Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On 12/20/2010 2:06 PM, AMuzi wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:
On 12/20/2010 9:29 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Peter Cole:

Friedman is so busted.

That was my impression.

And I'm pretty sure I've heard him acknowledge that he was wrong
in the extent to which he thought markets were self-regulating.

I think that was Greenspan, his disciple.

a virtual Bernanke of fecklessnes


Just another true believer of faith based economics (19th century).

Frank Krygowski wrote:

If they don't mind two foot passes, they can ride as close to the edge
as they dare.

Thank you.

Two foot passes are normal here. The legal requirement is 1 metre, but
I'm quite happy with a 2 foot passing distance.

Around a foot I take notice, particularly if the speed differential is
high, say = 30km/h.

Less than 6 inches and I get nervous and annoyed.

When the mirror all but brushes passed I get real nervous for a second,
then mightily ****ed off and God help them if they get stopped at the
next traffic light~!

JS.

RobertH wrote:
On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If they don't mind two foot passes, they can ride as close to the edge
as they dare. If they prefer being passed with more clearance, they
can ride further out in the lane - as the graph shows.

The graphic shows that riding far right on this street does NOT
"invite" close passes at all. It seems to suggest that lane-taking is
completely unnecessary in such a lane.

It explains a lot once we realize that when Frank and other "lane
control" preachers talk about close passes -- "dangerous passes" which
just might kill you instantly in a fiery ball of destruction -- they
are including passing margins in the 3 - 6-ft. range. Explains A LOT.
What a bunch of Bubble Boys.


Quite. I didn't realise Frank needed so much space to feel safe! He
must feel really really frightened in many common circumstances. Quite
fearful indeed. I suggest he take up ping pong or playing cards.

JS.

On 12/20/2010 3:48 PM, James wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:

If they don't mind two foot passes, they can ride as close to the edge
as they dare.

Thank you.

Two foot passes are normal here. The legal requirement is 1 metre, but
I'm quite happy with a 2 foot passing distance.

Around a foot I take notice, particularly if the speed differential is
high, say = 30km/h.

Less than 6 inches and I get nervous and annoyed.

When the mirror all but brushes passed I get real nervous for a second,
then mightily ****ed off and God help them if they get stopped at the
next traffic light~!

Yeah, when we were talking about close passes, I wasn't thinking in
terms of feet.

On 12/20/2010 3:23 PM, Peter Cole wrote:
On 12/20/2010 2:06 PM, AMuzi wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:
On 12/20/2010 9:29 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Peter Cole:

Friedman is so busted.

That was my impression.

And I'm pretty sure I've heard him acknowledge that he was wrong
in the extent to which he thought markets were self-regulating.

I think that was Greenspan, his disciple.

a virtual Bernanke of fecklessnes


Just another true believer of faith based economics (19th century).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...leomonetarism/

Per Peter Cole:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...leomonetarism/

Krugman made me go ballistic couple months back.

He actually stood up and argued that maybe the Fed should turn
inflation up a little just to stimulate the economy.

These guys are living in another world as far as I can see.
Apparently no feelings at all for people living on a fixed income
that are already being slowly inflated into poverty - as well as
the people in the bottom earnings brackets whose dollar wages
aren't going to keep pace with inflation.

I have to wonder at what point inflation will become a populist
political issue. Probably too late....
--
PeteCresswell

On 12/20/2010 5:55 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Peter Cole:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...leomonetarism/

Krugman made me go ballistic couple months back.

He actually stood up and argued that maybe the Fed should turn
inflation up a little just to stimulate the economy.

I think you misunderstood him, he's been harping on the danger of
immanent deflation.

On 12/20/2010 8:43 AM, Peter Cole wrote:
On 12/20/2010 9:29 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Peter Cole:

Friedman is so busted.

That was my impression.

And I'm pretty sure I've heard him acknowledge that he was wrong
in the extent to which he thought markets were self-regulating.

I think that was Greenspan, his disciple.

Too bad for Friedman that real life has proven him wrong. Of course,
that will not prevent the shouting heads on television and radio blaming
everything on taxes and government regulation, while promoting their
real goal of socialism for the rich [1], and social Darwinism for
everyone else.

[1] The purpose of government is to protect the property of the wealthy,
and to protect their wealth as necessary by transferring money from
labor to the rich.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Dec 20, 6:42*am, RobertH wrote:
On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

[RH:]

There are a few things people should know about that blog entry that
Frank is trying to pass off as 'data.' The experimenters only did two
videotaped runs. Had they kept taping, say 10 or 20 runs, what you
would have seen was more of the same behavior for a while, then
whoosh! a close, dangerous pass while in the "assertive" lane
position. Then a while later whoosh! another one. And so on.

Wow. *Stated with such certainty! *Am I expected to simply believe
that, based on your firmly held "fearful ninja" ideological position?

No, I don't expect you to believe anything other than what you already
believe, even when clear facts are staring you in the face.

