SMS aka Steven M. Scharf wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:

I'm not sure about the conclusion (safer to run), but given how little
protection a cyclist has in a MV collision, I think it's prudent to
ride more than defensively. One of my first lessons after moving to
the big city was to look both ways on one-way streets. I learned to
assume that traffic won't always be predictable (or lawful). A fender
bender in a car can easily be a fatality on a bike.

What I see as really dangerous is four lane roads where you can't see
the far lane of traffic. Of the two lanes going in a certain direction,
one lane will stop, but the other lane won't. This is a big problem at
crosswalks where there are no traffi controls, you see it often. The
driver that blows through has his or her view of the pedestrian blocked
by the car that is stopped. I remember reading somewhere once that
pedestrian crosswalks are the most dangerous place to cross a street.
First, they are usually at intersections, so you have traffic coming
from four directions rather than two if you crossed mid-street. Second,
pedestrians get a false sense of security because the crosswalk is
marked, and third, you often get one lane stopping and the other lane
not understanding why the traffic is stopped.

I have had assholes [1] whip around me to the right when I stopped my
automobile to yield to pedestrian(s) crossing in a marked crosswalk.

The place this happened to me is a heavily used cross street during
school hours because it's right by a pedestrian/bicycle route that
crosses a creek and through a park, and it's a long way around to not
use this route.

I know of one particularly lethal crossing on a nearby bike path. The
cross traffic has a light, but also a yield sign for right turning.
Peds/cyclists in the crosswalk can easily assume that all traffic is
stopped for the light, but right turners can (and do) blow through
without even slowing. Since ped/cyclist traffic is crossing from the
right, motorists don't see them as they are looking left for merging
traffic (a common hazard in sidewalk cycling).

Yeah, a lot of bike path crossings of streets are really bad. The same
map I had a link to, ends at a street where there are no stop signs or
yield signs, or barrier, just a ramp that goes down into the relatively
busy neighborhood street. [...]

Even worse, the MUPs have stop signs and/or poor sight distances, so one
has to stop and then cross the street at a relatively slow speed,
increasing the exposure time to cross traffic.

[1] I wish I had a ruder and more offensive adjective for these sub-humans.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
Life is bad, then you die.