vehicles don't drive on them which is not always the case, dumbass
"At the end of the day, reducing cycling accidents may boil down to something simple: Making sure that bikers know the rules of the road — and that drivers know how to deal with bikers."
No, reducing cycling accidents boils down redesigning roads to make them save for cylclings (and pedestrians). Making sure everyone knows the rules of the road is important but fixing the systemic issues is the real way to address the problem.
From their very own reference: https://jama.jamanetwork.com/a...
Another case of people making non news out of misinterpreting statistics. The statistics are from hospital admissions of cycling related injuries "per 100,000 persons" NOT 100,000 cyclist persons. This is no different to saying roads are getting more dangerous because there are more people driving and thus proportionally more driving injuries, get your base line right.
Lance Armstrong effect: the mortality rate among cyclists ages 35 to 54 has tripled.
When it rains, it pours.
Last month, I crashed my bike on the sidewalks of San Jose. No car or peds or other bikes. Just me being an idiot. To make matters worse, no helmet! 3 days in hospital plus 10 staples in the scalp. No major injury. Just rung my bell. The dizziness has finally gone away. I wear a helmet now. Oh, Im 68years old. This is my first bike accident. Hopefully, my last.
Most car and truck drivers have zero clue how to drive around a bicyclist. couple with that bicyclists being morons and blowing lights, riding down the wrong side of the road, or in general riding stupid and you have what we have today.
Bicyclists tend to ignore traffic laws, I see FREDS (the trendy ones all wearing spandex and riding $9500 bikes) blowing traffic lights all the time, but the worst is the casual rider that is riding on the sidewalk on the wrong side of the road, they will cross the street and get massacred by the person turning left because they are completely invisible to the car that is turning.
Car drivers need to be smacked in the face, no you are not important and your non important ass can wait while that bicyclist is in your lane. Boo hoo you big baby that you have to slow down for the bike that has the full right to be there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Every year there's more and more drivers on the road. More drivers = more people who can run over a cyclist.
Just going by observations I did sitting on a porch: It seems like 1/10 people are texting actively at any time. And 1/4 people are on their cell phones. Distracted drivers today are more dangerous than drivers back in the day.
God spoke to me
I've come to believe that cyclists should require a license to use public roads, if for no other reason than to ensure that the cyclist is at least aware that they are subject to all of the same laws that cars are, because at least half of the time, it really doesn't seem to me like cyclists have a clue. Make the minimum age on it low enough that it not impractical for kids to ride on the roads (once they are old enough to do it safely), but old enough that you can have some kind of statistical assurance they would be able to do so competently in the first place. Maybe age 12 or something. Before that age, they can only cycle on private property or bicycle paths.
No offense meant to those who cycle and actually play it by the book, and follow all the rules of the road correctly.... I know that there are a lot of you out there, but there's also one helluvalot of people who cycle who apparently can't be bothered to care. A license would at least ensure a minimum education standard so that the person should know what to do, and would also provide a certain amount of accountability.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Rarely do I ever see a cyclist (or a pedestrian) display even the slightest bit of situational awareness.
That's because the ones who do go unnoticed. When I'm actively looking for cyclists, they appear to be in the majority.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I have a video camera on the front fork of my bike and have clear evidence of who's at fault. I have clips of city buses crowding the bike lane, the mirror whizzing by inches from my helmet. Other great shots of cars cutting me off on right turns, including one truck that ran me onto the sidewalk with his trailer, ironically next to a sign that said Right Turns Yield To Bikes In Bike Lane. Even left turns, people who can clearly see me coming, cutting it so close I've had to slide to a stop.
Mixed in with the idiots are a far larger pool of considerate people. People who insist on waiting for me, even when they have the right of way, cars that cover for me on turns and those who change lanes to give me more space. The considerate and aware people far outnumber the idiots but the problem is it only takes one idiot to kill you.
In my experience the worst offenders are women. Of the top 10 close calls I've had, 7 were female drivers. Ironically the closest call I've ever had was a police car, typing on his computer and not paying attention. He ran me into the curb and just kept going.
I've also seen my share of bike riders doing the incredibly stupid. Cutting across turn lanes when the arrow is with the cars, riding the wrong way down sidewalks, ignoring right of way at intersections and at night with no lights. So I understand the frustration the other way.
When it comes to bikes and pedestrians on roads, especially in big cities, the people designing bike lanes and intersections are people driving to work. In most cases the problem is literally dictating the solution. The other problem are the righteously entitled who scoff at bike riders because they're not paying road taxes. They're the most deliberate when it comes to ceding the very minimum amount of space when moving over. Those are the only ones I'd really like to drag of their car and beat to a pulp.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's dangerous to ride a bike in traffic because the lawmakers don't really give a damn about cyclists, and won't until they pay the lawmakers as much as the automakers.
