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#21
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On 9/8/2019 6:24 PM, Steve Weeks wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM UTC-5, pH wrote: There was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in May about a cyclist killed around the Davenport area. There was *never* a follow up about who it was or the circumstances around the death--I even called the local radio station to ask that their news department please follow up on it and give us further information as it became available. Nada thus far. That second fatality involved the cyclist being struck by a car going in the same direction, ie: "struck from behind". The League of American Bicyclists had a project going on a few years ago called "Every Bicyclist Counts" (https://bikeleague.org/content/why-e...fatal-crashes). It was an imperfect study, for reasons enumerated in the report, but it had some interesting findings. The most important (to me) was that a third of the bicycle fatalities were the result of the cyclist being "struck from behind". Now, since this is such a common mode of death for cyclists, it would seem reasonable to try to provide the cyclist with some form of defense. To my way of thinking, this is a rear-view mirror. Of course, the presence or absence of a rear-view mirror wasn't even mentioned in the League's study, and this information is apparently not one of the data collected when a cycling death is investigated. I just got back from an organized ride (the 50th annual Harmon Hundred) and I noticed that fewer than 10% of the riders had mirrors. It would be interesting to study the correlation (if any) between mirror use and "rear-impact" fatalities. I hypothesize that one exists and it is negative. But without data... I always ride with a mirror on the street; it can't hurt. I wouldn't call hits from behind "such a common mode of death for cyclists" because _all_ cycling deaths are tremendously rare. Other data shows there are well over ten million miles ridden per cycling fatality. And as John frequently points out, half of cyclist fatalities are judged to be the fault of the cyclist. Year after year, data shows a quarter of fatally injured cyclists had been drinking. So it seems like, roughly speaking, if you obey the traffic laws and don't ride drunk, you can probably ride 30 or 40 million miles before getting killed on your bike. That would take you quite a while - perhaps 4000 years of riding. Also, other data has shown that the usual hit-from-behind deaths happen on rural roads, to unlit night cyclists. The useless LAB used that study as propaganda to call for "protected" bike lanes in cities - an "apples and oranges" difference that they used to plead for more luxurious orange crates. Having said that, I almost always use a mirror when riding. I don't think of it as a lifesaving tool. I think of it as a tool that allows me to negotiate traffic better (like timing my merge into a left turn lane) and to better keep track of my riding partners. (Speaking of that: I make my own eyeglass mirrors and have a mirror ready on every bike. But I need to make one more, for my kayak. When paddling I'm usually ahead of my wife, and it would help me keep track of her so I don't get too far ahead.) -- - Frank Krygowski |
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#22
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On 9/8/2019 7:32 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 3:49:38 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:52:55 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/8/2019 2:09 PM, AK wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:27:49 PM UTC-5, Tom Kunich wrote: I ride with my outside handlebar overlapping the outer bike lane line. In some cases I take the car lane if there are problems with the bike lane such as roots of trees causing bumps of the lane being filled with leaves so that you can't see dangers such as pot holes or boards of the like. I have to dodge a lot of glass both in the bike lane and sidewalk. We have street cleaners, but are lucky if they come once every couple of months. In other words, both Tom and AK are pointing out that bike lanes aren't the wonderful paradise that so many people claim. Maintenance is often crappy, debris is common, and around here (as where AK lives) sweeping of debris is rare. So riders often ride as close to the stripe as possible. This results in closer passes than there would be if they removed the damned stripe and kept the same pavement width. Then the occasional car tires passing over that rightward section of pavement would sweep debris into the gutter. "Protected" bike lanes have all that and worse. A city near me installed a few blocks of that nonsense, then hosted a visit from officials from a different city. The foreign officials asked "So how do you keep the pavement clean? Did you buy a special small-scale street sweeper?" The host city official said something like "Um... we don't know yet." And as a bonus, bicyclist are hidden far off to the side, out of the view of motorists. Until, that is, they pop into view in front of the motorist at an intersection or a driveway. Surprise!!! -- - Frank Krygowski I don't know where you come off with your idea that bike lanes don't help. We have a lot of areas around here where bike lanes appear and disappear intermittently and where ever they disappear the traffic IMMEDIATELY moves over and crowds bicycle traffic. They do create more real estate for riding, but they can be implemented in ways that make cycling more dangerous. I don't