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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.
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
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.
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/
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
two-thirds of fatalities are of those with no helmets.
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
Actually, Americans (assholes or not) do own the roads they drive on.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
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.
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.
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.
... 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."
"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.
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.
I'll start and end it with this: The ones who follow the rules of the road don't get noticed. The ones who don't, the ones who blow the stop sign *AND* turn left in front of my half-completed right turn, the ones who shouldn't be on the road in the first place, those are the ones people see. So yes, they make you all look like assholes, evne though the majority of you are just trying to safely get form point A to point B. If you're in the former group and are tired of being called an asshole just for riding a bike, recognize that this is the fault of the latter group and do something about it. when you see it happen, catch up to the asshole, ride alongside them for a bit, and explain how the thing they just did is unsafe for them in the moment and, by enraging drivers against cyclists, makes ccling less safe even for those who do follow the rules.
I actively look for bikes, motorized, pedaled, or otherwise, so I see you guys, and I see most of you with pedals doing exactly what you should be doing, staying to the side of the lane (or in the bike lane if there is one and it is free of debris), stopping at signs and lights, and generally being safe. But I only see you guys because I am actively looking; most drivers only see the assholes, so do something about the assholes and you'll make all cyclists look better. Most motorbikes I see are doing all kinds of stupid shit like splitting lanes *at speed* which is against the law everywhere and very dangerous in any kind of traffic; I'm not sure there's any redeeming them, but I digress.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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
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?
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.
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.
Cyclists can't even legally take a left hand turn.
Really? I see them do it all the time. Some of them even manage to do it legally.
Have gnu, will travel.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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
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
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 first paved roads in the U.S. were paved at the demand of cyclists.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Splitting lanes? What is that? Is that driving in between cars when there is a traffic jam? If so, it is legal where I live and most people will make a way for them (and they nicely thank you with a hand or foot gesture.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
That's precisely what it is. It's legal here, too, when traffic is stopped . Note that I said "at speed", that's legal nowhere.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
..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
Sadly, they can afford to make it the other person's fault in court, even if it was their own.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
as a motorcyclist
Indeed, I see. Yes, I did mention motorcycles so I see how you think my entire post would apply to you. However, I did limit the specific part you're attempting to counter to pedal bikes. You even quoted me doing so. And yes, pedal bikes should always stay to the side of the road because they are always slow traffic.
In reality, lane sharing is the safest way to ride a motorbike. Two bikes next to each other in the lane means you are more visible to other motorists, particularly those who are looking in their mirrors for a lane change. When you're in the center of your lane (rather than to the right), you extend the distance at which a driver to your right can not see you in their mirrors; you also decrease that distance for drivers to your left. Of course, staying to the right of the lane increases that distance for drivers to your left and staying to the left does the opposite. You really should be reading the traffic ahead of you and adjusting your position within your lane based on who's most likely to change lanes ahead of you. Lane sharing, assuming you aren't riding alone, minimizes blind spot distance for drivers on both sides. Confusingly, though safer, this is actually illegal in a few places (or so I've heard, I've never actually lived anywhere where it is).
Of course, not riding next to my bumper helps; the only close call I've ever had with a motorbike was one guy who WOULD NOT GET OFF MY BUMPER. I signaled, I sped up, I slowed down, I sped up again, I slowed down again, I saw him there the whole time refusing to let me over (to the left, to exit). When my exit came into view I said fuck it; he got out of my way when I started getting over. Fortunately, that's an exceedingly rare occurrence with motorcycles; impossible with pedals because speeding up always works for them (and they shouldn't be on the freeway in the first place).
Now pedals, they seem to either follow the rules and go unnoticed or dare you to hit them. I had one guy blow a stop sign at a 4 way intersection with a 3 way stop, no stop on my side, turning left in front of my half-completed right turn, so I honked at him. For the next month, he was waiting there every weekday morning to do the same thing to me, so I progressively waited longer before braking each time. He stopped doing it after I got within an inch of him before braking. Would I have been at fault? Hard to say, I had 20+ videos of him doing it on a regular enough basis to show in court that he was riding recklessly, as I drive with a dash cam, so it really could have gone either way. Fortunately, I never saw him again after that (perhaps he did it to someone else and got taken out) because I probably would have nailed him the next time he did it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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.
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.
I don't disagree. They should also cite cyclists more frequently for breaking the law, as well. I'd say close to 90% of bay area drivers should have their licenses revoked. I tend to speed when I'm in traffic (on the freeway, where your bike shouldn't be anyway, so no, not a danger to you) only to get out of that traffic, because when I go with the flow of traffic I tend to have numerous close-calls, having to evade someone coming into my lane without a signal next to me or dodge out of the way of someone else doing something stupid. Of course, once I'm out of that cluster of traffic, I slow down to the prevailing speed of the next cluster I see ahead of me, so I don't end up catching up to them and having to do the dance all over again.
Most drivers are just horrible.
That's precisely why you, on your bike, and I, in my cage, need to be absolutely attentive and take responsibility for our own safety.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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.
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.
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.