Cyclists can't even legally take a left hand turn.
No cyclist or motorist can stop a vehicle fast enough to keep from being doored.
It's impossible to see what a motorist will do from inside a car because of total internal reflection.
Cars generally do not have enough visibility to give enough situational awareness.
I am 49 years old, and never in my life have I heard of the police catching a bicycle thief.
For every cyclist on the road, there's one less car.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Bikers don't have bike licenses in most places. They aren't taught where to ride, they ignore traffic signals, they don't try to get out of the way when traffic lines up behind them and police officers mostly do not enforce traffic laws when its a bike. They take up half a lane and are moving at a dangerously slow pace compared to motor vehicles. It is similar to when a sailboat is in the way of a freighter, but here the larger and faster vehicle really has no place to go other than to collide or slow down. I would like to expect that they would at least behave as good as a guy on a moped, but this doesn't happen. The laws in my state say that they should be treated the same as a motor vehicle. This is not what happens. At least our state has added some good long distance bike paths and bike overpasses, but these are mostly used by the trendy and health conscious, not for people actually trying to get anywhere.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
So how should people who were born there afford to no longer live there?
A car, 50 hours of verifiable supervised driving, insurance, and fuel cost thousands of dollars. Are you buying?
iPhones didn't exist in 1998.. It's pretty simple.
When cyclists start obeying the rules of the road
Do the rules of the road state or imply that an authorized user is entitled to a green light in a reasonable time? If so, then the road itself isn't obeying the rules of the road. Not all U.S. states have a law allowing cyclists to cross against a clearly malfunctioning red traffic signal.
more biking = more biking accidents is kind of obvious and in itself not an evident problem. Also the number of biking related deaths per 100.000 people will increase without really saying anything about the increased/decreased risks for bikers. That makes it a (somewhat) pointless metric.
The more meaningful metric would be deaths per million miles traveled on a bike, but that information is lacking.
Its happening because there is a concerted black ops PR/astroturf campaign to vilify, attack, discredit, smear, and mock bicyclists. This is the United States. Wake up people.
A 2007 study of 7,502 cyclists at five random intersections in London concluded that "an average of 16% violated red lights, whilst the remaining 84% obeyed the traffic signals."
A similar study of 2,617 cyclists at seven intersections across in Oregon in 2013 found the red light compliance rate to be 69.1% (89.7% excluding right-turn-on-red which is illegal but generally safer since you're not crossing traffic lanes which was your complaint).
I don't consider 16% and 21% high enough to call "common."
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Doesn't bother me, as long as they OBEY traffic laws. Riding AS FAR AS THE RIGHT as possible, not in city traffic riding in the "left" (passing) lane. Keeping up with the flow of traffic, OR MOVING OUT OF THE WAY, and not jumping through a RED LIGHT. I would prefer they stay off the "main" roads, to keep traffic flowing.
But I think I have never in my life seen anybody on a bike (other than myself :-) ) ever do the hand signal for stopping (and at least in our state it's required by law).
I acknowledge but plead not guilty by reason of necessity. Both the hand signal for stopping and the hand signal for turning use the same hand. If I am stopping with the intent of turning, especially when everyone else can see the stop sign or red light that I've stopped for, signaling my turn in my opinion overrides signaling my stop.
Actually, Americans (assholes or not) do own the roads they drive on.
Not if they're living in the State of Indiana, which has leased its toll road to a foreign company. "Australia’s IFM Investors has agreed to a $5.725 billion deal to operate the 157-mile toll road that runs across Indiana between the Ohio Turnpike and Chicago Skyway for the next 66 years."
Been following this trend since about 2005.
A lot of children and adults less than 18 are being killed by automobile drivers. Came across a story that killing by automobile is quickly becoming the top form of murder in the US. Local magistrates basically give automobile drivers a pass (even those who failed a blood test) i.e. no charges, and pass on charges (court costs, insurance costs, etc.) to the relatives i.e. parents of the killed child.
Bicyclists should wait at red lights just like everyone else, for example. It doesn't mean "stop, look, then proceed if you don't see a car crossing". It means you wait until it turns green.
If a traffic signal's induction loop detector is not detecting a bicycle because of insufficient metal surface, how many minutes is a cyclist expected to wait at a red light before making a U-turn and finding another route?
There are people who purposely run them down because pretty much all non-bikers, hate bikers. And pretty much all bikers hate drivers. Car and bikes simply seem to not get along on the same road very well at all. This hatred often erupts into open and excessive displays of violence on both sides. So it is getting more dangerous to bike.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
..
