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Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

citylab.com

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Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#141

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dheera wrote: post #138
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats! You are one in 90 lifetimes! From http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/08/brain-injuries-... > Rather than reacting emotionally we have to look at the numbers to make sense of this. The overall risk to Dutch cyclists (it's on page two of the document) of a "head/brain injury" is 153 per billion kilometres ridden. That means that one such injury is one per 6.5 million kilometres ridden. > On average, ev…

One in 90 lifetimes is a high number. Considering people bike for basically their entire life in the Netherlands that basically means that 1 in 90 people gets a brain/head injury, which in my opinion is rather high. I do think the US is much higher in terms of serious bike accidents, but with 1 in 90 lifetime statistic I'd still be wearing a helmet. I don't care if it's 1/3100 of other causes of death -- it's a simpl…

Consider that the chance of having heart disease or a heart attack is much higher in the USA (and consequently lower in the Netherlands), and I wonder if that number really is so high? The Dutch have made a tradeoff for sure, but it seems overall to be a healthy one (more active life styles have health benefits).

So the only thing left is would they be even healthier if they were made to wear helmets? I don't think as many people would ride a bike to work/school if they had to wear a helmet, these are people who bike in semi-formal work clothes and even business suits, after all.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#142

Post by u801e »

ben7799 wrote: post #105
pedantsamaritan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific style of road design are you talking about? There are a variety of bike lanes with various compromises. I've seen DOT presentations consider the situation, not pushing a certain design at all costs. There are multiple methods of left turns: https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/a/54628/37462 . From the bit I can gather from your post, I might use the "cross, stop, and pivot".

Left turn Option 1 - "Cross Stop and Pivot" is likely illegal. Also you are riding right in front of cars that might be trying to turn right. And you're riding in an unexpected direction so you're surprising the cars. That's dangerous. It also means you likely need to wait for the light to change to take your left. If you don't, that's another dangerous moving violation. If you do, it takes a lot longer. Left Turn Op…

> then ride on the right or left side of the lane instead of right down the middle. Then you are not impeding traffic.

It's actually better to ride in the middle of the lane. Riding at the edge of the lane makes it far more likely that you'll get sideswiped.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#143

Post by btrettel »

u801e wrote: post #134
btrettel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an anti-car/pro-bike lane group of researchers who want to push this style of road design super hard right now at all costs. I agree with this, at least for activists as I don't have much experience with researchers. Many people view bike lanes as some sort of panacea, and they sometimes end up making the situation worse than it would be otherwise for the exact reasons you mention. Just to give an example,…

> The coordinator told me that they plan to convert those bike lanes to protected bike lanes. I told them that the problem was the crossing between the bike lanes and the highway exits and onramps, not that the bike lane wasn't protected. Whenever Austin makes a protected bike lane, they don't protect the crossings, so a protected bike lane can't address the problems I have. The only real way to protect the crossing…

> The other way would be to ignore the bike lane and ride in the center of the lane that you would use if you were driving a car through there.

This is what I do for the most part, and I'd say very roughly 20% of cyclists do the same. Few cyclists are confident enough for this solution.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#144

Post by dheera »

dheera wrote: post #138
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats! You are one in 90 lifetimes! From http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/08/brain-injuries-... > Rather than reacting emotionally we have to look at the numbers to make sense of this. The overall risk to Dutch cyclists (it's on page two of the document) of a "head/brain injury" is 153 per billion kilometres ridden. That means that one such injury is one per 6.5 million kilometres ridden. > On average, ev…

One in 90 lifetimes is a high number. Considering people bike for basically their entire life in the Netherlands that basically means that 1 in 90 people gets a brain/head injury, which in my opinion is rather high. I do think the US is much higher in terms of serious bike accidents, but with 1 in 90 lifetime statistic I'd still be wearing a helmet. I don't care if it's 1/3100 of other causes of death -- it's a simpl…

Obviously it's hard to get data on this, but my intuition would say that it's not not-wearing-helmets that contributes to their active lifestyle. Rather I think it's more about:

- Pedestrian- and bike-friendly design of cities. Not just bike lanes, but everything else -- water, food, restrooms, aesthetics, compactness.

- Overall healthy food culture to begin with

- General social/cultural values for physical activity

The US, in contrast, embraces a culture of fast food, fried food, lounging on couches watching TV, massive parking lots and strip malls, and getting from point A to point B via a freeway. Cities are terribly designed for pedestrians and bikers, often lacking even simple amenities such as adequate public restrooms, drinking water, healthy food options within walkable distance, and public transportation for when you get tired.