see that bike lanes create more real estate for riding - unless, that is, the officials widened a road specifically to build a bike lane. In almost every case, what's done is to add a stripe to existing pavement. The total paved "real estate" is the same. Except that the three feet closest to the edge now has gravel and trash in it. On whole, however, I agree they are a benefit. I do not like the trend towards separate MUPs -- taking out a sidewalk and bike lane and putting in a giant raised surface separate from traffic for both bikes and pedestrians that it intersected by streets, e.g. https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2324/3...1aab9f0f_c.jpg See how the side streets now cut up the MUP and require endless stopping? The prior bike lane flowed with traffic. This facility was a giant step backwards, IMO, and not the miracle facility claimed by the facility freaks. I rode in it today, and all I wanted to do was get out of it and onto the street. AASHTO defines that as a sidepath, and gives quite a few reasons it's a bad idea in most cases. They say it should be considered only where motor vehicle traffic is very heavy and high speed. I agree. The first one I ever encountered was in Iowa. It was alongside a highway that would have been fine for riding; but we used it because we weren't sure if Iowa had a mandatory sidepath law or not. It was stupid. They had a stop sign on the sidepath for every gravel driveway that crossed it. Who thinks of these things? -- - Frank Krygowski |
#23
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On Sunday, 8 September 2019 18:24:04 UTC-4, Steve Weeks wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM UTC-5, pH wrote: There was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in May about a cyclist killed around the Davenport area. There was *never* a follow up about who it was or the circumstances around the death--I even called the local radio station to ask that their news department please follow up on it and give us further information as it became available. Nada thus far. That second fatality involved the cyclist being struck by a car going in the same direction, ie: "struck from behind". The League of American Bicyclists had a project going on a few years ago called "Every Bicyclist Counts" (https://bikeleague.org/content/why-e...fatal-crashes). It was an imperfect study, for reasons enumerated in the report, but it had some interesting findings. The most important (to me) was that a third of the bicycle fatalities were the result of the cyclist being "struck from behind". Now, since this is such a common mode of death for cyclists, it would seem reasonable to try to provide the cyclist with some form of defense. To my way of thinking, this is a rear-view mirror. Of course, the presence or absence of a rear-view mirror wasn't even mentioned in the League's study, and this information is apparently not one of the data collected when a cycling death is investigated. I just got back from an organized ride (the 50th annual Harmon Hundred) and I noticed that fewer than 10% of the riders had mirrors. It would be interesting to study the correlation (if any) between mirror use and "rear-impact" fatalities. I hypothesize that one exists and it is negative. But without data... I always ride with a mirror on the street; it can't hurt. Frank will vehemently disagree with that 1/3 of bicyclist deaths being the result of being struck from behind by a motor vehicle. I've had more close calls with vehicles from behind me than from in front of me. It;\'s the main reason I wear a quality rear view mirror when on my bicycle. Others, their mileage may vary. Cheers |
#24
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On Sunday, 8 September 2019 18:24:04 UTC-4, Steve Weeks wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM UTC-5, pH wrote: There was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in May about a cyclist killed around the Davenport area. There was *never* a follow up about who it was or the circumstances around the death--I even called the local radio station to ask that their news department please follow up on it and give us further information as it became available. Nada thus far. That second fatality involved the cyclist being struck by a car going in the same direction, ie: "struck from behind". The League of American Bicyclists had a project going on a few years ago called "Every Bicyclist Counts" (https://bikeleague.org/content/why-e...fatal-crashes). It was an imperfect study, for reasons enumerated in the report, but it had some interesting findings. The most important (to me) was that a third of the bicycle fatalities were the result of the cyclist being "struck from behind". Now, since this is such a common mode of death for cyclists, it would seem reasonable to try to provide the cyclist with some form of defense. To my way of thinking, this is a rear-view mirror. Of course, the presence or absence of a rear-view mirror wasn't even mentioned in the League's study, and this information is apparently not one of the data collected when a cycling death is investigated. I just got back from an organized ride (the 50th annual Harmon Hundred) and I noticed that fewer than 10% of the riders had mirrors. It would be interesting to study the correlation (if any) between mirror use and "rear-impact" fatalities. I hypothesize that one exists and it is negative. But without data... I always ride with a mirror on the street; it can't hurt. I find it quite interesting that a bicycle on the road is under the law considered to be a vehicle but it's the ONLY vehicle allowed on the road that does NOT have to have a mirror or even two. Interesting. Cheers |