.
".. some of the benefits of 'biking' in traffic to work.. and their all natural.. and FREE!"
They go through red lights. [...] My mom gave me a state drivers manual for me to study.
What did your state driver's manual say about how to request a green light from a demand-actuated intersection? A lot of induction loops buried under the road in such intersections aren't sensitive enough to detect a bicycle stopped with its front and rear wheels over the crack in the road. Some won't even detect motorcycles.
So just because I'm in a car Im responsible for an idiot on a bike running a [red light] and hitting me maybe killing himself?
Not directly. The only responsibility I can think of is that by making trips in a car that could be done on a bike, you might be contributing to the mentality that vehicle sensors at intersections need to detect only cars. So I admit your responsibility is tiny, but it's still greater than zero.
I have always wondered how much extra fuel is used and CO2 produced by vehicles having to putter along behind cyclists. Combine that with extra braking and acceleration needed to get around cyclist I wonder if bicycles are a positive or negative force with respect to greenhouse gasses.
Since less than 1% of cyclists ever wear a helmet, we must conclude that either wearing a helmet is very unsafe, or people who ride recklessly are more likely to wear a helmet.
All people in traffic break the law, you just choose to see the bad behaviour of cyclists, it's very easy to succumb to confirmation bias, or just plain we vs. them thinking. Anyways there are lots of studies on this if you care to read them, some peer reviewed and some not so peer reviewed.
That said you do need to break the law when bicycling, and it's often the safest way to bicycle. This is why we have things like "idaho stop", pregreen for cyclists etc.
Two principles to be aware of when you are on a bike in auto traffic:
1. You are in the most danger when auto traffic crosses your path. Intersections are the most obvious example. Especially dangerous are turning lanes and off-ramps when you are going straight - cars that are changing lanes or preparing to turn are looking for other cars, not bicycles.
2. If you hear a siren, get off the road NOW. Cars will be trying to get out of the way of emergency vehicles, and looking to avoid other cars, not bicycles.
I've been a short-distance commuting cyclist since 1994. I've been hit once in traffic - at an off-ramp, by a car that was getting out of the way of a fire truck.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I used to be an avid cyclist. Like, 3,000 miles per year avid. So I notice people on bikes. What I have seen over the years is more really poor people on crappy bikes that are the wrong size for them and/or improperly adjusted. These people are seriously uneducated in cycling technique, the law, and basic safety. They will ride against traffic, at dusk, with the sun at their back, and all kinds of crazy-stupid stuff.
So, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the recent uptick of income inequality has had something to do with the increased death rate.
When I was a kid, bicycle safety was taught in school. I'm guessing this has fallen by the wayside (pun intended) as well.
strapping on helmets and thinking they are protected.
No, you are not!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Learn the bloody difference!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yiu1uLgwF1E
Don't stop there. It turns out that even a greater percentage of vehicle / pedestrian casualties occur when the pedestrian is not wearing a helmet. So let us use our Politically Correct Nanny State logic and mandate that all pedestrians have sight and sound restricting helmets. And once we have that in place we can start understanding that all injuries and deaths occur more frequently when the poor victim isn't wearing a helmet, so we can be a good nanny state and require that people wear helmets all of the time.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
A much lower accident and death rate got Bucky Balls completely banned. I say it's time to tackle this two-wheeled menace, which could be the greatest problem our society faces today.
I'm sure the anecdotes are fascinating, but hard data is always more useful. Slightly over a year ago I did a quick analysis of the accident patterns regarding bikes in my own state, Queensland Australia, using the data that the Transport dept. released.
http://www.unorthodox.com.au/map/what_hits_bikes/
The data shows that there are particular 'hotspots' where bike accidents occur, usually were flows of heavy vehicles and multiple (complex) lanes meet. That suggests that we don't need bike lanes everywhere, but we do need clear bikeways through heavy traffic spots. Incidents are _not_ correlated with population density, but with heavy traffic density. There are also odd hotspots around places like public parks, though they seem to be of the more low-level parking-style incidents.
The original data included all road accidents, but was winnowed to just the bike events. The incident reports don't reveal individual details like which vehicle's driver was injured, but in the fatality incidents between, eg: a pushbike and a road-train, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the three-ton truck driver who came off worse for wear.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
Professional cyclist here:
the best advice in this thread is to consistently ride in the middle of your lane. Allow motorists to pass when it is safe to do so. Be wary of bike lanes in modern urban areas. Many people do not consider them part of flowing traffic and will hook you while making a right turn. Because I ride briskly I tend to avoid some bike lanes altogether, especially when descending. Better seen and hated than dead and ignored.
