California a deadly place to ride...

With the California mindset that
everything is ok, just so there is an
apology afterwards. Deputy James
Council, had a DUI, but got off with a
plea deal because he said he was sorry.
Now that he has killed two cyclists,
again he says he's all torn up and
devastated. So they'll let him off again.

Some stats from the SF Chronicle:

According to the CHP statistics, 179 Bay
Area bicyclists have been killed and
25,715 injured in bicycle collisions
with cars between 1997 and 2006.

Santa Clara County was the deadliest
place for Bay Area bicyclists over the
past decade, according to the CHP data,
which is collected from local police and
sheriff's departments. A total of 44
bicyclists were killed during the 10
years. Alameda County had the second
highest total of fatal bicycle
collisions with 29

Santa Clara County also had the most
bicycle injuries - 6,888. Alameda County
followed with 5,803, and San Francisco
was third with 3,165.
--
Text messaging, and cell phone use is
excessive also in California, with
non-existent laws that make killing
cyclists a sport. Wild horses couldn't
drag me to ride in California.

On Mar 12, 6:24 am, Crescentius Vespasianus
wrote:
With the California mindset that
everything is ok, just so there is an
apology afterwards. Deputy James
Council, had a DUI, but got off with a
plea deal because he said he was sorry.
Now that he has killed two cyclists,
again he says he's all torn up and
devastated. So they'll let him off again.

Some stats from the SF Chronicle:

According to the CHP statistics, 179 Bay
Area bicyclists have been killed and
25,715 injured in bicycle collisions
with cars between 1997 and 2006.

Santa Clara County was the deadliest
place for Bay Area bicyclists over the
past decade, according to the CHP data,
which is collected from local police and
sheriff's departments. A total of 44
bicyclists were killed during the 10
years. Alameda County had the second
highest total of fatal bicycle
collisions with 29

Santa Clara County also had the most
bicycle injuries - 6,888. Alameda County
followed with 5,803, and San Francisco
was third with 3,165.
--
Text messaging, and cell phone use is
excessive also in California, with
non-existent laws that make killing
cyclists a sport. Wild horses couldn't
drag me to ride in California.

These statistics are meaningless without some sense of context and I
can't see where they support the subject header. Your subject header
may or may not be accurate or true, but is certainly successful at
being inflammatory!

Cresentius Vespacianus attempts to support a sweeping statement about
California mentality with statistics that may not be comparable to anything.
When you quote accident rates or death rates, it's per what? Acre?
Passenger mile? Car miles driven? Bicycle miles ridden? Road mile?
Places with high population and traffic density are bound to have more
accidents.

I agree with Camilo.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:56:08 -0700, Camilo wrote:

Some stats from the SF Chronicle:

According to the CHP statistics, 179 Bay Area bicyclists have been
killed and
25,715 injured in bicycle collisions
with cars between 1997 and 2006.

Santa Clara County was the deadliest
place for Bay Area bicyclists over the past decade, according to the
CHP data, which is collected from local police and sheriff's
departments. A total of 44
bicyclists were killed during the 10
years. Alameda County had the second
highest total of fatal bicycle
collisions with 29

Santa Clara County also had the most
bicycle injuries - 6,888. Alameda County followed with 5,803, and San
Francisco was third with 3,165.
--
Text messaging, and cell phone use is excessive also in California,
with non-existent laws that make killing cyclists a sport. Wild horses
couldn't drag me to ride in California.

These statistics are meaningless without some sense of context and I
can't see where they support the subject header. Your subject header
may or may not be accurate or true, but is certainly successful at being
inflammatory!

I agree. Per capita bike accident rates are almost meaningless because
they don't take into account how many people are riding bikes. More
people ride bikes in CA than in most states, and probably more in Santa
Clara County than most other CA counties.

According to the best statistics we have, the highest bike accident rates
*per the number of cyclists* are in states with the highest accident rates
for all road users. It's not a direct correlation but it's pretty close.
Believe it or not, CA has some of the lowest accident rates in the US, per
vehicle miles traveled. (IIRC it's #2, behind VA.) I would expect bike
accident rates in CA to be similar.