Biking or walking across most European cities is a pleasant experience.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#145

Post by fooblitzky »

u801e wrote: post #130
framebit wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a bike commuter who's not exactly in Tour de France riding condition, I whole-heartedly love what few physically protected bike lanes there are in my city. They've greatly extended the range of places I feel comfortable riding my bike. I don't know if I'll ever be in good enough shape to feel comfortable claiming a lane and riding in traffic anywhere but neighborhoods and steep downhills. Yeah, it's a pain to turn…

> As a bike commuter who's not exactly in Tour de France riding condition You don't need to be in "Tour de France" condition to take the lane on city streets (discounting your use of hyperbole). I do so all the time and intersection navigation is far easier when taking the lane than it is when forced to ride all the way to the right. Pedestrian style infrastructure is suitable for pedestrian speeds (3 to 6 mph), not…

Would you be comfortable with children or elderly people taking the lane though? "Vehicular cycling" has been around since the 1970's, and in practice it doesn't work.

Protected bike infrastructure gets more people cycling, of all ages and abilities, because the number one reason people cite for not cycling is not feeling safe around cars.

Telling them "you're really safer in the lane" doesn't work to allay their fears, and as the study showed, isn't even true statistically.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#146

Post by pagnol »

btrettel wrote: post #131
pagnol wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, so it’s actually a thing. What kinds of responses do you get from drivers when you talk to them afterwards? Thanks also for mentioning the term ‘punishment pass’, googling this led me to some interesting blog posts.

You also might find the acronym MGIF (must get in front) to be interesting. I think it's mostly used by British cyclists. If my memory serves, the responses range wildly. On one end you have completely reasonable and sincere sounding apologies that they accidentally passed me dangerously. Whether or not these were accidents, I don't know. On the other end you have the typical rants against cyclists. In the middle I m…

I didn’t know the MGIF acronym although the attitude is something I pretty much take for granted. If I’m on a narrow road with a car behind me, I mostly expect the driver will try to squeeze past me even though they won’t be significantly faster.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#148

Post by ska »

btrettel wrote: post #91
jxcl wrote: post #2

As a commuting cyclist I usually prefer to ride in the street than in a bike lane. Protected cycle lanes are great only so long as nobody turns to the right directly in front of you. When there are cars parked in between the cycle lane and the car lane it's much easier for the driver to miss the cyclist, and few people check the cycle lane before turning right. I was definitely guilty of this until I started cycling.…

> Protected cycle lanes are great only so long as nobody turns to the right directly in front of you. Yes, many bike lane advocates seem to think bike lanes are some panacea, but the vast majority of them don't address this basic issue. I think this is because strong bike lane advocates tend to be less experienced cyclists if they are cyclists at all. The more experienced cyclists have more nuanced views in my experi…

I have seen several where there is a separate light for right turn (for cars) and straight/right (for bikes). It seems to address this problem, at least.

Still not as good as the dutch system, but easier to retrofit I suppose.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#149

Post by [deleted] »

btrettel wrote: post #93
nogridbag wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes me feel even worse now. The other day I stopped behind a cyclist at a red light on a major avenue in NYC. He was in the left lane and the bike lane is simply one more lane over. When the light turned green he took forever to get going and even after 20 seconds he was still going dangerously slow so I honked him and felt like a jerk. I did not understand why he simply didn't use the bike lane. The cross str…

> When the light turned green he took forever to get going and even after 20 seconds he was still going dangerously slow so I honked him and felt like a jerk. I did not understand why he simply didn't use the bike lane. Cyclist here. My experience suggests that when a cyclist takes the lane, they're doing so because they decided it was the best option for them. I wish more drivers would give them the benefit of the d…

[deleted]

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#150

Post by fooblitzky »

wefarrell wrote: post #83
amalcon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What factor do you believe explains the 78% drop in deaths and serious injuries per bicycle trip in NYC from 2000-2017? https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc-cycling-risk... I'm legitimately curious. I'm not a New Yorker, so it's very plausible that there are factors involved that I'm not aware of. E.g. if the additional 130 million trips in 2017 are all in Central Park, that could explain it.

I've only been biking here the last 6 years so it's hard to speculate, but I would guess that the number of people biking have forced cars to adjust. It's pretty rare for me to feel like I'm at risk of being hit by a car and anytime they don't notice me it's because I'm in their blind spot, which I now know to be aware of. Pedestrians are another story. They will cross streets and watch out for cars but not cyclists.…

But what caused the number of people biking to increase?

Also - didn't the linked article explicitly rule out increased number of people biking as a factor in reducing fatalities?

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