Also unfortunately more and more motorists are splitting time driving and using portable devices. The rate is high enough where I live that I cannot afford to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, all vehicles are suspect.
If you feel comfortable with your bike, work on panic stops. These usually involve locking the rear wheel and whipping the bike around (sometimes pivoting on the ground side foot). It is the fastest way to stop and has saved me from impact numerous times. Practice in a parking lot.
At least in my state. Stop signs are effectively yield or stop. Stop lights are stop then yield. There are requirements for position within a lane depending on intent. Cyclist are allowed to ride two deep. There are no requirements for passing distance as there are for autos. I could list more if I just sat here and thought. But you get the idea.
46 & 2
100K+ lifetime miles. ~20 nations, 5 continents (North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa), and lots of islands.
From the viewpoint of someone who actually has more miles on a bicycle than they do driving:
- American drivers are the most distracted, immature, and unsafe humans behind the wheel.
- Rural Japanese drivers are the most polite and courteous drivers in the world.
- Unless you do something incredibly stupid, you will not even come close to getting hit in Thai traffic.
- North Australian drivers are better drivers blind-stinking drunk than most American drivers are stone-cold sober. Queenslanders... ah, different story.
On riding style: "Invisible" does not work. I prefer the "ride like they can't see you or hear you" style - helmet, helmet mirror, hi-vis and clashing colors, multiple reflectors, blinker head/tail/side/wheel lights. The 'dinger' bell works pretty well for pedestrians (if they aren't wearing headphones), but I prefer a really loud voice if they are distracted and a 4-tone 100db air horn if they are stupid. Cell phone off, no music, and no headphones. Reasonable sunglasses with a retention strap.
Bike Paths: Great idea, but normally poorly implemented. Singapore does them really well.
Bike Lanes: Wide with no storm drains, please.
To that end, a number of municipalities have instituted "dead on red" statues
And a number have not. Or should cyclists make a point of moving to one of the states that have?
the link insinuating older bikers should know the rules of the road has nothing to do with bikers knowing how to bike, another asshole driving a car not wanting to pay attention
Not only are there more cyclists, there are more cars on the road. In my area, South Pasadena, CA, in the past 20 years has been a major increase in traffic. "Rush hour" used to be 2-3 hours in the morning, and 2-3 hours in the evening. Now the two major North South Streets are nearly solid traffic 14 hours a day.
I gave up cycling circa 1990. There were several near accidents. Then someone in a convertable Cabriolet with 4-6 teenagers/young adults threw a 7-11 Big Gulp drink container at me, still full of ice. (For those of you outside the USA, this is a large drink in a paper or plastic cup, around 1.5 quarts or liters). I was probably going 20 mph; the car was going may 40-50 mph. It would have hurt, in may have caused injury, it may have caused me to lose control or the bike--hopefully not under the wheels of a car...etc. I gave chase and was within 5 feet at the next corner of being able to leap inside the vehicle. Dang!
Reading some of the above I didn't see any mention of this danger to cyclists: intentional assault. These idiot kids would be in the category of idiot kids, hooliganism. etc., not limited to throwing things at bicyclists. But that age group and that idiot behavior does kill people at times, including but limited to bicyclists. (Not mention a high share of Darwin Award Winners).
But any cyclist has heard or personally experienced drivers intentionally nudging bikes at stops signs/red lights, squeezing them off the side of the road, or even ramming bikes. Women cyclists run the risk of men trying to slap their butt, sometime causing with serious injuries or death. Hmm, that could be a nice place to put some spikes?
Could be worse. Latest news from China is that some drivers if they hit a pedestrian, and I assume a cyclist, run over them a few more times to make sure they are dead. Seems the legal system values a dead person much less than having to pay for a disabled person for the rest of their life.
I hope I'm reincarnated as a dolphin....
Open grates:
You are a road engineer. Or maybe just a construction team. You are installing a grate on the edge of a road to drain water.
Do you consider that if the grate had parallel bars with a 1.5" gap and you install the grate with the bars running the same direction as the road that bicycle wheels will fall into that grate, sometimes toppling the bicyclist?
This danger has been know for decades, and yet grates like this are still installed in this dangerous manner. I can show you some a couple miles from my house.
Bike lanes.
The City of Los Angeles is creating new bike lanes. Not without controversy. A lane was installed a few blocks from my house (On York St., zip 90042). In doing so it reduced the number of lanes over the York Street Bridge over the Pasadena Arroyo and Pasadena Freeway down to 3 from 4 lanes. I thought that the bike lanes would be rarely used, and that this was a poor decision. And I'm very pro-bike. I was wrong; if you build it they will come! The bike lanes have a lot bikes on them at various times.
