Canada's most dangerous city for cyclists

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 2:51:30 PM UTC+1, (PeteCresswell) wrote, commenting on Krygowski spraying statistics at random:

Whenever I hear statistics on cycling accidents my reflex reaction is

that maybe people are attributing much more

sophistication/granularity/accuracy to the collection system than is

actually there.



I actually know *nothing* about those systems; but, based on what I do

know, I would not give them much credit without reliable information to

the contrary.

--

Pete Cresswell

Oh, the large national number set that I analyzed a few years ago, when I discovered Krygowski was actually making cycling out to be more dangerous than it really is, is more than good enough, and the longterm New York study didn't even use a sample, it simply studied the entire universe of cyclist accidents over a multi-year period: it is utterly reliable regardless of what the anti-helmet zealots try to tell you (they hate it because those numbers suggest very strongly that wearing a helmet will contribute significantly to saving your life in accidents where otherwise you may succumb to a head injury). For a few years I was in charge of a $160m annual research budget (yeah, you read that right, a statistician's wet dream), but even I never had the money to make a study as big as that New York study. Instead I worked on the principle that reality for the very richest commercial clients is a properly stratified nation-wide sample of 3000 respondents, the sort of luxury that few statisticians outside the Census Office can afford even once in their working lives.

However, whether you think cycling is safe depends on whether you accept that the relevant number is deaths per million miles, or deaths per million hours, or deaths per million distinct bicycle journeys. Franki-boy always chooses the number most favourable to his case, but he has zero understanding of what the numbers mean, which accounts for him *overstating* the danger of cycling until I straightened him out.

***However, regardless of the statistical probity of number I'm willing to recommend to you (which doesn't include those smallscale studies Frank continually lies about and misinterprets), there is something seriously wrong with our picture from the statistics of how safe cycling is.***

How do I arrive at this startling conclusion? Well, count up the members of RBT, all cyclists, with other cyclists as their friends, and then count up the number of serious accidents and fatalities we know about in these close circles. There are too many -- many, many too many. In statistics there is no such thing as coincidence, and in real life, no coincidence that big. Only a fool dismisses anecdotal evidence as "unscientific" (as Krygowski will instantly do; the guy's a jumped-up welder with the imagination of a sprat). Jobst's accident is a fact, the dead brother of another poster is a fact, the dead policeman I know about is a fact, your late mate is a fact. If the statistics, even the national ones I've just declared copacetic above, were trustworthy for us as cyclists, rather then merely respectable as statistics, these facts in our immediate environs would not be so many, would in fact be none or at most one, considering the low count of RBT's membership.

In addition, I can see for myself that the roads I ride year by year are becoming more hostile to cyclists. The police have a study to show that average speeds and the amount of traffic the roads carry have both increased hugely in the last thirty years. That has to have a safety effect. Also, the speed limits have in fact been raised quite substantially without the roads being upgraded.

I can only laugh at suggestions by Franki-boy that I take the lane. A truck coming around a corner or over a hill, traveling 100kph faster than me, minimum, will splat me on Day Zero.

***

Yo, Danno: I was struck by your remark that, if all the threats are coming from behind the cyclists, he should ride elsewhere. 95% of the threats on my roads come from behind, and there isn't anywhere else to ride. I ride with one eye on the mirror all the time.

Andre Jute

On 5/4/2013 4:11 PM, wrote:
On Saturday, May 4, 2013 4:53:02 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:
On May 4, 1:50 pm, wrote:

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 1:26:37 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:



Test me. Come on, ask me something. See if I know (I *promise* to



answer straight out of my head without looking *anything* up.)



OK. How many crashes have you had in the past ten years?





Hmm... more than ten, less than a hundred.



How does this question bear on my learning?



C'mon, professor.

I've had one in the last ten years, when the forks on our tandem failed catastrophically without warning. I've had two moving on-road falls in my life.

This provides some evidence of who is a competent rider and who's not.

- Frank Krygowski


You might consider the fickle nature of life, chaos and
randomness before attributing everything to skill.

Did you avoid dangerous situations or escape them by skill?
Probably yes.

But you (so far) weren't subject to a fatal unavoidable
event either. That's not skill.

What should this rider have done differently?
http://preview.tinyurl.com/dxunqmd

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 5:15:02 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:
On May 4, 2:07 pm, wrote:

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 2:51:50 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:

On May 2, 8:14 pm, wrote:



On Thursday, May 2, 2013 9:02:09 PM UTC-4, Sir Ridesalot wrote:



Whilst the article is interesting it's the comments below it that really get me thinking. It's amazing how many people think that bicyclists do NOT belong on the roads. Also interesting how many bicyclists delight in flaunting the Rules of the Road whenever it pleases tthem.