#25
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On Sunday, 8 September 2019 19:32:10 UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 3:49:38 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:52:55 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/8/2019 2:09 PM, AK wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:27:49 PM UTC-5, Tom Kunich wrote: I ride with my outside handlebar overlapping the outer bike lane line. In some cases I take the car lane if there are problems with the bike lane such as roots of trees causing bumps of the lane being filled with leaves so that you can't see dangers such as pot holes or boards of the like. I have to dodge a lot of glass both in the bike lane and sidewalk. We have street cleaners, but are lucky if they come once every couple of months. In other words, both Tom and AK are pointing out that bike lanes aren't the wonderful paradise that so many people claim. Maintenance is often crappy, debris is common, and around here (as where AK lives) sweeping of debris is rare. So riders often ride as close to the stripe as possible. This results in closer passes than there would be if they removed the damned stripe and kept the same pavement width. Then the occasional car tires passing over that rightward section of pavement would sweep debris into the gutter.. "Protected" bike lanes have all that and worse. A city near me installed a few blocks of that nonsense, then hosted a visit from officials from a different city. The foreign officials asked "So how do you keep the pavement clean? Did you buy a special small-scale street sweeper?" The host city official said something like "Um... we don't know yet." And as a bonus, bicyclist are hidden far off to the side, out of the view of motorists. Until, that is, they pop into view in front of the motorist at an intersection or a driveway. Surprise!!! -- - Frank Krygowski I don't know where you come off with your idea that bike lanes don't help. We have a lot of areas around here where bike lanes appear and disappear intermittently and where ever they disappear the traffic IMMEDIATELY moves over and crowds bicycle traffic. They do create more real estate for riding, but they can be implemented in ways that make cycling more dangerous. On whole, however, I agree they are a benefit. I do not like the trend towards separate MUPs -- taking out a sidewalk and bike lane and putting in a giant raised surface separate from traffic for both bikes and pedestrians that it intersected by streets, e.g. https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2324/3...1aab9f0f_c.jpg See how the side streets now cut up the MUP and require endless stopping? The prior bike lane flowed with traffic. This facility was a giant step backwards, IMO, and not the miracle facility claimed by the facility freaks. I rode in it today, and all I wanted to do was get out of it and onto the street. -- Jay Beattie. I rode from my town to another town and along part of the way there was a wide shoulder/bicycle lane. It wasn't too bad until I got to the roundabout and there the shoulder/bicycle lane had a sudden drop into a drainage area and further on yet another and then another. I backtracked a bit, got onto the road, took the right hand lane and rode through the roundabout. Far too many bicycle lanes are located in door zones and/or are not cleared of debris or glass or they bicycle lane ends suddenly with no advance warning such as found on traffic lanes that end. For those reasons and for safety at intersections and when making a left hand turn I usually avoid the bicycle lanes as they are more dangerous than riding in even heavy traffic. Cheers |
#26
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On Sunday, 8 September 2019 20:00:33 UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/8/2019 6:24 PM, Steve Weeks wrote: On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM UTC-5, pH wrote: There was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in May about a cyclist killed around the Davenport area. There was *never* a follow up about who it was or the circumstances around the death--I even called the local radio station to ask that their news department please follow up on it and give us further information as it became available. Nada thus far. That second fatality involved the cyclist being struck by a car going in the same direction, ie: "struck from behind". The League of American Bicyclists had a project going on a few years ago called "Every Bicyclist Counts" (https://bikeleague.org/content/why-e...fatal-crashes). It was an imperfect study, for reasons enumerated in the report, but it had some interesting findings. The most important (to me) was that a third of the bicycle fatalities were the result of the cyclist being "struck from behind". Now, since this is such a common mode of death for cyclists, it would seem reasonable to try to provide the cyclist with some form of defense. To my way of thinking, this is a rear-view mirror. Of course, the presence or absence of a rear-view mirror wasn't even mentioned in the League's study, and this information is apparently not one of the data collected when a cycling death is investigated. I just got back from an organized ride (the 50th annual Harmon Hundred) and I noticed that fewer than 10% of the riders had mirrors. It would be interesting to study the correlation (if any) between mirror use and "rear-impact" fatalities. I hypothesize that one exists and it is negative. But without data... I always