I have been close passed in every lane position (of every lane)
imagineable -- real close passes, too, not fearful beginner close
passes -- so I don't harbor any illusions about the magical properties
of lane position in preventing such things. If the experiment were
repeated with several more runs, you would start to see close passes
to the lane-takers.

Seems to me you should do the experiment and publish results. That
would give you the opportunity to get lots more data points. And that
would be more impressive than your "Let me tell you...!"
proclamations.

With the cyclist over on the far right of this
lane, the motorist has to go out of their way to make a close pass.

?? Sorry, that sentence makes no sense at all. For example, take one
duallie pickup with a driver who says "I'm squeezing by" a cyclist at
the right, and you've got a close pass.

With the cyclist in the center or left of the lane, the motorist has
to go out of their way not to.

With that same cyclist at lane center, the trucker says "I don't have
enough room. I'll have to wait until the next lane's clear." If he
straddles the lane line and passes too close, the cyclist is still in
a better situation, because he's got better visibility and more room
to maneuver away, if necessary.

I'm not saying it's always a bad idea
to ride there, just pointing out the obvious.

If you're not saying it's a bad idea to ride there, you're certainly
saying things that sound a lot like that!


What was the trend? *Does it not look to you like riding
further left resulted in more passing clearance? *Looks that way to
me.http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/...2009/04/passin...

The trend. If a "trend" can be deduced from a sample size of 45, it is
this: Riding far right led motorists to leave plenty of room while
passing, an average of about 5.4 feet.

Should we be concerned with average? If the mean of 100 passes was 5
feet clearance, that doesn't help if 50 were at 1 foot and 50 at 9
feet. That's still 50 passes that were too close.

Riding with the cyclist tire track about 2' from the gutter pan gave
that cyclist a minimum clearance (from the mirror, etc) of about two
feet. (Note that the chart inexplicably gives distance to the fender,
not to projecting mirrors.) All passes closer than 4' occurred when
the tire track was less than 3' from the gutter pan.

Even while presented with a
clearly open lane, many of the motorists went far out of their way to
leave extra room when passing...

Of course. We've all seen some motorists who were more courteous or
more careful than others.

... and there were NO close passes. As the
bicyclist moves out into the lane a foot or two, the average passing
margin goes up to about 6 feet, then 8 feet! Overall the avg. passing
margin when the cyclist is 3-5 feet from the gutter seam is around 7
feet. Very sizeable passing margins. Completely unnecessary for most
of us, but hey.

Right. When the cyclist's tire track was from 4' to 5' from the
gutter pan, motorists didn't try to squeeze by within that lane. They
crossed to the other lane, or within 6" of it. Seems I recall
explaining that here.

Moving still further out in the lane, the avg. passing distance falls
back under 7 feet. Goes down.

Yep. Yet one poster here told me that being 5' from the right was
absolutely not far enough. Unfortunately, Robert, that poster was
you.

But the decreasing passing distance with further distance is easy to
understand. As with a bike lane stripe, motorists expect that a
cyclist will not cross a lane line. If a cyclist were to ride one
foot from the left lane line, many motorists going past in the next
lane would not change their trajectory at all. Those incidents would
register as relatively close passes.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that all the sub-4' passes happened
when the cyclist was riding close to the right. I think it's entirely
reasonable to tell cyclists "If you don't mind being passed closer
than 4', right within 3 feet of the edge. If you prefer more passing
distance, move further left."

Moving from about 3 feet to 7 feet from
the gutter shows no benefit in actual passing margins.

Moving the tire track (not the cyclist's left shoulder) further left
from 2.5 feet got rid of four relatively close passes. Again, all the
closest passes occurred when the cyclist's tire was less than 3' from
the gutter pan.

This would be an interesting experiment if it were conducted by a non-
biased team making enough runs to create a good sample size.

Hmm. I guess you wouldn't qualify to run the experiment, then! That
bias business is tricky, isn't it?

Incidentally, I do know of shortcomings with this study. For one
thing, it was run on a California four-lane, and IIRC traffic was not
heavy. It would be more applicable to my riding environment if it
were run on narrower roads, and if it were run on both two lane and
four lane roads, with a mix of traffic densities. I'd like to see a
lot more data points, too, and measured from the closest part of the
car, not the fender. And since cyclists generally think in terms of
their wheel position, that should be the abscissa coordinate.

Unfortunately, actually running studies like that is difficult, and
requires time and money. We shouldn't speak too harshly of those who
have made those investments.

Informative videos on this topic can be seen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU4nKKq02BU
or by searching YouTube for "bicycle lane control."

- Frank Krygowski

"AMuzi" wrote in message
...
Peter Cole wrote:
On 12/20/2010 9:29 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Peter Cole:

Friedman is so busted.

That was my impression.

And I'm pretty sure I've heard him acknowledge that he was wrong
in the extent to which he thought markets were self-regulating.

I think that was Greenspan, his disciple.

a virtual Bernanke of fecklessnes


It always blows my mind that Greenspan is married to Andrea Mitchell, the
newscaster.
It sort of speaks volumes as to why he got little negative press over the
century or so when he was in charge