Yep. Two days ago, I was on a narrow-ish two lane street that I frequently ride. One car was hanging back behind me, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, then began to go around just as a punk on a mountain bike was heading right at me, riding facing traffic.



As we all passed, I said "What are you doing on the wrong side of the road???" He immediately began yelling at me, claiming he knew what he was doing, and that I was on the wrong side of the road.



That seems like a lot of dialog "as we... passed". I usually only



have time for, "expletive deleted!" - if that.



Moreover, how did it play out? Personally, when that happens to me



(and it does), I usually shoulder check to see if I can move out and



give this salmon the gutter; if not, I stay right and let him veer



into traffic (or more usually up onto the sidewalk).



I already knew I couldn't move over. I had been glancing at the car just behind in my mirror, and I heard him moving forward just as the punk passed me. Those few blocks have a curb, but no sidewalk.



And yes, we had time for more dialog, because when I yelled something back at him, he turned around and tried to catch up to me, yelling as he was riding, something like "What are you going to tell me??? Come on, tell me!!" aggressive as hell and apparently itching for a fight. I had been riding slow (especially because of the near-head-on conflict), but I raised my speed to stay just in front of him (which required only about 18 mph). He followed me, yelling, for about a city block. Muscular, heavily tattooed, sort of scrappy clothes, and loudly aggressive and obnoxious. A punk.





What, you mean *other* people react to your supercilious Hall Monitor

crap like I do? Ithought it was just me.

Not "other people," Dan. One other person. This incident was absolutely unique.

I've said "You're on the wrong side of the road!" to a fair number of salmon riders over the years. Most said nothing. Some have said "It's so I can see the cars coming." One woman said "I'm sorry, I know, I'll get over." I recall (maybe astonishingly) only one "**** you." But I've never had anyone else yell at me then turn around and chase me.

Makes me seriously wonder what chemicals were in this guy's bloodstream.

(Perhaps you'll say that's all good, too - that crack contributes to chaos, and chaos is good?)

- Frank Krygowski

wrote:
On Saturday, May 4, 2013 4:53:02 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:
On May 4, 1:50 pm, wrote:

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 1:26:37 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:



Test me. Come on, ask me something. See if I know (I *promise* to



answer straight out of my head without looking *anything* up.)



OK. How many crashes have you had in the past ten years?





Hmm... more than ten, less than a hundred.



How does this question bear on my learning?



C'mon, professor.

I've had one in the last ten years, when the forks on our tandem failed
catastrophically without warning. I've had two moving on-road falls in my life.

This provides some evidence of who is a competent rider and who's not.

- Frank Krygowski

For some of my riding crashing is a part of the learning experience. Dan's
and my riding is so different from yours that it silly to discuss this. You
never crashed when you were riding your ATB off road? You never
fell/crashed when skiing?

--
Lou

On May 4, 2:11*pm, wrote:
On Saturday, May 4, 2013 4:53:02 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:
On May 4, 1:50 pm, wrote:

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 1:26:37 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:

Test me. *Come on, ask me something. *See if I know (I *promise* to

answer straight out of my head without looking *anything* up.)

OK. *How many crashes have you had in the past ten years?

Hmm... more than ten, less than a hundred.

How does this question bear on my learning?

C'mon, professor.

I've had one in the last ten years, when the forks on our tandem failed catastrophically without warning. *I've had two moving on-road falls in my life.

This provides some evidence of who is a competent rider and who's not.


Road crashes often have nothing to do with cars, traffic, vehicular
cycling or traffic skills. They have more to do with snow and ice and
other crap on the road. Many times its the bad-boy, salmoning, wheelji
king cyclists who can cope best with lost traction. The hand signal
and flippy-flaggers go down.

Now, crashing in to other cyclists, pedestrians, cars, etc. may
indicate a lack of skill -- or a high degree of impatience, which is
sort of in the same category. Getting hit by a car may indicate lack
of skill or just bad luck. You can be doing everything just right --
even according to the vehicular cyclists -- and still get nailed.

