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How was your commute today?

3M views 28K replies 753 participants last post by  cyclingdutchman 
#1 ·
Well how was it?

Mine was good... hadn't been able to ride at all for the 10 days leading up to today, so it was a bit harder to get into the groove.

Forgot my battery pack for my big light, so I had to ride the last 5 miles on pothole ridden bikelanes with a little flasher.

Got honked at when I was as far right as I could be without getting doored.

All in all, it was a good commute... I ride alongside two different freeways (on a bike path) and get to see the traffic backed up for miles... People feverishly trying to type out their morning emails on their blackberry or looking ragged from sitting in traffic. Then I break away from the bike path and the traffic, and it all looks like a rat race in my rearview mirror.
 
#7,642 ·
I'm more interested in how visible the rider was, were they pulling some odd maneuver like riding salmon or crossing a street in a random location, or were they bouncing from street to sidewalk unexpectedly?
My province releases stats on all sorts of collisions. In 2010, for 470 collisions involving cyclists this is what they've got:

Improper Actions of Bicyclists
Disobey Traffic Signal 52
Failed to Yield Right of Way - Uncontrolled Intersection 26
Stop Sign Violation 11
Left Turn Across Path 9
Improper Lane Change 7
Yield Sign Violation 6
Left of Centre 5
Ran Off Road 4
Improper Passing 3
Improper Turn 3
Followed Too Closely 3
Failed to Yield Right of Way to Pedestrian 1
Other 62
Total Number of Bicyclists 192
192/470 = 40%, which isn't too bad considering all the drunks and dumb kids out there. Obviously it doesn't capture near-misses, or general poor visibility, and who knows what "Other" means?
 
#7,645 ·
^ yup. The numbers are pretty consistent too - 2009 was 43%, 2008 was 40%, 2007 was 50%, 2006 was 43%...

From the data you can't really draw any conclusions re. visibility, age, socio-economic status, etc. But just from the straight numbers, around here at least as many cyclists are involved in injury/fatality collisions while obeying the law as disobeying. And in 2008 and 2010 50% more were hit while obeying the law.
 
#7,646 ·
Rodar: nah, these days I`m more into clean escapes than undesired evidence recovery. ;)

but it`s a pedestrian high-traffic area for university students, I`m happy if my buzzing his tire made knucklehead learn to look around more often when he drove through there.
 
#7,647 ·

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#7,648 ·
^^ The rest are caused by improper actions of motorists.
duh. gotcha.

thinking about it, I can completely see how visibility can be a contributor to motorist-caused collisions even though the motorist is officially at fault. AFAIK, nowhere requires lights or reflectors on a bicycle during daylight hours. the issue is figuring out why the bicyclist wasn't seen.

was it because the bicyclist was hugging a brushy curb because they were nervous about cars?

was it because the cyclist was decked out in muted colors?

this is why I think investigators should be taking note of ALL safety equipment that cyclists are using when there is a collision.

it might also be worthwhile to attempt to survey the general population to see what people use who are NOT involved in collisions.
 
#7,649 ·
MtbX is on the ball today- I was trying to figure it out, too. "Left of Centre" covers salmon, you think?

RE: releasing the REAL pertinent information surrounding a bike related accident. yeah, that would be much more useful than the obligatory helmet/no helmet line. And if that were all summed up nice and neat for an annual report to be well publicized,...

I think finances do have at least an indirect role in how people ride. People who ride by choice I believe are more likely to at least know what they`re supposed to be doing (whether or not they actually ride that way). People who ride because they have no other options don`t have as much interest in it, so are more likely to not even know, and probably think of themselves as pedestrians. More often than not, those folks are going to be low on funding. Does that sound right?

I leave for a 4 night bike camping trip tomorrow. I need to get a warmer bag or extra liner or something to sleep in.
Ride Report!!!
Hope you manage to kick whatever ails you before you take off.
 
#7,650 ·
rodar y rodar said:
I think finances do have at least an indirect role in how people ride. People who ride by choice I believe are more likely to at least know what they`re supposed to be doing (whether or not they actually ride that way). People who ride because they have no other options don`t have as much interest in it, so are more likely to not even know, and probably think of themselves as pedestrians. More often than not, those folks are going to be low on funding. Does that sound right?
Yeah, I think that is probably what it comes down to. I would go so far as to say that folks who choose to ride as their commute method despite having enough money to drive are more likely to put forth the effort to find out how they are supposed to ride and when they don't ride that way they have made a conscious choice to do so.
 
#7,652 ·
I can completely see how visibility can be a contributor to motorist-caused collisions even though the motorist is officially at fault.
I do everything I can to be visible, but we can't expect most people to dress like construction workers just because they're on a bike. We don't expect it of pedestrians, because that would be pretty ridiculous. We also don't expect all cars to be painted hi-vis yellow, or blame people with black cars who get into collisions.

Occasionally we do mandate things like daytime running lights and the 3rd highlevel brakelight or even streetlamps, and they have a big safety effect for a few years but then that quickly peters out as drivers adjust their behaviour accordingly.

Drivers are various parts lazy, stupid, overconfident, and lazy. For every cyclist dressing in muted colors (which is never going to be a crime), there are probably 100 drivers who are busy finding new ways to distract themselves.
 
#7,654 ·
Drivers are various parts lazy, stupid, overconfident, and lazy. For every cyclist dressing in muted colors (which is never going to be a crime), there are probably 100 drivers who are busy finding new ways to distract themselves.
did you mention lazy twice on purpose? if not, I think it's an appropriate mistake, anyway. I'm not talking about making every possible safety measure a legal requirement. though many already are (and a lot of those are never enforced by police). I am curious about collecting the data to see if there are some interesting trends that suggest aspects of safety that work MUCH better than others, that some may not think all that much about.
 
#7,658 ·
Quick picture from my ride home yesterday. It was unusually calm.

On track so far to ride 5/5 days this week. First time ever. Now that I've said this, watch me get up at 9 tomorrow morning.
I should add to this that I'm making a big push to finally ride 5/5 on the same week as trying to switch my schedule from a relatively sedate wake at 7/work by 10 to wake at 3/work by 5:30.
 
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