Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On 12/15/2010 7:54 PM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/14/2010 11:03 PM, RobertH Who? wrote:
On Dec 14, 5:51 pm, Frank wrote:

Are you talking about fatalities among cyclists who are riding in
daytime? Or are you talking about fatalities among cyclists riding at
night with proper lights (including, as I do, with a taillight)? Or
are you including the cyclists killed while riding non-urban roads at
night with no proper lights or reflectors? And how are you counting
those killed at night where lights or reflectors are not included one
way or other in the accident report?

How does this information change your opinion about "controlling
lanes?"

Well, since a) I'm sure the great unlit (and often inebriated) masses
are included in those counts, and b) even if they were not, the "one
quarter" would mean a minimum of 35 million miles ridden, on average,
between those sorts of fatalities, it doesn't change my opinion at
all. I don't expect to get anywhere near 35 million miles before I
die of other causes.

I am certain that even among proper, sober and well-lit bicyclists,
straight up hits from behind accounted for far, far more fatalities
than "dangerous passes." It doesn't matter, does it? What you have
there is a belief system, an ideology, based on fantasy, and rather
than alter or evolve your beliefs in the face of contrary facts, those
contrary facts must instead be actively ignored, attacked and banished
to protect the precious beliefs..

D A N G E R !

D A N G E R !

FACT: Even though relatively few American bicyclists "take the lane,"
bicyclists here (even sober, well-lit ones) are far, far more likely
to be killed by a driver who doesn't see them at all and rams into
them from behind than by one who sees them but fails to pass
correctly.

Citation?

But how about you? In a previous post, you pointed out that you were
largely agreeing with me. Remember? You said "If there is any
oncoming traffic, anybody behind me will just have to travel my speed
for a bit, no matter where I ride in a 10-foot lane."

Meaning, it's physically impossible to pass a cyclist within a 10-foot
lane in an 8.5-foot truck, even if the bicyclist decides to "skulk"
next to the curb. It simply doesn't matter where you ride, not a bit,
if there is any oncoming traffic the dude can't pass without running
you down. In reality, the hardcore "skulker" "controls the lane" just
as effectively as the professor riding right down the middle.
[...]

Which planet is this on?

Thought I told you. We call it earth. You should stop by some time.

On Dec 16, 12:55*am, Jay Beattie wrote:

I'm on a YouTube binge. *I love this video because it is narrated by
this officious individual who gets out of the bike lane in
anticipation of all this danger and to be seen -- and kind of wanders
in and out of traffic, totally violating my rule of riding
predictably.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iLdwmt6cRA

He gets practically hysterical when some pedestrian on the bridge
makes a move in his direction. *

It's hard to judge speeds by camera, but I'd have been going pretty
darned slow in that situation: unpredictable pedestrian, carrying
some wide object, high dropoff from the sidewalk to the bridge deck.
Like he said, it's tough to retrofit a bridge.

He needs a flittle time on the
Alpenrose track to get over fear of close quarters.http://www.flickr.com/photos/damianriehl/3739322289/

A cyclist on a velodrome is a hell of a lot more predictable than a
ped on a bridge sidewalk.

(BTW, my daughter's ridden Alpenrose. In some ways, she's gutsier
than I am.)

- Frank Krygowski

On Dec 15, 5:54 pm, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° ""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI
$southslope.net" wrote:

FACT: Even though relatively few American bicyclists "take the lane,"
bicyclists here (even sober, well-lit ones) are far, far more likely
to be killed by a driver who doesn't see them at all and rams into
them from behind than by one who sees them but fails to pass
correctly.

Citation?

See:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...966cb4e12614b8

On Dec 15, 11:33*pm, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° ""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI
$southslope.net" wrote:
On 12/15/2010 11:55 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:
* [...]

He needs a []little time on the
Alpenrose track to get over fear of close quarters.
[...]

Do you know this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rsGhnbmxMI?

Only by name -- but maybe I've had a case with him. After all these
years, one forgets. Ray Thomas is the king of bicycle lawyers in this
state, and I've spent plenty of time working with him, and my clients
have paid him millions and millions of dollars. He's done a lot of
free work for cyclists, like putting on clinics, doing videos, etc.,
so he walks the walk. He also started the noon lawyer rides, which are
filled with ringer non-lawyer Cat 2s, so it is a suffer fest through
the steep hills around downtown. -- Jay Beattie.

On Dec 16, 2:07*am, RobertH wrote:
On Dec 15, 10:16 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Robert, you just said "... I am certain..." with no citations, no
mention of data, no corroboration but your own belief system. *Get
some data and cite it, or don't talk to be about belief systems,
ideology, fantasy or whatever.

Again: What would be needed is good data on hits from directly behind
either in daylight, or at night with properly lit and reflectorized
cyclists. *Also needed would be data that accurately counts fatalities
from people passing too closely who do not hit directly from behind.
If you have those numbers, why not give them?