Recently a very well-known, oft-quoted, high profile bike advocate
admitted to me that he presented bike accident rates in the most dramatic
light, his goal usually being to promote off-road bike trails and other
segregated facilities. I'm not against these, but in the long run I don't
think this approach is wise. Truth and light, always.

Matt O.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:38:08 GMT, "Leo Lichtman"
wrote:

Cresentius Vespacianus attempts to support a sweeping statement about
California mentality with statistics that may not be comparable to anything.
When you quote accident rates or death rates, it's per what? Acre?
Passenger mile? Car miles driven? Bicycle miles ridden? Road mile?
Places with high population and traffic density are bound to have more
accidents.

I agree with Camilo.

Dear Leo,

You can find US county fatalies for 2002 through 2006. Here's Santa
Clara county, California:


http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...ounty_2006.HTM

At the bottom of such yearly stat pages, the county is compared to
other California counties:

fatal ranked
per within
100k state total all
pop. 1=worst deaths ranked California
2002 0.30 19th 5 8 116
2003 0.06 29th 1 25 106
2004 0.36 15th 6 7 110
2005 0.23 23rd 4 9 115
2006 0.12 29th 2 16 141

The reason for the wide swings in the death rate per 100,000
population is that there are scarcely any pedalcyclist deaths in a
large county population. Basically it's one or two per month.

For the much larger population of California in the final column, the
swings smooth out quite a bit.

You can get a nicely colored pair of California county maps (or any
other state) showing the relative rankings for a year between 2002 and
2006 by going he


http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm.../6_CA_2006.htm

And paging down to the pair of pedalcyclist maps near the bottom.

Here are the 2006 maps themselves:


http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...006/fatal9.gif

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...2006/rate9.gif

The white areas show whole counties where no bicyclists were killed in
2006.

Clicking on the maps in the original page (sorry, the direct links
above won't do it) produces the underlying data:

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...ata_2006_9.PDF

Again, a single death on the county level can lead to silly
statistics. If no one is killed in a small county, it looks incredibly
safe, but if a single bicyclist is killed in one year out of five, it
looks incredibly bad compared to other counties with much larger
populations.

In the data table above, for example, Alameda county had 4 bicyclists
killed in 2006 for a 0.27/100k death rate. The single bicyclist killed
the same year in Amador county raised its death rate to 2.57/100k,
almost ten times as high.

Here's the 2006 Colorado map:


http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...006/fatal9.gif

There are only about 10 bicycle fatalities per year in Colorado,
spread out over 63 counties, so the county-by-county map is a bit
silly. The cold weather, mountains, and long distances in thinly
populated areas discourage bicycling, so a typical Colorado county's
statistics look like Pueblo, population ~130,000:

fatal ranked
per within
100k state total all
pop. 1=worst deaths ranked Colorado
2002 0.00 who 0 who 9
2003 0.00 cares? 0 cares? 3
2004 0.00 x 0 x 11
2005 0.00 x 0 x 8
2006 0.00 x 0 x 10

You'd think that a dangerous county like Boulder would be the most
highly ranked county for pedalcyclist fatality rates per 100k
population, since the students at CU routinely risk their lives using
bicycles for transport, but Boulder will never achieve #1 ranking
because every year some no-name Colorado county with fewer
inhabitants than the freshman class at CU suffers a bicycle fatality
that catapults it to a frightening level of fatalities per 100k
population:


http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departm...2006/rate9.gif

The four red counties are where a single pedalcyclist was killed in
2006, eclipsing tan Boulder county.

That's why it's necessary to look at the largest possible data set,
not at what makes exciting headlines.

When you're counting anything as rare as fatal bicycle accidents per
year at the county level, a single death can double the rate or turn
an unknown county into an apparent death trap.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:05:12 -0700, Colin Campbell
wrote:

Crescentius Vespasianus wrote:
Wild horses
couldn't drag me to ride in California.

Maybe the stats reflect the year-round climate that allows bicycling,
the large number of cyclists, and the overall large population.

