261–270 of 317 posts
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Are you saying the value of these cyclist's lives is based on how many cyclists there are?
Don’t be purposely dull. Yes the value of the issue depends on how dangerous bicycling is relative to other things. That’s no surprise. 1:100,000,000 != 1:100
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> I think a lot of accidents where the car turns right and overlooks a bike in the blind spot can be prevented through [the separate bike signal] measure. This can also be prevented by not trying to pass right turning vehicles on the right and only pass them on their left.
So, you’re on your bike, in dense traffic. Even if all of them are already indicating direction, how do you know whether you’ll be next to a car wanting to turn right by the time you reach the junction? How do you even get from the right of a row of cars to the left of it in slow moving (⇒ short distances between cars) traffic? How do you get back to the right of the cars after making a turn? But even if that’s doabl…
Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction. If you plan to go straight, you get behind the vehicles that are going to make a right turn or go straight. Depending on how dense traffic is, you'll have to do this further in advance from the intersection. A lot of the time, you'll find that gaps are created in traffic by traffic lights. You can use one of those gaps to easily change lanes in advance for example.
> https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/state-of-the-a...
The problem with the NACTO guidelines for this design is that cyclists are hidden by parked vehicles until shortly before the intersection, so, if a cyclist is approaching from behind the motorist, it's not possible for the motorist to see the cyclist before they start making their turn.
Even with the curb extension, according to their example and measuring the distances in the provided diagrams on pages 12 and 13, a motorist will only be able to see roughly 8 feet down the cycle lane. That won't work when the cyclist is traveling at about 16 feet per second. The typical reaction time for something not completely expected is at least 1 to 1.5 seconds. The document also makes the assumption that the cyclist will yield to the car in that case, but many of them assume they have the right of way and that the motorist will stop prior to a collision.
The other problem is that current US law and driver education states that drivers must make their turns as close to the edge of the road/curb as practicable and yield to pedestrians. They don't say anything about treating cyclists as pedestrians, and they do say that cyclists are considered vehicles and have all the rights and duties of vehicle operators (meaning they're expected to follow the rules of the road).
In contrast, Dutch law and driver education is complementary to the intersection design you reference. But you're not going to change the law and driver education/training overnight.
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I've been thinking about starting a cyclist-oriented "neighborhood watch" type organization because the police don't do much anything about violence against cyclists, much less more "minor" issues like parking in the bike lane. At the very least volunteers could document things like this properly.
For NYC twitter helps a bit https://twitter.com/reported_nyc https://twitter.com/copsinbikelanes What else do you have in mind for a cyclist-oriented neighborhood watch?
Proper investigations of crashes, near crashes, and violence against cyclists. The police generally don't care.
Keeping statistics. Those Twitter accounts are okay, but in my experience the police will often say things like "we had no reported incidents there" when I know that some were reported. I think having an independent database would be valuable.
Tracking down repeat offenders and giving them a talking to, and/or hosting an online wall-of-shame.
Helping cyclists handle bureaucracy, which seems to be designed to discourage people in my experience.
Something like these guys in problem areas might help too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMrKscEv_Ri1pvlRsLxsqJQ
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Lot of this. Most bikehsare rides in NYC are quick one-way jaunts like this. Anecdotally, I know a lot of women who ride bikeshare bikes for the 5-6 blocks it takes them to get home from the subway in the early-sunset months as a safety precaution against sexual harassment.
This must be a niche use case -- there aren't docks every 6 blocks or less
https://member.citibikenyc.com/map/
I mean they're not evenly distributed according to a perfect pattern or anything, but there's generally a bike within an avenue and a few streets.
If you don't live in NYC you should know that a lot of bicycles in NYC are delivery guys riding electrified bicycles that go up to 20MpH. Many of them don't wear helmets and ride dangerously. I don't have anything to back this tip but the raise of deaths can be linked to raise of electric bicycles
My reading of NYC data links motor vehicles to deaths and injuries: From mid 2012 to mid 2019, there were 940 reports of a crash with a bike as the primary vehicle and 1+ pedestrians injured. In the same time period, there were 69776 reports of a crash without bicycle as primary vehicle injuring 1+ pedestrians.
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For NYC twitter helps a bit https://twitter.com/reported_nyc https://twitter.com/copsinbikelanes What else do you have in mind for a cyclist-oriented neighborhood watch?
Here are some examples of what I'd like to see a neighborhood watch organization do: Proper investigations of crashes, near crashes, and violence against cyclists. The police generally don't care. Keeping statistics. Those Twitter accounts are okay, but in my experience the police will often say things like "we had no reported incidents there" when I know that some were reported. I think having an independent databas…
Sure I bet we all obey the rules. But there's that overwhelming mass of cyclists that don't, it will be hard to interest police in trying to separate the incidents.
Where do bike deaths happen in New York? On streets when riding straight, or in intersections? (On both, of course, but what is the distribution?)
With more bikes because of bike lanes, I hope the city will begin enforcing bike infractions more seriously. So many people on bikes are going way too fast in the bike lanes (and pedestrian pathways) and do not stop at red lights, etc. I was happy to see a person get stopped and ticketed for riding down a walkway to a bike path when there was a sign explicitly stating that riding on the path was not allowed. I've see…
What is too fast? Why shouldn't bikes be able to go fast in bike lanes?
> With the loss of revenue from parking tickets it will have to be made up somewhere
How much can be made up from fewer vehicles causing less damage to roads decreasing the maintenance budget? (A study found road damage proportional to the 4th power of weight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AASHO_Road_Test)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are some examples of what I'd like to see a neighborhood watch organization do: Proper investigations of crashes, near crashes, and violence against cyclists. The police generally don't care. Keeping statistics. Those Twitter accounts are okay, but in my experience the police will often say things like "we had no reported incidents there" when I know that some were reported. I think having an independent databas…
I have the uneasy feeling that police will never look into cyclist accidents very seriously. Way too many cyclists disobeying the rules, weaving through traffic, wandering from sidewalks to street and back again, ignoring signals, and on and on. Sure I bet we all obey the rules. But there's that overwhelming mass of cyclists that don't, it will be hard to interest police in trying to separate the incidents.
About 2/3 of drivers admit to speeding: https://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2008b/081107ManneringSpeeding....
That fits with my experience.
You can find wildly varying estimates of how often cyclists run red lights: https://bikeportland.org/2013/06/25/94-of-bikes-wait-at-red-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/26/...
But even the most pessimistic estimate of the probability of cyclists running reds linked to above (79%) isn't that much worse than drivers speeding. And in my experience, it's actually quite rare for a cyclist to blow through a red light without checking for oncoming traffic. Typically when a cyclist runs a red light, it's safe. (Not that you should do it.) I think speeding is much worse from a safety perspective.
I dont really want to hurt people’s feelings but why do we care about this topic so much? I am kind of confused about why people are so passionate about bike lanes. Isn't it better if we focus on improving the subway and the bus lines before anything? I would like to see an open minded discussion about the pros and cons of this.
I do think there is overlap in bike lane interest and public transit. TransAlt's mission, for example, "is to reclaim New York City's streets from the automobile and advocate for better bicycling, walking, and public transit for all New Yorkers." I'm pretty sure they were helpers on the 14th St bus way pilot.