ride with a mirror on the street; it can't hurt. I wouldn't call hits from behind "such a common mode of death for cyclists" because _all_ cycling deaths are tremendously rare. Other data shows there are well over ten million miles ridden per cycling fatality. And as John frequently points out, half of cyclist fatalities are judged to be the fault of the cyclist. Year after year, data shows a quarter of fatally injured cyclists had been drinking. So it seems like, roughly speaking, if you obey the traffic laws and don't ride drunk, you can probably ride 30 or 40 million miles before getting killed on your bike. That would take you quite a while - perhaps 4000 years of riding. Also, other data has shown that the usual hit-from-behind deaths happen on rural roads, to unlit night cyclists. The useless LAB used that study as propaganda to call for "protected" bike lanes in cities - an "apples and oranges" difference that they used to plead for more luxurious orange crates. Having said that, I almost always use a mirror when riding. I don't think of it as a lifesaving tool. I think of it as a tool that allows me to negotiate traffic better (like timing my merge into a left turn lane) and to better keep track of my riding partners. (Speaking of that: I make my own eyeglass mirrors and have a mirror ready on every bike. But I need to make one more, for my kayak. When paddling I'm usually ahead of my wife, and it would help me keep track of her so I don't get too far ahead.) -- - Frank Krygowski When 1/3 of so called accidents are "Struck from behind" cases then those are not rare for that demographic. That's 33.3...% of the "accidents". That's no matter how rare bicycle "accidents" are in general it's still 1/3 of them. Cheers |
#27
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 5:38:25 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, 8 September 2019 18:24:04 UTC-4, Steve Weeks wrote: On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM UTC-5, pH wrote: There was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in May about a cyclist killed around the Davenport area. There was *never* a follow up about who it was or the circumstances around the death--I even called the local radio station to ask that their news department please follow up on it and give us further information as it became available. Nada thus far. That second fatality involved the cyclist being struck by a car going in the same direction, ie: "struck from behind". The League of American Bicyclists had a project going on a few years ago called "Every Bicyclist Counts" (https://bikeleague.org/content/why-e...fatal-crashes). It was an imperfect study, for reasons enumerated in the report, but it had some interesting findings. The most important (to me) was that a third of the bicycle fatalities were the result of the cyclist being "struck from behind". Now, since this is such a common mode of death for cyclists, it would seem reasonable to try to provide the cyclist with some form of defense. To my way of thinking, this is a rear-view mirror. Of course, the presence or absence of a rear-view mirror wasn't even mentioned in the League's study, and this information is apparently not one of the data collected when a cycling death is investigated. I just got back from an organized ride (the 50th annual Harmon Hundred) and I noticed that fewer than 10% of the riders had mirrors. It would be interesting to study the correlation (if any) between mirror use and "rear-impact" fatalities. I hypothesize that one exists and it is negative. But without data... I always ride with a mirror on the street; it can't hurt. Frank will vehemently disagree with that 1/3 of bicyclist deaths being the result of being struck from behind by a motor vehicle. I've had more close calls with vehicles from behind me than from in front of me. It;\'s the main reason I wear a quality rear view mirror when on my bicycle. Others, their mileage may vary. I don't use a mirror, but my head does turn, and I can see a car or truck approaching from behind, and I continue to do what I'm doing. A mirror might be helpful when I'm passing cyclists and have to drop into traffic while watching the cyclist ahead, but it may also be a distraction. I don't know. I used mirror for two days forty years ago and hated it. I was hit from the rear by a bus, and a mirror would have done nothing to avoid that. I get close passes all the time, and again, a mirror would do nothing. I get close passes while riding lane center. Cars just do stupid things whether you're looking at them through a mirror or not. -- Jay Beattie. -- |
#28
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On Sun, 8 Sep 2019 19:40:17 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 9/8/2019 6:47 PM, John B. wrote: On Sun, 8 Sep 2019 15:52:50 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/8/2019 2:09 PM, AK wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:27:49 PM UTC-5, Tom Kunich wrote: I ride with my outside handlebar overlapping the outer bike lane line. In some cases I take the car lane if there are problems with the bike lane such as roots of trees causing bumps of the lane being filled with leaves so that you can't see dangers such as pot holes or boards of the like. I have to dodge a lot of glass both in the bike lane and sidewalk. We have street cleaners, but are lucky if they come once every couple of months. In other words, both Tom and AK are pointing out that bike lanes aren't the wonderful paradise that so many people claim. Maintenance is often crappy, debris is common, and around here (as where AK lives) sweeping