Alkaline Earth | bicycle accident statistics

Seems like a front light in this situation would be beneficial:

"One of the greatest threats to adult bicyclists is a motorist turning left into their path as they proceed straight ahead in the opposite direction. This crash type is quite prevalent in and around college communities and other places with high levels of bicycle commuting. The problem frequently occurs at signalized intersections on roads with four or more lanes: the left-turning motorist is waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic and fails to look for, see, or yield to the oncoming bicyclist."

Keep riding on those major roads like guadalupe:

"Sixty-three percent of bicyclist deaths in 2004 occurred on major roads other than interstates and freeways, and 31 percent occurred on minor roads."

IIHS

Interestingly many bicyclists are under the impression that "cyclist[s] have full rights to the road" which is a misconception because they really have the same rights minus bicycle specific restrictions. From the texas code(pdf warning):

"Sec.A551.101. RIGHTS AND DUTIES.AA(a) A person operating a
bicycle has the rights and duties applicable to a driver operating a
vehicle under this subtitle, unless:
(1)AAa provision of this chapter alters a right or duty;
or
(2)AAa right or duty applicable to a driver operating a
vehicle cannot by its nature apply to a person operating a bicycle."

For instance you cannot just hog the entire lane all willy-nilly as is prone to happen from time to time:

"Sec.A551.103. OPERATION ON ROADWAY.AA(a) Except as provided
by Subsection (b), a person operating a bicycle on a roadway who is
moving slower than the other traffic on the roadway shall ride as
near as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway,
unless:
(1)AAthe person is passing another vehicle moving in
the same direction;
(2)AAthe person is preparing to turn left at an
intersection or onto a private road or driveway;
(3)AAa condition on or of the roadway, including a fixed
or moving object, parked or moving vehicle, pedestrian, animal, or
surface hazard prevents the person from safely riding next to the
right curb or edge of the roadway; or
(4)AAthe person is operating a bicycle in an outside
lane that is:
(A)AAless than 14 feet in width and does not have a
designated bicycle lane adjacent to that lane; or
(B)AAtoo narrow for a bicycle and a motor vehicle
to safely travel side by side."

Note also to the dickheads riding two abreast holding up traffic:

"(c)AAPersons operating bicycles on a roadway may ride two
abreast. Persons riding two abreast on a laned roadway shall ride
in a single lane. Persons riding two abreast may not impede the
normal and reasonable flow of traffic on the roadway. Persons may
not ride more than two abreast unless they are riding on a part of a
roadway set aside for the exclusive operation of bicycles."

That means get the hell out of my way when I've been driving behind you for the last couple of minutes and you're only going 15-20mph in a 35mph or greater zone.

To you fixie trendsetters out there, you may not have a brake but you're still breaking the law. Additionally, I didn't see anything in the code that said it was alright to substitute a little blinky rear light for a white front light.

"Sec.A551.104. SAFETY EQUIPMENT.AA(a) A person may not
operate a bicycle unless the bicycle is equipped with a brake
capable of making a braked wheel skid on dry, level, clean pavement.
(b)AAA person may not operate a bicycle at nighttime unless
the bicycle is equipped with:
(1)AAa lamp on the front of the bicycle that emits a
white light visible from a distance of at least 500 feet in front of
the bicycle; and
(2)AAon the rear of the bicycle:
(A)AAa red reflector that is:
(i)AAof a type approved by the department;
and
(ii)AAvisible when directly in front of
lawful upper beams of motor vehicle headlamps from all distances
from 50 to 300 feet to the rear of the bicycle; or
(B)AAa lamp that emits a red light visible from a
distance of 500 feet to the rear of the bicycle."

For more codes be sure to check out this site.

I thought it was pretty funny reading the bicycle section noted above because they have a specific section that's clearly devoted to Segway (sp?) scooter thingy. Hasn't exactly lived up to the original hype...

Sorry about the negative tone, I also ride a bicycle but just don't like some of the stuff I see out there. I started making these posts with the intent of proving to Flip that a front light was more important for night riding than a rear light if you could have only one. I still think I'm right but I can't say I've "conclusively" proved my point (even though you need the front one to be "legal").

Javelina. Yes, I see in the comment above that bicycles can occupy the lane if it's not safe for a car and bicycle to ride side by side. I just don't like the people who do it to be A-holes. Additionally, if it looks like you're holding up traffic it's cool to pull over for a bit and let the traffic by. I do that in my car on 2-lane roads when I'm going slower than most traffic, it's called being nice.

I'm glad to see this post because for a second there I was worried that sG birthday dinners would only go 1-for-2 in the crazy-arguments-people-talk-about-later dept.