But there is a problem. Roads rarely have the space to put in a real, fully committed bike lane, which really needs to be an exclusive bike lane for safety.
A planned connecting section of bike lanes down Figueroa St. or parallel streets has stalled. The reason is the real fact that the only way to install a bike lane in that area is to take away either a traffic lane or car parking space, and many people don't want that.
Ah! How about an elevated bike path...but once you put people in such hard to leave zones, you create a space for criminality to do it's thing.
Sigh.
The other problem is expense. Google it; you will find that even at the cheapest level requiring only paint and signs, it runs up into 5 or 6 figures $$$$$ or $$$$$$ per mile.
as the stupid design of most bikes. Look at the dumb things- if you hit something, you are launched head-first over the handlebars. If that isn't a recipe for disaster I don't know what is. The only thing worse would be if we were riding high-wheelers.
I have ridden mostly recumbents for the last 20 years and in few times I've crashed in that interval I have always gone feet first and either landed on my feet or on my side next to the bike- with one exception (rear-ended by a motorcycle in Japan) no head or neck injuries, no fractured clavicles, no broken wrists. I designed and built the bike myself with crash safety in mind. It has a short wheel base with steering located alongside and below the seat. There are no steering or derailleur posts between my legs to bust my nuts on in a frontal crash.
Fix the bike design and fix the safety problem.
Many douchecyclists "clip in" meaning their toes are locked to the pedals. One of the main reasons they don't want to stop, because it is difficult or at the least tedious to repeatedly unclip and clip in for every legal traffic control device. So, since they have every right to occupy a full lane with their bicycle, so do you when they're coming up behind you at a stop sign/light. So sit there longer than they think you will. It's funny as hell to watch them fight those pedals and fall over thinking they were going to be able to blow the intersection.
Not, y'know, the texting drivers.
Here's an idea: get rid of almost every all-way stop signs, replace most traffic lights with green plus stop sign (blinking red), put speed limits at a reasonable level and then enforce them 100%, replace several stop signs with yield signs, allow rolling stops. Basically, make the traffic signals as a bicyclist sees them. We could have all this if people driving tons of metal weren't stupid dangerous assholes who have to be kept in line by making traffic laws more extreme than necessary.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It's a proven fact. As time goes to infinity, common sense monotonically decreases in a privileged nation, while self importance and ego increases. Kinda sucks, but a lack of common sense translates to shitty drivers, and shitty cyclists. The only silver lining here, video game players, FPS specifically, show increased spatial awareness, and helps buffer from even more extreme accident rates.
The post says this basically: "A lot more people are riding bikes than before, especially in the older age group, yet for some unexplained reason more bike riders get into accidents, especially in the older age group. That's so bewildering we can't wrap our heads around this strange phenomenon."
So we have cars going at 60 mph next to bicycles going 15-20 mph. Notice the difference in speed?
That is why there are sidewalks, that are clearly separated from the road.
In the Netherlands bike lanes next to highways are separated by a strip of land, barrier, etc. or the maximum speed is 20-30 mph when cyclists and cars share the road.
If the number of cyclists in the US increase dramatically, the only way to reduce the number of accidents is to separate the two.
The Netherlands is there already, so the infrastructure is now in place. It just took a couple of decades + dead cyclists to get there.
Don't tell drivers how to drive, tell cyclists how to avoid being run over.
That's safe and reasonable...
And wonder why traffic and vehicle are not synonymous.
A bicycle is not holding up traffic by cycling in lane. You have no right to overtake.
How many drivers move over to let cyclists through in a gridlock? NONE.
Three points for that demographic in North America: 1) cycling is not a necessity, 2) they already know vehicle operation rules and regulations, and 3) they choose to ignore vehicle operation rules and regulations.
Very very few adults in North America have to cycle, so it's a vain choice reflecting a desire for better health (that's good) and for appearance (being 'hip'). Note the 'health' aspect is only partially true since every effort appears to be made to reduce the actual effort of biking eg. form fitting cycling apparel, the lightest possible (affordable) bicycles, and a reluctance to slow down or stop. [Aside: contrast this with cyclists in Europe, Asia, Third World where cycling is a necessity due to prohibitive automobile/fuel costs, and is done work/street clothes.]
Very very few adults in North America don't know the 'rules of the road' since the overwhelming majority are also automobile drivers!
No, the problem seems that adult cyclists find the sirens call of a bicycles 'freedom' irresistible. They don't see the bicycle as a 'vehicle' except when convenient, say in court after an injury. As a result, they ignore stop signs, traffic lights, ride pedestrian ways (lawns, parks, crosswalks, sidewalks, etc.), take one-way streets in the wrong direction, squeeze past stopped or slow moving vehicles in traffic, and generally circulate as if they were the most important beings in motion (and possibly immortal?).
