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Panelists:
Topics Included:
- Berkeley Cyclists’ Hit and Run Caught on Cam (news story) (video)
- Are Rumble Strips Bad for Cyclists?
- Addison Lee Chairman’s Comments About Cyclists
- Sea Otter Wrap-up
- Bike Radar is Coming to the U.S.
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Regarding the hit-and-run and other-driver apathy, two words: Kitty Genovese. More realistically, the other drivers may have been too occupied (with their own texting, with the kids screaming in the back seat, with the GPS, etc.) to stop, or they may have found it unsafe to do so.
A thought for you all re: Mini-Cabs: perhaps the issue is less cyclists than money. The idea of using the bus lanes is to save time over using well-trafficked lanes. The key to this all is, “many of his clients are the elite of the FT100”. They can afford the fines and purportedly “need” to be where they are going faster than the “average” (aka “middle class” or “poor”) person.
RE: taking the lane: many drivers in the US believe that cyclists should NOT take the lane, that they should either take the shoulder or the sidewalk. The other issue is that, by taking the lane, we are blocking them from riding 10mph over the posted speed limit, which is apparently their G-d-given right because they need to get where they are going even faster than that. It’s generally when I take the lane that I get the rudest motorist behavior. That said, I’d say that 90% of all the motorists I’ve encountered are polite and are responsive to my signals. (I also try to let cars pass before I switch lanes, so as not to impede their progress.)
I just came across this website with bike accident stats in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their data shows 52% of bike/car accidents are caused by cyclists.
http://infosthetics.com/archives/2011/06/visualizing_all_bike_accidents_in_the_san_francisco_bay_area.html
Their data shows 52% of bike/car accidents are caused by cyclists.
Cyclist “fault” is almost always inflated. Things may be different in SF, but in DC, when a cyclist is taken away in an ambulance, generally the officer takes the driver’s side story down, and writes up an accident report. Half the time, the responding officer knows as little about the laws pertaining to cyclists as your average driver does. So it’s not surprising the accident stats are skewed.