Having recently moved to Florida from Sweden, I was shocked at how biker/pedestrian hostile it is here. I naively thought I'd be able to live a more active lifestyle because of the nicer weather, but instead I'm driving a car everywhere as I wouldn't feel safe on a bike.<p>It seems to be a pretty vicious cycle of the infrastructure being hostile to biking so nobody does it, nobody is biking so the roads are optimized for driving.<p>I've lived here for little over a year now and I've been _almost_ hit a couple of times while crossing the road at the crosswalk, and a few times at parking lots with drivers not looking back before reversing. I've also seen a dead cyclist in the intersection just outside my apartment complex :(
This article fails to mention one of the biggest factors, which is the increased prevalence of SUVs and Trucks. These oversized vehicles have higher grilles and increased mass. The higher grille means injuries that on a car would have been a leg injury where the pedestrian ends up on the hood are abdominal injuries where the pedestrian can be pushed under the vehicle. The increased mass also means longer stopping distances.<p>Source: <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killing-americas-pedestrians/646139002/" rel="nofollow">https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killi...</a>
I moved from the Netherlands to Canada and still bike to a lot of places. While I of course expected the lack of infrastructure, I did not fully expect the amount of hate I would be getting.<p>People here see you as some idiot who is playing with his toy while `serious` people are driving. They yell at you to get on the sidewalk, get off the road, that you don`t pay `road tax` (wtf), some homophobic shit. Canadians are so nice otherwise, but not on the road.
Weird. This article doesn't mention what (IMHO) is one of the biggest factors impacting pedestrian and cyclist safety: the ability in almost all of the US to turn right at red lights.<p>I live in NYC where this is illegal in the five boroughs. Weirdly I've met more than a few people who live here who didn't know this. You will come across drivers who don't know this too occasionally who'll give you attitude if you walk when you have right of way.<p>I've visited the Bay Area a lot and honestly I'm terrified of being a pedestrian or cyclist there. When a car hits a red light and wants to turn right the driver will naturally just look left for oncoming traffic. In doing so they'll not be able to see pedestrian coming from the right who might need to cross the road there and they seem more oblivious to cyclists coming from the left.<p>Couple that with roads that are typically much wider and you feel like you're taking your life in your hands every time you cross the road. In Palo Alto there's a crosswalk across El Camino where it's 6 lanes (IIRC). Not in a million years could you convince me to use it. You just don't know how drivers are going to react. Will they see you? Will they stop for you? Who knows? It's better to cross where there isn't one so you can predict car movement.<p>I don't know how the US ended up with this turning right at a red light rule. I haven't personally been in another country where this is the case. But I can't think of a more anti-pedestrian and anti-cyclist rule than this.
Interestingly (and obviously anecdotal) I've found the opposite has been happening in Philadelphia. And the main driving (no pun intended) factor, I think, was the introduction of our bike share program (Indego). Drivers were so much more hostile to bicyclists before these were introduced.<p>We now have more dedicated bike lanes, which helps immensely. We've introduced signs and indicators ("sharrows") that indicate to drivers that bicyclists have the right to use the lanes just as much as drivers. It's a noticeable difference from 10 years ago. I can't say for certain these other things would have happened without the introduction of the bike share program, but it seems to be what really changed things here.
I pretty much assume that unless I make eye contact with a driver and get some kind of acknowledgement, I don’t trust that they see me. By far the closest calls I’ve had are stop signs where someone in an SUV stops, doesn’t look right or left (or worse, doesn’t look up from their phone), and then just goes.<p>I also hate “share the road” situations where the right thing to do is take up the whole lane; drivers are almost religiously against this concept. Even if it’s, like, 30 yards. So you’re stuck either taking the dangerous option of treating a rough, basically nonexistent shoulder as a “bike lane”, or dealing with road rage as you occupy the full lane. I can keep up pretty well with traffic, but even so people just get angry.
I noticed they mentioned the speed reduction "Boston, for example, has reduced the city speed limit from 30 miles per hour to 25 mph." Cambridge across the river followed suit soon afterward, but having lived there for decades I can't say I've noticed one iota of difference in the speed cars travel. 25 mph is still ridiculously fast in most of the tight neighborhood streets. Really the speed limit should be reduced even further to 20 mph and even 15 in some areas accompanied by much stricter enforcement. It's not uncommon to see cars hitting 40+ going down some of the straighter roads that emanate out of the major squares.<p>I am a daily all-weather bike commuter and to be honest have not had a problem with cars. I don't really mind the concept of SOVs- we use one ourselves; it's just that they need to be much more tightly controlled at least in these neighborhoods.