They know the risks, they take the risks, they bear the consequences. There are more important things to be concerned with in the world.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
There is a similar issue with scuba diving. According to the Divers Alert Network (DAN), There has been an uptick in deaths triggered from heart attacks while scuba diving (actual cause of death is often drowning, but the heart attack caused that). This is difficult to quantify exactly. It is known that there are more scuba divers in general. It is also known that there are more active scuba divers over the age of 55 than there used to be. It is also known that the activity itself puts stress on the heart. What is hard to tell is exact numbers of active scuba divers, much less the frequency of dives or the number in a particular demographic. Those confounding factors make it harder to draw real conclusions about the relationship between heart attacks and scuba diving.
The road designers should be made to ride the bike paths through their systems. The area near my home looks like it has bike paths. They just don't connect to each other. You have paths that change sides of the street with now cross walk. Suddenly disappearing paths with no shoulder.
Each neighborhood has its own rules and no connection to the next. It is at these junctures that accidents happen.
Speed Differential has been found to be a major cause of accidents between motor vehicles. The proportionate difference between cars and icicles is even greater, so it's no wonder there are some accidents.
I'm motorcyclist in Europe, and part of my hobby, the part I like best, is mountain touring. The worst thing that ever happens - and this is speaking as someone who has been in the losing side of a competition with a delivery truck - is coming around a corner on an up-hill mountain road and facing the backside of a pod of spandex-clad, "clipped-in" wanna-be Tour-de-France-competitors riding their bikes, weaving along at walking speed 6 abreast across the entire lane (and sometimes across the entire paved road). I have no problem with sharing the road with bicyclists, but sharing is a two-way street, so to speak. I cannot count the number of times where I have had to emergency brake or drift into the oncoming lane to avoid these idiots^h^h^h^h^h^h situations. I know some motorcyclists can be PITAs as well, but I'm talking about driving within the law, at the posted speed limit, taking all necessary defensive driving precautions.
The second worst thing, is on the downhill side, where suddenly the lane markings on the roads seem to become invisible to reckless suicidal-seeming bicyclists who low-high-low curves across the entire road at ridiculous speeds that can only be achieved on steep downhill grades. Tbh, I have no problem with these guys taking their own lives in their hands, but I take serious exception at their implicit decision to involve me and my bike in their demise.
Steve -- If you have to call it a system, you don't know what it is.
Bike paths are combined with sidewalks and the sidewalks are asphalt instead of tiled concrete. The sidewalks are about 2-3x as wide as US sidewalks and it is common knowledge to walk as far right as possible to allow through traffic on the left (like US greenways). Once you get into more urban areas, the sidewalks are even wider and tend to have a line in them segregating bikes and people. I think, but am not sure, that the bikes must also have a horn? Bike lanes mixed into regular road traffic was a monumental and non-correctable mistake.
you'd be off to one side and a car would sooner or later pull up next to you and trigger the loop.
How many minutes did you mean by "sooner or later"? There have been times at more than one intersection in my home town where I have waited ten minutes or more without a car. And when there is a car, it is making a lawful right turn on red or a left turn from the separately-actuated left turn only lane instead of going in my direction.
If you very inconsiderately prevent traffic from activating the loop
That was never what I meant.
Sorry but bikers around here , the ones in brightly colored spandex and $1000.00 clip on pedals from Italy,are mostly assholes around here. I'll describe a typical commuter bicyclist and their behavior.
Physically- taller than average, skinner than average. Age 45-55.
Employed in upper managment.
Entitled. Aggressdive. Superior. Uncompromising in outlook . Used to being in an enivronment in which he gives orders which are followed and uncomfortable outside of that power environment.
Behavior: Assertive of his "rights" on the road while yet disobeying every traffic law he deems unsuited to bicyclist commuters- i.e. stop signs. Openly contemptuous of casual bikers. Speeding and aggressive in shared pediestrian / bike venues. Disdainful of dedicated "bike paths", and "multi-use trails" where it's harder to speed, he prefers to ride in even the most dangerous traffic where drivers are most likely to be oblivious to his presence.
The polar opposite of a defensive driver- instead he is outraged when a motorist doesn't see him lane-splitting his way between cars stopped at a stoplight and is more than willing to let loose with loud invective to anyone- motorist or pedestrian- who gets in "his" way. This is irrespective of how predictable any potential collision might have been to an impartial, prudent onlooker.