of debris is rare. So riders often ride as close to the stripe as possible. This results in closer passes than there would be if they removed the damned stripe and kept the same pavement width. Then the occasional car tires passing over that rightward section of pavement would sweep debris into the gutter. "Protected" bike lanes have all that and worse. A city near me installed a few blocks of that nonsense, then hosted a visit from officials from a different city. The foreign officials asked "So how do you keep the pavement clean? Did you buy a special small-scale street sweeper?" The host city official said something like "Um... we don't know yet." Over here the town/city hires poor people to sweep the streets - minimum wage level folks, who might otherwise be unemployable. They, apparently, are happy to have a job and the folks that use the road are happy to have clean streets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-BGGlMkN0 I've wondered about that idea regarding many jobs. I was working at a local manufacturing plant, the plant with the most sophisticated technology of any in the area. I was programming robotic workcells, working on automatic part feeding, automated packaging etc. Some small parts are very hard to handle automatically in mass production. Typically, parts must be uniformly oriented for automated processing. Vibratory bowl feeders are effective at orienting many parts, but some just can't be done that way. At one point, I wondered about employing people from one of the local agencies that support mentally retarded people (and I hope that term hasn't yet been deemed offensive) to either orient or package parts. I know that some of those people can get great satisfaction from work that would bore others; and I figured they could probably work for a relatively low wage, since they tend to get subsidies for housing, food, etc. Unfortunately, I was told the union contracts would never allow such a thing. I think that unions have done a lot of good over the last 100 years. But I also think they've made lots of bad decision, or caused lots of bad policies. I think this was one. There are two sides to that story. Firstly, people in developing countries tend to be cheaper than robots, and secondly, there are a lot of people who will literally kill for a minimum salary job. (A long story but when one of the athletic shoe companies was opening a new factory in Jakarta, one guy stabbed another for cutting into the line waiting at the employment office.) Thailand has, quite literally, more that 100% employment (citizen+guest workers) and much of it is at minimum wages. As you might guess, cost of doing business, taxes, et al, are cheaper also :-) -- cheers, John B. |
#29
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On 9/8/2019 7:48 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, 8 September 2019 19:32:10 UTC-4, jbeattie wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 3:49:38 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:52:55 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 9/8/2019 2:09 PM, AK wrote: On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:27:49 PM UTC-5, Tom Kunich wrote: -much snip- I usually avoid the bicycle lanes as they are more dangerous than riding in even heavy traffic. +1 -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#30
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Yet another cyclist killed. pH (Several, actually)
On 9/9/19 8:24 am, Steve Weeks wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM UTC-5, pH wrote: There was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in May about a cyclist killed around the Davenport area. There was *never* a follow up about who it was or the circumstances around the death--I even called the local radio station to ask that their news department please follow up on it and give us further information as it became available. Nada thus far. That second fatality involved the cyclist being struck by a car going in the same direction, ie: "struck from behind". The League of American Bicyclists had a project going on a few years ago called "Every Bicyclist Counts" (https://bikeleague.org/content/why-e...fatal-crashes). It was an imperfect study, for reasons enumerated in the report, but it had some interesting findings. The most important (to me) was that a third of the bicycle fatalities were the result of the cyclist being "struck from behind". Now, since this is such a common mode of death for cyclists, it would seem reasonable to try to provide the cyclist with some form of defense. To my way of thinking, this is a rear-view mirror. Of course, the presence or absence of a rear-view mirror wasn't even mentioned in the League's study, and this information is apparently not one of the data collected when a cycling death is investigated. I just got back from an organized ride (the 50th annual Harmon Hundred) and I noticed that fewer than 10% of the riders had mirrors. It would be interesting to study the correlation (if any) between mirror use and "rear-impact" fatalities. I hypothesize that one exists and it is negative. But without data... I always ride with a mirror on the street; it can't hurt. The idea of mandated mirrors is like mandatory helmets, hi vis and DRLs. The effective solution is to eliminate the danger. The rear ended fatalities usually occur on high speed rural roads. Get your DoT to build separated cycling "roads" parallel to high speed busy roads. On quiet rural roads, make car drivers the guests and reduce the speed limit. -- JS |
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