Ride note: sunny and beautiful here in PDX about 80F, big east wind
-- I mean blow you over big. Everyone is out -- it's a freak show of
cyclists, runners, motorists. Everybody. The suburban cowboys in Ram
tough pick-ups out in Clackamas county were trying to teach me and my
lycra-wearing faggot buddies a lesson, usually by passing an inch away
and belching diesel exhaust. It's usually some paunchy guy in his 40s
croaking obscenities with Honey Boo Boo in the front seat. Great
lesson to teach a kid. The passes occurred regardless of whether we
were riding vehicularly in the middle of the lane -- and occurred
without regard to center lines, turns, hill tops or on-coming traffic.
It was just good ol' boy f*** you passing. If I had made any last
second changes in my road position, I would have been plastered -- and
with all the wind, I couldn't hear approaching traffic until it was on
top of me.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 5:51:21 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 5/4/2013 4:11 PM, fk wrote:

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 4:53:02 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:

On May 4, 1:50 pm, fk wrote:



On Saturday, May 4, 2013 1:26:37 PM UTC-4, Dan O wrote:







Test me. Come on, ask me something. See if I know (I *promise* to







answer straight out of my head without looking *anything* up.)







OK. How many crashes have you had in the past ten years?



Hmm... more than ten, less than a hundred.

How does this question bear on my learning?


I've had one in the last ten years, when the forks on our tandem failed catastrophically without warning. I've had two moving on-road falls in my life.



This provides some evidence of who is a competent rider and who's not.



- Frank Krygowski





You might consider the fickle nature of life, chaos and

randomness before attributing everything to skill.



Did you avoid dangerous situations or escape them by skill?

Probably yes.


But you (so far) weren't subject to a fatal unavoidable

event either. That's not skill.

We might consider the differences between terms such as skill, knowledge, awareness, preparedness, etc.

Regarding physical skills - reflexes, coordination, balance, bike handling, etc. - I think I'm no slouch. But while that's occasionally saved me from a crash (e.g. jumping over a small dog in my path when I was hemmed in by riders on each side), using skill to avoid a crash has been rare.

I think most of my good luck comes from watching the development of situations in traffic, and acting tactically so nothing extreme becomes necessary. For example, I dimly recall a few years ago a poster here talking about his crash or near-crash. IIRC, he was passing a line of stopped cars on the right, at speed, and I think one pulled out in front of him. I mentioned that I wouldn't pass such a line at speed. It just rings alarm bells.

Similarly, two nights ago, my wife and I were driving the twisty inner-city freeway. There was very little traffic. A guy on a Harley started to pass us slowly, got alongside, then just matched our speed as he weaved through a couple fairly tight turns. Then he got just past us, got in front in our lane, and actually slowed by about five mph. I chose to just pass him, add ten mph and get the heck away from him. Sure, I wasn't at risk; but when on my motorcycle, I'd never do what he'd done. I'll do what I can to ride where cars are not. Tactics.

I think by playing ahead several moves (as in chess) one can avoid most situations where emergency action would be needed. It's better to be the guy whose strategy means he never needs quick reflexes, rather than the guy who relies on his skill and reflexes to save himself time and again.

And the more knowledge one has about situations that might bring trouble, the better one gets at choosing the best strategy. People who have never heard of dooring _must_ be more likely to skim past parked cars. People who have never heard of controlling the lane _must_ be more likely to ride the gutter, and complain about the rude motorists who brush their elbows. (Keri Caffrey, whom I've met, explains a bit about her growing knowledge in this talk:
http://vimeo.com/43603867 One of her points is that once you do the right things on the bike, motorists "magically" get more cooperative.)

And yes, there's always that literally microscopic chance I'll have a semi-trailer topple off an overhead bridge and squash me. But again, there's something like 10 to 15 million miles ridden between fatalities, and that best applies to cyclists of _average_ skill. I try to be in the far right tail of that Gaussian curve.

I'll note that the insurance industry makes a lot of money betting on past performance. That is, they tend to charge higher premiums to drivers who have more crashes, more tickets, etc. They bet their stockholders' money that past performance bears some relation to future events. I've never heard of an insurance company that says "Wow, you've had lots of crashes. You must know all about crashing, so we're going to give you a big discount."

- Frank Krygowski

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 5:56:23 PM UTC-4, Lou Holtman wrote:


For some of my riding crashing is a part of the learning experience. Dan's

and my riding is so different from yours that it silly to discuss this. You

never crashed when you were riding your ATB off road? You never

fell/crashed when skiing?

Skiing is a different sport. Let's put that in a separate thread, OK?