I’ve noticed that many new road projects near me haven’t included pedestrian crossings. Or, when included, the pedestrian crossings have been poorly-designed.<p>A view of a map of recent pedestrian deaths [1] seems to confirm this. Many of the deaths seem to be on major roadways that separate two densely populated areas. And, I’ve personally witnessed many more people crossing highways, lately (sometimes, even mothers with small children walking on the shoulder!)<p>Unfortunately, as the authors research shows, many deaths are in low-income areas. I suspect that low-income people aren’t well-represented when these roadways are designed. And, in particular, two new interchanges near me (that also lack pedestrian crossings), were also known to be areas where many (generally low-income) pedestrians cross, but none of those residents were at any of the planning meetings.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.governing.com/gov-data/transportation-infrastructure/pedestrian-traffic-fatalities-accidents-2008-2012-map.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.governing.com/gov-data/transportation-infrastruct...</a>
The safest infrastructure are ones that split pedestrian / bicyclist / motor traffic as much as possible, for obvious reasons. But that infrastructure has fallen out of favor as of late. "Complete streets" are the new fashion trend, and are significantly more dangerous, by combining these forms of traffic altogether and just sort of hoping it all works out.<p>But, "complete" streets are super cheap, and give the illusion of improved infrastructure, so the trend will likely continue for the near future -- further increasing accidents as it does.
heh a couple summer's ago in Dallas i got hit by a police officer while crossing the street. Ironically, while he was on his cell phone. I had to do the whole ninja-roll thing over the hood and on to the pavement. Came out of it with only a sore wrist and a funny story for the conference call i was late to.<p>a buddy of mine grabbed a guy and pulled him out of the way of a city bus. The guy had the light to cross and the bus was making a turn while watching for traffic and not people. My friend saved a life that day.<p>while crossing a fairly busy street, again in Dallas, a girl about 10 feet in front of me got completely leveled by, yet again, a car turning right watching for traffic and not people. She was not ok.<p>Dallas isn't that friendly to pedestrians
I have personally noticed some unintended consequences due to modern auto design. The more steeply sloped windshields for better aerodynamics mean that in most cases a pedestrian can no longer see where the driver is looking. All they see is a reflection of the bright sky. The greater tendency to have smoked windows to the sides and rear just makes things worse.<p>The flatter angle of the front A-pillars also increases the size of the blind spot[1]. A-pillars have to provide rollover protection these days and as a result have to be somewhat wider to produce the required strength.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_blind_spot#Effects_of_A-pillar_angle_on_visibility" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_blind_spot#Effects_of_...</a>
There's a great, if a bit cheesy video from FortNine [1] on why motorcyclists can be basically invisible to even cautious drivers due to the way our brain processes information, and I think the same thing would apply for bicyclists. When I'm on my bike (of either type) I assume nobody sees me and act accordingly.<p>For cyclists and pedestrians to really be safe we need to design our road infrastructure to counteract those issues from the start. I visited Copenhagen a few years ago and biked everywhere, and it was a real eye opener how safe and easy it was compared with my home in Chicago.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94PGgYKHQ0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94PGgYKHQ0</a>
I don't understand why anyone ever though walkways, bikeways and driveways should intersect without strict rights-of-way, or run parallel without actual barriers between them. In low traffic areas, fine, practicality wins, but the 8-lane roads from a decade ago have turned into 8-lanes with motorcycle lanes between them (sometimes only imaginary, but still legally real), bike lanes (sometimes not as the outer-most lane), and mid-street pedestrian crosswalks that have very confusing, seemingly optional, signaling. People sucked at driving under far simpler conditions. They still suck just as bad and new obstacles and distractions keep being introduced. Strict separation is the only sane option.
The best tell of the US bike infrastructure being a joke is that local governments have the audacity to put some paint on a 45MPH road, and call it a bike lane. No separation, no barrier, just cars whizzing by at 45+, next to a cyclist going 15. And the bike lanes sometimes suddenly disappear, making bikers dismount or merge into fast traffic. No, thanks. I'll take the sidewalk that's empty 90% of the time.<p>Even in rare places where signs say "bikes may use full lane", I've been near ran over by cars angrily speeding past me.
