On Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 9:00:37 AM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 11:30:27 AM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/18/2019 4:04 AM, sms wrote:
On 5/17/2019 4:12 PM, John B. wrote:

Various studies of bicycle "accidents" have found that from about 30%
to as much as 60% (in at least one study) of the accidents are the
fault of the cyclist which really does make one wonder about the mind
set of the cyclists.

"Hey! Just use good sense and obey the traffic laws and save your
life. "

I find it very strange that no one ever seems to mention this simple
fact. It is free, it can save you from death, pain,Â* or an expensive
stay in the hospital, but it seems to be a fact thatÂ* is kept a secret
and instead we are told to "wear a helmet", or "we gotta build safer
bicycle paths". Are the bicycle paths 30 to 60% safer? Reports I read
seem to indicate that they are even less safe than riding on the open
road.

Actually I mentioned this today. I stressed that while the protected
bike lanes, for which construction begins on Monday, will mitigate some
of the bad behavior of motorists, that they are not a panacea. I also
mentioned about what transpired in Ohio--big increase in cycling, but a
lot of crashes on the path (though if you read the report carefully, not
a many as it first appears).

The increase on Summit Street was 75%, although nobody knows how many of
those were simply shifted from adjacent streets. (Any riders who chose
to change their route from an adjacent street to Summit would have
caused those adjacent streets to have a _decrease_ in cycling; so it's
likely the increase in the local area was less than what's touted.)

But why proclaim 75% to be a "big increase" but hide the more than 700%
increase in bike crashes? Why not mention that individual cyclists were
at much, much higher risk after the installation of the "protected" bike
lanes?

There were a total of six bike crashes in the four years before the
"protection" was installed; 1.5 per year. There were 24 crashes in less
than two years following the completion of the project; over 12 per
year. How is that "not as many as it first appears"?

The information is at
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/engineeri...oorhead_72.pdf



--
- Frank Krygowski

I often wonder if the agenda of the "DANGER! DANGER!" people like SMS is to first get bicyclists off the roads and into bike lanes or "protected lanes" and then later to get them off the roads entirely? From what I've seen and read it seems to me that many so called bicycling advocates are in fact commuting/transportation bicyclists worst enemies. What with all their emphasis on needed safety equipment in order to even ride a bicycle it's a wonder they expect to convince anyone to take up bicycling as a means of commuting or transportation.

Cheers

I wouldn't assign ulterior motives to people who feel very uncomfortable riding around traffic.