There is no doubt that bicycling is less safe than some other
activities, but we all have to make our choices and take our chances.

Omitting the cases where a motor vehicle leaves its proper lane and a
bicyclist is hit, a good many of the fatalities I read about seem to be
a case of natural selection - riders on fast, busy streets at night
(when the drunks are out, and speeds sometimes exceed the limit by 20 -
30 mph) and the like. Rider attention and decision making play a part
in what the stats say.

Dear Colin,

A surprising number of injured and dead bicyclists are drunk:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press...ARY/010220.HTM

Chee--

er, Best Wishes,

Carl Fogel

On Mar 12, 5:20*pm, wrote:
On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:05:12 -0700, Colin Campbell





wrote:
Crescentius Vespasianus wrote:
Wild horses
couldn't drag me to ride in California.

Maybe the stats reflect the year-round climate that allows bicycling,
the large number of cyclists, and the overall large population.

There is no doubt that bicycling is less safe than some other
activities, but we all have to make our choices and take our chances.

Omitting the cases where a motor vehicle leaves its proper lane and a
bicyclist is hit, a good many of the fatalities I read about seem to be
a case of natural selection - riders on fast, busy streets at night
(when the drunks are out, and speeds sometimes exceed the limit by 20 -
30 mph) and the like. *Rider attention and decision making play a part
in what the stats say.

Dear Colin,

A surprising number of injured and dead bicyclists are drunk:
*http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press...ARY/010220.HTM

Chee--

er, Best Wishes,

Carl Fogel- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

California do do-do do pulease allow me...

Ima going in October? Repeat. Drove the coast highway in muh 544.
Got the tour books via ILL as per Pier Santamorella in Blubberville.
Gopt one here at the laptop: MOUNTAINBIKING THE EATERN SIERRAS BEST
100 TRAILS.

Now I gotta find: SAFE PARKING IN THE EASTERN SIERRAS

See Sutherland's POD people movie? That's it. Creepy.

Meet people and they drop on the ground to roll around on dog ****.

Whaddya gonna say about people fall on the ground to roll in dog ****?

Itsalike Miamuh only longer.

Florida, lowest in intelligence and highest in crime stats, lowest in
all functinal categories like crossing the street or raising children
is blessed with wiiiiiideeee shoulders for hurricane escape routes and
an attraction for the retired to tool around on with their 3 speeds.

I met a geezer on a J&B recumbent this week rolling to to the
superduper for groceries. I hassled him for being so cheap. He was all
smiles.

But the Golden State? bad roads bad bad bad.

riding in Fla is ok unless you get run over.

read Ranger Noire?

Ima getting aluminum plate for all muh van's windows, inside screens,
under carraige fences and parking in front of the Sheriff HQ.

and never going out at night. also i walk and drive around heavily
armed with a rep for using the stuff without much provocation. Maybe
I'll get a license for muh BB gun.

I hope Fogel figured out whta those stats mean: wierd stats wierd.

worse is the place is hard to drive around like Mississississippi or
Texas, low life in Texas....

many of you are really wierd and dangerous

datakoll aka gene daniels wrote:
many of you are really wierd and dangerous

Hey, I resemble that remark!

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

On Mar 12, 7:24*am, Crescentius Vespasianus
wrote:
With the California mindset that
everything is ok, just so there is an
apology afterwards. *Deputy James
Council, had a DUI, but got off with a
plea deal because he said he was sorry.
* Now that he has killed two cyclists,
again he says he's all torn up and
devastated. *So they'll let him off again.

One big problem is cities that decide to not have a police force, and
instead contract out law enforcement to the county sheriff, as is the
case in Cupertino, and the neighboring city of Saratoga. An
experienced, professional, police department would not have allowed
this person to become a police officer.

I wanted to speak about this at the Cupertino city council meeting
following the tragedy, but I am in Taiwan at the Taipei Cycle show, so
I plan to speak about it next time. There was one candidate for city
council that recognized the problem, and he was subjected to a vicious
campaign attack by the elected sheriff. The council just doesn't want
to hear about a problem that would cost them significant bucks to
solve.