Back when I did a fair amount of mountain biking, I did fall from time to time. I did challenge my skills and take some risks, but even then, most of my falls involved the bike dumping as I hopped off it. I never injured myself at all. There's a forest preserve very near my home, and I used to like to ride the single track trails and try the "observed trials" thing, the "can I make it down this steep drop, then hop my front wheel up onto the narrow tilted boardwalk, and ride the boards over the swampy section without dabbing?" And yes, it took me a dozen tries to get that specific trick accomplished.

But I'm a pretty old guy now. I ride my mountain bike much less, and when I do, I ride much more conservatively. I haven't even had a mountain bike fall in at least ten years.

If you want absolutely full disclosure, I had one stationary on-road fall once, maybe 25 years ago. I was riding home from work, and was the first vehicle stopped at a five-way intersection's red light. I'd been hearing some soft scraping sound from my back wheel, maybe a leaf or something stuck to the brake shoe? As I waited in traffic with one foot still in my toe clip, I tried to turn around to see the brake. Lost my balance and toppled over. It was hard to make it look look like I meant to do that!

- Frank Krygowski

wrote:

:If you want absolutely full disclosure, I had one stationary on-road
:fall once, maybe 25 years ago. I was riding home from work, and was the
:first vehicle stopped at a five-way intersection's red light. I'd been
:hearing some soft scraping sound from my back wheel, maybe a leaf or
:something stuck to the brake shoe? As I waited in traffic with one foot
:still in my toe clip, I tried to turn around to see the brake. Lost my
:balance and toppled over. It was hard to make it look look like I meant
:to do that!

I fell over the other day coming home from work. I had a bunch of
crap on the rear rack. I forgot it was there, and tried to dismount
normally, by passing my right leg over the rear wheel. I hit the
boxes of shoes my firlfriend keeps having sent to my office, and fell
over. No way I made that look what I meant to do.


--
sig 67

On Saturday, May 4, 2013 6:06:12 PM UTC-4, Jay Beattie wrote:


Road crashes often have nothing to do with cars, traffic, vehicular

cycling or traffic skills. They have more to do with snow and ice and

other crap on the road.

You're correct, most bike crashes by far are caused by problems with pavement. We have only two wheels. We have to watch where we put them.

Here's a graphic showing overall crash causes on the left, car-bike crashes in more detail on the right: http://www.labreform.org/blunders/crash-charts.gif

And yes, as someone said earlier, there are lots of bike-bike crashes. Watch who you ride with.

Many times its the bad-boy, salmoning, wheelji

king cyclists who can cope best with lost traction. The hand signal

and flippy-flaggers go down.

The careful riders may go down IF they get themselves into a lost traction situation. But I think any honest count will show wheelie kings crashing much more than careful riders.

One way to put it might be this: A person crashes at the moment his risk-taking demands more than his physical skill. So the wheelie king, in search of "Lookit me!" glory, takes more and more risks to practice being on the edge more and more. Eventually, he can raise his skill to the Hans Rey level, and if it becomes necessary, can use that skill to avoid a crash.

OTOH, a wise old guy can say "That's dumb. I'm just going to learn to read the road surface, read traffic, be careful and ride within my existing skills." If he's good enough at that, he'll probably crash far less than Mister Trickster.

Now, crashing in to other cyclists, pedestrians, cars, etc. may

indicate a lack of skill -- or a high degree of impatience, which is

sort of in the same category. Getting hit by a car may indicate lack

of skill or just bad luck. You can be doing everything just right --

even according to the vehicular cyclists -- and still get nailed.

Yes, for a certain value of "can." But look at those crash chart graphics again. Almost all of the individual causes are avoidable.

For example, how does one avoid bike-bike crashes? OK, I admit one way might be to spot the oncoming salmon earlier than I did last Tuesday, even though I didn't crash. But another is by not riding near squirrely riders. I was on a club ride a couple weeks ago when I noticed a new woman on the ride who was extra-twitchy, riding a slightly zig-zag line and swerving slightly without warning. I simply chose other people to talk to on the ride, and in fact made sure she was well behind me most of the time.

But the bigger point is that in all those common causes of crashes, most are avoidable. Simple falls? Learn to watch the road surface and corner carefully enough (and avoid streetcar tracks in Portland) and your crash odds are twice better than average. Stay out of the door zone and that hazard goes away, etc.

Regarding car-bike crashes in the right graphic, if you don't do the stuff in blue, those crashes won't happen to you, period. Regarding the items in red, most of those are defended against by being more visible in the lane - that is, by riding more toward the center, not hugging the gutter.

