Murder Machines

Murder Machines: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year. A good essay-length look at how social norms regarding streets and safety have changed over the last century, and why our current norms and design guidelines lead very predictably to tends of thousands of preventable deaths each year.  Covers a lot of the same territory as Peter D. Norton’s excellent book Fighting Traffic, which gives a detailed historical account of the transition, between about 1915 and 1930, from streets being universally accessible public space to being nearly the sole domain of motorized transportation.  Ralph Nader effectively spearheaded a campaign for safety measures that protect those inside these deadly vehicles.  We need just as powerful a champion for those outside them, who make up about a third of all motor vehicle casualties in the US.  Streets don’t have to be designed to kill people.  Giving up a little bit of convenience for motorists frees up a lot of space and safety for everyone else.

How safe is our bike infrastructure?

A major study in Vancouver, BC has looked at the relative safety of biking on various types of infrastructure, by looking at several hundred actual accidents resulting in hospital visits by cyclists over an 18 month period.  Vancouver has a lot of different types of bike infrastructure, some of it extremely safe, so it’s a good test bed.  Unsurprisingly, busy roads with parked cars and no on-street bike facilities were the most dangerous.  Cycletracks (physically separated dedicated on-street bikeways) were an astonishing 90% safer.  Interestingly, multi-use paths weren’t all that much safer, despite being preferred by many cyclists.

Preventing Bicycle Fatalities at US-36 and Violet

Ghost Bike at Violet and US-36 in North Boulder

Two bicyclists have been killed at the intersection of US-36 and Violet Avenue since 2009. The most recent was TJ Doherty, on July 24th, 2012. Both cyclists were headed southeast on US-36, and were hit by cars traveling northwest, making left turns onto Violet. In this area US-36 is just outside of Boulder’s city limits, in the county, but it’s the Colorado Dept. of Transportation (CDOT) that’s responsible for it. Looking at the aerial view below we can explore why this intersection might be particularly dangerous for cyclists.

Northwest bound vehicles on US-36 have a dedicated left turn lane, and no obligation to stop before making their turn. The angle that Violet Ave. makes with the highway is quite oblique, meaning that it can be taken at high speed, and because US-36 has a speed limit of 55 mph in this area, cars often will take it at high speed if they don’t see any oncoming traffic.

From a southeast bound bicycle’s point of view, there’s no obviously correct place to be on the road, if they’re planning to proceed through the intersection. The shoulder on the west side of the road narrows to a few inches, and it’s to the right of a right-turn-only lane. If you ride all the way to the right, you risk a vehicle turning in front of you onto Violet. Your intent to continue through the intersection is also unclear to oncoming traffic. Most cyclists instead take a position that’s well within the right turn lane, to prevent right-turning vehicles from passing them and immediately turning right in front of them. However, this lane position still leaves their intent ambiguous to oncoming traffic. Alternatively, you might choose to straddle the line separating the through travel lane and the right turn lane. This makes the bike relatively visible, and more clearly conveys the intent to continue through the intersection, at the expense of potentially sandwiching the cyclist between right turning vehicles and very fast moving through traffic. If the cyclist instead chooses to behave exactly like a motor vehicle, moving into the through lane of traffic, the very large difference in speed between the bike and the other vehicles in that lane creates a hazard. Thus, there’s no right place for a cyclist to be on this road if they’re planning to continue through the intersection.

When we combine the unavoidable ambiguity of the through cyclist’s intent with the very high left-turning speeds of oncoming traffic, we have a recipe for disaster. A recipe which has killed two people in three years.

Continue reading Preventing Bicycle Fatalities at US-36 and Violet

NHTSA, AAA join together for National Bike Danger Month

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and AAA have joined together to promote National Bicycles Are Dangerous Month.  I don’t understand why the US DoT would think that AAA and the NHTSA have any experience with bicycling.  They’re both catastrophically automotive organizations.  If anything, they have institutional imperatives to discourage cycling, which is exactly what their so-called safety recommendations do, by portraying bicycling as a dangerous activity, and placing the onus on cyclists to be safer, even though all the 100 daily deaths on US highways are perpetrated by cars.

Bike Helmets Not Warranted

A concise explanation from Urban Country on why bike helmets really aren’t warranted.  First, cycling just isn’t that dangerous, and we do most safe things without a helmet.  Second, strongly promoting or legally requiring them discourages cycling in general, and fewer bikes on the road is less safe for cyclists, less healthy for society, more expensive in terms of infrastructure, pollution, etc.  Third, bike helmets aren’t really designed to deal with serious accidents — the ones that kill or maim you.  And fourth, focusing the blame for what danger does exist for cyclists on the cyclists themselves, distracts from the real bicycle safety issue, which is cars.

Links for the week of November 26th, 2010

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Links for the week of September 11th, 2009

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Links for the week of September 4th, 2009

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Continue reading Links for the week of September 4th, 2009