Deeply connected to his activity by a set of complex "philosophical" arguments, he is doctrinaire and insufferable in any conversation related to bicycling, helmets, traffic and commuting.
What really gets my goat is these people act as if they're doing something positively morally heroic by biking to work. As if there's some heroic-moral dimension to beating their "personal best" time. It just slays me.
The only possible connection to morality would be via greenhouse gases, but even if vast umbers of people biked to work in America it would only put the smallest dent in greenhouse gas emissions since commerce and transportation of other-than-self is still necessary.
If you're concerned about greenhouse gas emissions, you need to take it up with your Congressperson and have the government act. Biking to work is not going to save the planet and you are not a hero.
But I don't think that unsmiling spandexed bikers are the exteme greens in our society (Spandex / Lycra is owned by the Koch brothers BTW) . Rather, they're men (and some women) who are at a stage in their lives where they have something to prove to all of society regarding their virility and potency and have found a venue to do so.
Publishing AC because, on top fo everything else, they're also spiteful.
..because drivers are texting in and veering into cyclists. Don't just make this rage against cyclists. All players have to be careful, and it doesn't matter who makes the mistake - the cyclist will suffer the most.
I am not surprised at all. Since there are more bikers, there are more accidents and injuries. It's a very simple calculation a 1st grader should be able to do.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
This article lacks any useful information.
If the number of bikers doubled and so did the number of accidents, then...? I need to know the relative increases to draw any conclusions.
And, seriously, the best thing would be for cities to mandate bike lanes and get people safely on those bikes - y'all hear of climate disruption? It'd be a start. But who wants to fight developers?
In the 1970's I rode a bicycle from Missouri to California, then up Highway 1 from Los Angeles to San Francisco, out to Yosemite, up to the top of the pass, and back to Los Angeles. Years later I used to ride Highway 1 for exercise taking 30 mile rides after work. I have also done a lot of riding in the Netherlands. The Dutch have it figured out and the US will NEVER be safe for cyclists. The Dutch do not mix bicycles and cars, and bicycles have special lanes for going around intersections. Bicycles never go through intersections there, except on the special lanes that cross the streets outside of traffic circles. Often the bicycle paths are a hundred feet or more away from the highway, and are much more pleasant to ride on because of that. US bicycle lanes are a joke and drivers resent them, as well as the fact that it is legal and expected to merge a car right into the bicycle lane prior to making a right hand turn. Cars who park along bicycle lanes become another hazard from the other side of the lane. Bicycle lanes simply do not belong on streets or on sidewalks. They need to be isolated from both pedestrians and autos if anyone expects safety.
A bicycle simply cannot share a lane with a car moving 30-60 miles an hour, even if you can manage to reach peak speeds of nearly 25 mph as I often do, and expect to survive. Cyclists cannot see what is behind them, no matter how many tiny little mirrors you wear on your helmet or on your handlebars. Cyclists who ignore traffic rules are only that much more of a threat to themselves, and they do those of us who do follow traffic rules a disservice by convincing drivers that cyclists are unpredictable and crazy. After being run off the road by a police patrol car, and reading of several fatal cycling accidents on Highway 1 in my neighborhood, I quit riding. A doctor finally convinced me that the risk of permanent head injury from cycling accidents was so great that I will choose to live a longer life over the benefits of cycling. I have an expensive Trek that decorates my garage.
I don't know how many I have almost hit with my car. They blow through stop signs and run red lights. They all think all traffic needs to yield. Just last week guy cam over a hill right out into the street right in front of me. I hit the brakes and he looking at me like I am the one that is in the wrong.
None of the links contain any analysis of the relationship between cycling miles and accidents; they don't even discuss the number of cyclists or the number of miles they ride. I certainly see more cyclists on the road than I did in the past, and unless something changes fundamentally more cyclists and miles = more accidents and deaths.
They DO mention that the fatality rate for child cyclists has dropped. But something did change there - kids started to wear helmets. Adult cyclists, on the other hand, have largely been wearing helmets since the end of the 80s, and I don't think the rate of helmet use has changed much since then. So we don't have an increase in protection to help prevent accidents.
Finally, these articles appear to lump all cycling injuries together. But a lot of adult cycling (and presumably injury) happens off the road because of the popularity of mountain biking. The statistics are meaningless unless road cycling is separated from off-road cycling.
Is this a joke? "Why" are bike injuries spiking in the US? Lets see... We, for the most part, don't have any real bike lanes, it's illegal in most of the country to ride a bike on the sidewalk, and the bicyclists are force to share the road with traffic. Pile on top of that the fact that bicyclists in the US don't seem to care about their own safety and will barrel right out into traffic.