And I know that there are bound to be people reading this who will refuse to believe it. But time after time after time I've talked or corresponded with dedicated vehicular cyclists who have learned it all just WORKS. Again, Keri Caffrey mentions this in that talk I linked to earlier. We just have so few problems compared to people who think they must defer to drivers, hug the curb, seek out special infrastructure, etc.

Ride note: sunny and beautiful here in PDX about 80F, big east wind

-- I mean blow you over big.

Great weather and east winds here too, although they can't be the same wind.. I was flying along to the hardware store today, and grinding my way back upwind on the way home. Wildflowers are out in the Forest, and we saw three young Great Horned Owls today. A beautiful time of year.

- Frank Krygowski

On 5/4/2013 6:16 PM, wrote:
On Saturday, May 4, 2013 6:06:12 PM UTC-4, Jay Beattie wrote:


Road crashes often have nothing to do with cars, traffic, vehicular

cycling or traffic skills. They have more to do with snow and ice and

other crap on the road.

You're correct, most bike crashes by far are caused by problems with pavement. We have only two wheels. We have to watch where we put them.

Here's a graphic showing overall crash causes on the left, car-bike crashes in more detail on the right: http://www.labreform.org/blunders/crash-charts.gif

And yes, as someone said earlier, there are lots of bike-bike crashes. Watch who you ride with.

Many times its the bad-boy, salmoning, wheelji

king cyclists who can cope best with lost traction. The hand signal

and flippy-flaggers go down.

The careful riders may go down IF they get themselves into a lost traction situation. But I think any honest count will show wheelie kings crashing much more than careful riders.

One way to put it might be this: A person crashes at the moment his risk-taking demands more than his physical skill. So the wheelie king, in search of "Lookit me!" glory, takes more and more risks to practice being on the edge more and more. Eventually, he can raise his skill to the Hans Rey level, and if it becomes necessary, can use that skill to avoid a crash.

OTOH, a wise old guy can say "That's dumb. I'm just going to learn to read the road surface, read traffic, be careful and ride within my existing skills." If he's good enough at that, he'll probably crash far less than Mister Trickster.

Now, crashing in to other cyclists, pedestrians, cars, etc. may

indicate a lack of skill -- or a high degree of impatience, which is

sort of in the same category. Getting hit by a car may indicate lack

of skill or just bad luck. You can be doing everything just right --

even according to the vehicular cyclists -- and still get nailed.

Yes, for a certain value of "can." But look at those crash chart graphics again. Almost all of the individual causes are avoidable.

For example, how does one avoid bike-bike crashes? OK, I admit one way might be to spot the oncoming salmon earlier than I did last Tuesday, even though I didn't crash. But another is by not riding near squirrely riders. I was on a club ride a couple weeks ago when I noticed a new woman on the ride who was extra-twitchy, riding a slightly zig-zag line and swerving slightly without warning. I simply chose other people to talk to on the ride, and in fact made sure she was well behind me most of the time.

But the bigger point is that in all those common causes of crashes, most are avoidable. Simple falls? Learn to watch the road surface and corner carefully enough (and avoid streetcar tracks in Portland) and your crash odds are twice better than average. Stay out of the door zone and that hazard goes away, etc.

Regarding car-bike crashes in the right graphic, if you don't do the stuff in blue, those crashes won't happen to you, period. Regarding the items in red, most of those are defended against by being more visible in the lane - that is, by riding more toward the center, not hugging the gutter.

And I know that there are bound to be people reading this who will refuse to believe it. But time after time after time I've talked or corresponded with dedicated vehicular cyclists who have learned it all just WORKS. Again, Keri Caffrey mentions this in that talk I linked to earlier. We just have so few problems compared to people who think they must defer to drivers, hug the curb, seek out special infrastructure, etc.

Ride note: sunny and beautiful here in PDX about 80F, big east wind

-- I mean blow you over big.

Great weather and east winds here too, although they can't be the same wind. I was flying along to the hardware store today, and grinding my way back upwind on the way home. Wildflowers are out in the Forest, and we saw three young Great Horned Owls today. A beautiful time of year.

- Frank Krygowski



I don't want to beat this to death, but really knowledge,
awareness, preparation and skill are sonmetimes simply not
sufficient given the anomalies and vicissitudes of traffic:

http://subscriber.dailyherald.com/story/?id=291185

She was properly stopped at the stop line but dead anyway. I
had close friends who died in absolutely rider-unavoidable
conditions with zero, truly zero, rider fault.

But they are still dead. Your skills are admirable. I
sincerely hope you do not find yourself in a similar
situation where rider skill is simply not a factor.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971