Chicago is a super bike friendly city:<p><a href="https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a23676188/best-bike-cities-2018/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a23676188/best-bike-cities...</a><p>Source: I live in Chicago and ride a bicycle when it is nice out.
No (edit: quantitative, you'd think that stipulation would be obvious because we're on HN) mention of increase in popularity of cycling for one's commute (seems to be up year over year in my unscientific observation)? I even skimmed the linked articles and they also seem to only be counting deaths, not deaths per anything. That doesn't tell us anything useful. This entire article is hand-wavy.<p>I'm sure if everyone who currently rides a bicycle to work went out and started commuting via skateboard tomorrow we'd have a heck of a lot more skateboard fatalities.<p>Also worth mentioning that this is an op-ed so it is not subject to normal journalistic standards (however low they may sometimes be).
The Netherlands dealt with this decades ago with a "stop murdering our children" movement. It worked. It should be replicated.<p><a href="https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/20/the-origins-of-hollands-stop-murdering-children-street-safety-movement/" rel="nofollow">https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/20/the-origins-of-hollan...</a>
The article only gives a passing mention to distracted driving but I really think it's what's driving the dramatic increases over the past decade much more so than vehicle design or social attitudes. Around 6 months ago I started driving a truck, offering a much higher vantage, sitting in traffic I'd say > 60% of people are actively on their phones at any given time. It's an epidemic and I'm not sure what the fix is - maybe treating it more like DUIs?<p>The city of Austin just had a bus driver kill a cyclist a few weeks ago who was later found to have been texting and driving <i>a city bus</i>.<p>We know that drivers on phones rely primarily on their peripheral vision to spot other vehicles, but it's very easy for a pedestrian or cyclist to slip through that.
Well, in the US cars _always_ have the right of way (technically, it is illegal, but who cares, drivers think they are entitled to it).<p>So, nobody stops for you at pedestrian crossings, unless you already are walking on it (and you can even feel their frustration), everybody pulls ahead on the pedestrian crossings at intersections, thus making it dangerous for people, who have to slide around. And the turn on right, yes, mentioned here before – same thing, people pull forward too much, plus don't wait for people to cross fully (again, illegal).<p>Looking at all of it, I am curious why can't they put police behind crosswalks and just fine everybody with such behaviour? Drivers will learn their lessons really quickly (everybody understands fines and money), and this should improve situation drastically.
I was the co-captain of my college cycling team. I still find certain open roads in Southern California reasonable, but I find myself more and more concerned about the other traffic on the road. I am a physician in no small part because I got hit by a car while riding my bike, and my surgeon was exceptionally gracious, letting me scrub in on surgeries during my convalescence.*<p>------<p>* Unrelated footnote: This was before HIPAA. I very much wonder if my kids would be afforded the same opportunity today.
Manhattan definitely has this problem. It's a pedestrian city where most people walk and take the subway everywhere. Meanwhile, there's a ton of cars everywhere, mostly Ubers and people driving through to get to New Jersey, that act like the whole island is their personal highway. It's super dangerous, like putting a gun range in the middle of a playground.
I don't care what the law says or what anybody thinks; if there is an empty sidewalk I'm going to bike on it rather than put myself at risk on the road.
I worked at a personal injury law firm in LA and the number of calls we got daily regarding bicycle collisions was disturbing. I knew I would never ride a bike or a motorcycle in LA. It wasn’t a matter of if you got hit but when.
Why the article doesn't mention of distracted and inattentive pedestrians? It might be possible that the sudden increase in deaths is due to the rise of handheld distractions.<p>Also the same could be true of drivers and cyclist using their handheld.
In the Bay Area it's popular for cyclists to bike on narrow, winding, steep roads with no shoulder like Sand Hill Rd. or Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains.<p>Regardless of how you feel about bikes the conditions are inherently unsafe for bikes and cars and there are multiple annual fatalities.<p>I can't think of another form of exercise where a participant puts themselves and non-participants in legal danger.
I recently moved to a city with "excellent" bicycle infrastructure. Contrary to what I might have imagined, this seems to make things more dangerous for all. The extra lanes, markings, lights, and signs increase distraction, making it harder to concentrate on what actually matters--people.<p>In addition, almost no bicyclists actually drive lawfully here. It's typical to see them going the wrong way down streets, blowing stop signs, red lights, and crosswalks. And often when a rather nice bike lane is at hand, they'll choose to ride down the sidewalk instead, endangering pedestrians.<p>I'm not sure what the answer is, but as a pedestrian, I fear bicyclists more than cars.