Zoh my god! We need a background check for every purchase -eliminate the bike show loophole! - and full bike registration on every single bike!
Won't somebody just think of the children?
Seeing cyclists weave in and out of traffic, ride in the middle of the road uphill, not stop at stop signs, not obey traffic lights, I can only reach one conclusion....
The more cyclists on the road, the more idiots there are cycling...it's the same sort of thing for ANY vehicle, it's just up until now cyclists on the road in North America was rare. Only difference is that people who drive cars and trucks are paying the vast lions share of upkeep for roads, and legally have to be insured.
Correlate the accidents and age groups with the use of e-bikes and I take bets you will see a high correlation. Myself a frequent cyclist, e-bikes make them go faster than they are used to. There is a huge difference in doing 20 or 35km/h. You have to watch out differently, you have to break differently. Almost all are not used to it.
is that in urban areas, bicycles are where people whove lost their licenses end up. Or were unable to get one. Its the preferred method of transportation for people with no time criteria. Any decent urban trail and street crossing will have individuals who follow the rules, and who are incapable of following rules. It's the latter that get hurt a lot around here.
the Dbags who are sh*tty riders around *other* bicyclists are my current pet peeve. Got a tandem for the wife and I, and she's new to riding. So we're slow. We move over as best we can but with some racer-x type coming up at full crank from behind clipping our mirrors (we have rear flasher lights, flags, and bright helmets so visibility isn't their excuse) no wonder more people see bicyclists as @ssholes.
Don't get me started on the entitlement dweebs who drive in from out of town just to clog streets for Critical (m)Ass "events".
I bike a 2 hour round trip every day. And in the last 3 months:
- Was knocked off my bike while doing 25k, while in a bike lane (truck turned right in front of me while I was beside him). I ended up in emerg.
- Driving my car to work (a rare occurrence), I missed getting t-boned by a pickup, by 6 inches. He hit 2 other cars beside me when I hit the brakes.
- Other day I got in my car after I biked home, and then swore at a slow biker who took up the whole lane: he was ignoring the 1-meter wide bike lane beside him.
- saw a biker nearly get hit when he ran a stop sign at a 4-way, where a car had been waiting then started to go, then slammed on the brakes. Biker waved cheerily.
- Nearly got hit by a car turning left onto highway, as I crossed the highway on my green light: he was tailgating a van, didn't see me, he skidded sideways to a stop.
- And virtually every day a car mirror whizzes past at less then 1 foot, doing 60-70k .
So what?
Well indisputably, bikers do stupid things. However I note there seem to be a lot more drivers (most who never bike), than there are bikers. Without question, driving is more frustration inducing than biking. Usually due to traffic. Which leads to a lot of unhappy, near road-rage individuals out there behind the wheel. And that's not likely going to change any-time soon.
In fact, I think all the bikers could disappear tomorrow, and the drivers would still be just as neurotic and unhappy.
What these car drivers should learn is that many of us ride because we used to drive everywhere, but ended up hating what it made us become.
maybe if people laid-off the drugs they'd not crash as often?
The entire infrastructure aside from designated bike paths is focused on cars. There may be a few local exceptions, but it is very common to find four lane streets with a speed limit of 45 mph (means cars go 65 mph) and an overgrown and crumbling side walk that is too narrow to accommodate both bikes and pedestrians. Unless the car first thinking goes away these numbers and the daily commute collapse will continue. I'd bike to work if I could find a path that doesn't include guaranteed death and dismemberment.
What other form is available [...] on Sundays and holidays?
What's wrong with a bus?
Buses in Fort Wayne don't run at night, on Saturday evenings, on Sundays, or on six major holidays.
we were both on call.
On call with a deadline of how quickly to show up at the work site? Less than a couple hours does not work for a bus system with a 1 hour headway and multiple transfers.
If you have to physically endanger people to get to a job that doesn't pay you well enough for you to afford a car loan then you are well overdue to reevaluate your life choices.
This goes equally for cars and bicycles.
Boomers went through all the forms of exercise but now that they are older, they need something low impact instead. Bicycles substitute well for running/jogging/walking in that they are outdoors and can cover a pleasant amount of territory during a stint.
The most recent surge which has been the bane of motorists are electric bikes. With the study, are these lumped into the same group? So far as the laws go, they are, even if the physical resemblance is many times not there. From my impression, most of these new e-bikes require no licencing, training, any most probably have little or no regard for anything. Compounded on that, is that they are becoming known more and more as DUI-Bikes. Meaning those people that have lost their driving licence are perfectly legal to drive e-bikes, and many do continue their DUI ways while doing so... I know my city is full of them, and their abuse and lack of any kind of rules is showing.