So, track bikes are really technically illegal? I can see where they were going with it (I'm sure it's illegal to drive brake-less cars too) but I think it misses the mark.

A friend of mine, who is an avid cyclist, sent me an email saying that Austin is considering a mandatory helmet law for bicyclists. She sent out the email to raise awareness and to try and get people to petition against it. Her reasoning is that having to wear a helmet would discourage some people from biking, that wearing a helmet in crashes doesn't do that much good and gives people a false sense of security when learning traffic safety would be a better way to avoid injury, that cyclists would recieve the default blame in a car-bike accident if they weren't wearing the manditory helmet, and less than 5 cyclists die per year in austin from accidents, many of which were wearing helmets anyway.

I was just wondering what other cyclists thought of this. Agree? Disagree? I'm pretty much against personal safety laws from a civil liberty standpoint, but this is an issue I know nothing about.

Yeah, a helmet law sounds to me like a way for the city to get out of actually closing the fucking bike lane network, to me--it is absolutely enraging how ubitiquous bike lanes are, but also how disconnected the network is. Give us some mf-ing adequate routes and ticket cars that do illegal shit to us, and you would seriously, seriously cut back on bike accidents.

Note that a clear majority of the accients in the original post were the fault of the motorist

"I submit the following links without comment:" ... or maybe just 6 comments. :)

look troll, for the record, most motorists simply do not pay good enough attention while driving. "." I, with my extremely bright white LED (actually 3 LEDs) light on the front of the bike, + white clothing +white helmet + blinking red LED was almost hit by a Fkng idiot turning left on 29th street 1/2 block E of guadalupe. Care to explain how that was my fault??? Maybe because I had not rigged up the airhorn???
The amount of pollution I (don't) contribute when I bike should be reason alone for all motorists to not only yield me right of way, but to pull over and hand out freakin cups of gatorade (or beer, will accept beer) and play my theme song as I ride by ("goin to get me a iron shirt..").

hehehehe. clearly by your diplomatic tone, you weren't trying to stir anything up.

Not to mention the couple of fuckbars I've seen on the road that have intentionally tried to hit me. Plus the violent jackass from my Chuy's parking lot story.

I also wonder if the justice system applies the vehicular manslaughter rules as aggressively if the victim is a bicyclist.

Regardless, the jackass motorists on the road shoudl realise that they can kill me, and I can put a fucking dent on their car. Respect that shit. I do, but the reality of that, and the reality of their ignorance will make me somewhat aggressive.

End of story, every time I see a high powered sports car/SUV with a mf-ing "Support our Troops" thing on it, I want to kill the mf-ing owner.

That is all, at least for the next 15 minutes.

I'm thinking about buying the Down Low Glow, just for kicks.

sG: Technically speaking, a fixed gear bicycle is technically capable of making a skidded wheels stop. If the rider has the technical ability to do so, that is. Blah blah some shit blah blah. Blah blah many 'normal' bicycle riders have difficulty operating their bicycle's brakes in a technically proficient manner blah blah. Blah blah the HabCous totally burned your ass blah. Blah blah it stings, it stings blah. Blah Blah javelina responds blah do a-holes have b-slots blah? blah blah Sec.A551.103 4(b) applies, for me, all the damn time unless the lane is >20ft wide or in a slow residential area, and always if there's lots of traffic blah blah blah.

Well, kicks. And visibility.

I would have to be for mandatory bike helmet laws. Regardless of what other motivations people think the city government has (too lazy to teach bike safety, trying to divert attention away from poor bike lane network) I think it stands on its own as a smart thing.

The argument that "if you make bike helmets mandatory, people will rely on them instead of their wits" is exactly the same argument as these two:

Airbags shouldn't be in cars because people think they are safe and don't use their seatbelts (people think this)
Condom use should not be taught because it will then make people want to have sex (by removing the risk or stigma)

Uh, no to all three please. Seat belts save lives, yet the reason there needs to be a law is that people thought it wasn't cool to wear a seatbelt in the 60's and 70's. The exact thing applies here (and, for that matter, to skateboarders *cough*sG*cough*).

And, there's no reason they can't have a mandatory helmet law AND [fix the roads | teach bike safety | kill motorists].

The only opposition to helmet laws comes from people's vanity and/or misguided sense of "freedom". Putting something between your head and concrete is a self-evident good thing. Removing the drain on emergency services to treat people with head wounds more than offsets the infringement on civil liberties. If you ride without a helmet, you are a lunatic.

Along the same lines, I think there's an argument to be made from the standpoint of insurance premiums. Unless you are voluntarily raising your premiums by telling your insurance company that you ride w/o a helmet all of the time, then you are pushing the burden onto the general public to support your reckless choice.