I said I was certain because it is a mathematical certainty based on
available data, not because of my precious beliefs. I'll explain it to
you:

I already mentioned Cross-Fisher, which broke down car-bike collision
types into 37 different types. Car smashes into rear of bicyclist was
Type 13, and accounted for about 24.6% of all cyclist fatalities, _by
far_ the most common of any fatal accident type. Dangerous passes were
Type 16 and accounted for 1.8% of all cyclist fatalities.

Are you getting this so far? 24.6%. 1.8%

According to Cross-Fisher 71% of Type 13 fatal crashes occurred at
night. A whoppping huge number!

Let us assume that ALL of the deceased cyclists smashed into from
behind at night by motorists who didn't see them were improperly lit.
(Of course this is not true, but let's assume that it is.) In that
case, there would still be 29% of Type 13 crashes remaining which
occurred in broad daylight.

Assuming 100 total cyclist fatalities then, ~25 would be Type 13 and
~2 would be Type 16. And there would still be at least 7 well-lit Type
13 fatalities versus maybe 2 from dangerous passes.

IOW, it's not even close, no matter how you slice it.

Ralph Wessels studied police reports in Washington State from
1988-1993 and broke down car-bike collision types with a system
roughly equivalent to Cross-Fisher's.

Wessels counted 405 Type 13-style collisions in the records, versus 70
Type 16 dangerous pass-caused collisions. He found 10 fatal Type 13
wrecks and 1 fatal dangerous pass. 10-1.

http://www.industrializedcyclist.com...ton_88to93.pdf

You said before that you thought dangerous passes accounted for more
fatalities than drivers' completely failing to notice the bicyclist in
front of them. Clearly, you were very, very wrong about that.

OK, it looks like I was wrong.

Again I'll ask -- in the face of these contrary facts, how will you
change your strongly-held beliefs?

I'll change my belief that sideswipes cause more deaths than direct
hit from behinds.

I'll still keep in mind that (IIRC, and as you indicated) the vast
majority of Cross-Fisher's "hit from behind" fatalities were rural, at
night, on relatively high speed roads. And I'll keep in mind that the
study took place in 1977, when it's likely that almost none of those
cyclists would be properly lit. LED taillights, for example, did not
even exist, although that factor wouldn't affect the daytime crashes.
Oh, and I'll still keep in mind that we'd be talking about at _least_
35 million miles of bicycling, on average, between fatalities of that
type, which means many thousands of years of riding.

But I'm curious how you use that data when you ride. Does it cause
you to ride far off to the right, as advocated by some in this
discussion - that is, where you'd be even _less_ visible to motorists
coming from behind? Because as I recall, you were saying I should
ride even further left than I do, no?

How does it affect your riding, Robert? Where did you say you ride in
a narrow lane?

- Frank Krygowski

On 12/16/2010 12:27 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
[...]
I'll still keep in mind that (IIRC, and as you indicated) the vast
majority of Cross-Fisher's "hit from behind" fatalities were rural, at
night, on relatively high speed roads. And I'll keep in mind that the
study took place in 1977, when it's likely that almost none of those
cyclists would be properly lit. LED taillights, for example, did not
even exist, although that factor wouldn't affect the daytime crashes.
[...]

1970's electrical lights are inferior to acetylene lamps.

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

On Dec 16, 3:19*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

a) I'm the one who is NOT fearful, remember? *Check your notes,
please.

I just checked a search of this groups posts with google, and I didn't
see anywhere where I mentioned that I was fearful. Can you find a
quote from me where I say I'm fearful? It seems to be a word most
often used by you.

site:groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech james fear

JS.

On 12/17/2010 6:14 AM, James wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:19 pm, Frank wrote:

a) I'm the one who is NOT fearful, remember? Check your notes,
please.

I just checked a search of this groups posts with google, and I didn't
see anywhere where I mentioned that I was fearful. Can you find a
quote from me where I say I'm fearful? It seems to be a word most
often used by you.

site:groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech james fear

You should fear ignorance and religious zealotry. Not cycling.

Duane Hébert wrote:
On 12/17/2010 6:14 AM, James wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:19 pm, Frank wrote:

a) I'm the one who is NOT fearful, remember? Check your notes,
please.

I just checked a search of this groups posts with google, and I didn't
see anywhere where I mentioned that I was fearful. Can you find a
quote from me where I say I'm fearful? It seems to be a word most
often used by you.

site:groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech james fear

You should fear ignorance and religious zealotry. Not cycling.

We cyclists dream of beheading the infidel texters but we
don't actually do it.

Yet.

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

On Dec 16, 11:27 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

...
How does it affect your riding, Robert?

It doesn't, at all. But then, after hundreds of thousands of miles and
knowing the experiences of many other bicyclists I already had a good
sense that motorists' looked-but-failed-to-see errors (of which hits-
from-behind are one kind) are far more common and much more of an
issue overall than "dangerous passes."

If I had been operating under the illusion that "dangerous passes"
were a more important problem, however, this information might make me
change my mindset, behavior and/or spiel. How will use this info?


Where did you say you ride in
a narrow lane?

It depends.