But the thing there is, how much injury would bike helemets prevent? I don't know the answer, but if a car hits me, I don't think that a few inches of styrofoam on my head is going to do much to alter the massive internal bleeding. Seems to me that most of the reason for wearing helmets is to prevent injury when your head comes into contact with the ground, and, IMO, if you are a bicycle commuter, and your head is hitting the ground, if you're going to get run over, you're going to get killed anyway--a bike helmet can't even come close to supporting the weight of a car.

I wear a helmet more than 90% of the time (and when I don't it's usually for an intra-campus trip, like RLM to Gregory), but I hve to say that in the 110 degree heat, and when I'm biking 30-60 minutes at a time while zipping around time, it's damn obnoxious to have to wear a hat that basically acts as a heat trap and a ventilation shield. That's basic comfort, not vanity.

And another reason why this pisses me off is that the implication is that bike injuries are predominantly bicyclists fault--which sG's original post showed to be demonstrably untrue. I'd be fine with it as a piece of a comprehensive plan for bike travel in Austin, but, as presented, it is totally not a piece of anything--it's just a new stand-alone ordinance, which someone clearly thinks will "solve" the problem.

In reality, I don't really care, because it's not like they enforce shit in Austin anyway. But still, it's annoying to me for the above reasons.

The insurance/public health argument is a dangerous one, however. YOu could say the same thing for a very large swath of personal lifestyle choices, at the minnimum including your personal diet and excersise habits. Why not a law mandating an hour of working out a week? Or a law capping the number of calories in a Big Mac?

There is a line to be drawn, but we should be careful regarding where that line is.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: Eighty-five percent of bicyclists killed in 2003 reportedly weren't wearing helmets.
Plus tons more showing reduced injury rates in places that have mandatory laws.

If it were feasible, you'd want to wear Kevlar when you rode your bike. Since that's just impractical, what parts of the body won't heal when they get hit? It's not your arms; it's your head. Saying that "well, if I get run over the helmet won't help me anyway" misses the point that if you fly over your handlebars your head hits the ground. Your ribs and limbs can heal but your brain can't.

fair enough.

While I appreciate the drain that severe accidents have on the EMS and hospitals, I think that personal safety laws are dangerous for reasons that Valatan mentioned. It is really difficult to draw the line. You could argue that wearing a helmet would protect car drivers from head injuries as well. Thousands of kids get injured from playgrounds/swing sets each year. Maybe putting helmets on all of them or ban playgrounds all together would reduce injuries, too.

I think that personal safety laws are trying to replace the ability of the public to think. And honestly, the public needs more practice at thinking. The only exception would be minors: just in the same way that children are required by law to wear their seatbelts, they should also wear helmets, since they are presumably too young to think for themselves.

I think it would be awesome if insurance companies did put out questionnaires and adjusted the rates based on the behavior of their clients. Smoking, drinking, not wearing seatbelts and helmets are all dangerous, risky activities and premiums should reflect that. If people lied on the questionnaires and were discovered then the insurance companies can deal with what to do with them.

First off, I wasn't trolling.

Second, thank you nate for actually posting the IIHS statistics for bicycle fatalities which were located in my links (does valatan get a RTFA? kidding...)

Third, austin used to have a helmet law for bicycles that was repealed. I can't remember how long ago and I'm too lazy to try and find out. I do recall seeing a bunch of people wearing "helmets" that were pretty silly but would provide no actual protection in a crash. They would just put anything on their heads that passed for a helmet so they wouldn't be ticketed. If I were to guess I would say it was in the mid 90's or so.

I like the idea of helmet laws because it gets people who would like to wear a helmet but don't becuase they look stupid to actually wear helmets. Never discount the fact that most people don't wear helmets because they look dumb (just look at harley riders). Additionally, I think government should regulate safety when there is a real risk that isn't readily apparent to the participants. Most people rarely fall on bicycles so they tend to forget about the serious nature of head injuries but the actual risks are high enough that people should protect themselves. It doesn't take much of a blow to the head to cause death and a helmet is not as much of an inconvenience as people make it out to be.

For those of you still interested in the pros/cons of helmet laws, with particular attention to Austin's helmet law... the Austin Cycling Association's email list has been en fuego for the past few weeks regarding this matter. The list has gone from a couple emails a week to about 20 emails per hour. Time to switch to digest mode...

should have seen this earlier - sG and ndogg, I'm not sure fixed gears are illegal,

"Sec.A551.104. SAFETY EQUIPMENT.AA(a) A person may not
operate a bicycle unless the bicycle is equipped with a brake
capable of making a braked wheel skid on dry, level, clean pavement."

using my breaks (rock hard and sexy legs) I can easily make the rear tire skid on dry, level, clean pavement.

oh snap!

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August 09, 2006