Total and per-capital distinction in cycling crash reporting

[danswick]

The difficulty of reporting on issues like net-effect of increased bike mode-share and why we tend to focus on news-byte-able stories such as this, when the reality is so much more nuanced and actually counter to these types of articles. Net safety goes up with increase in modeshare.

Relate this to reporting on environmental issues, etc. Is it human nature to be skeptical of new ideas/new players in the space? Link to Feminine way to ride a bike, Why bikes make Smart People Say Dumb Things, Ride Like a Girl.

[danswick]

Quote from my email response to the New Yorker arcticle:

Jesus christ, what a bunch of overly dramatic bluster. Where's the breathless, terrified article about the many thousands of pedestrians who are killed every year by cars? Give me a break.
The real issue, as in all of these "bicyclists are all scofflaws" articles (and, good God, would the NEW YORKER ever apply such a broad brush to any other group of people lest they be seen as anything other than pure of political conviction?), is that cities aren't responding to the needs of their inhabitants. The response shouldn't be, "this thing is marginally dangerous and unusual to me, it should be controlled." It should be, "clearly there are conflicts between modes of transportation. How can the city design better infrastructure for everyone?"
Yes, some people who ride bicycles aren't careful enough. This is true of literally every group of people in the history of everything. Where the rubber meets the road is how you design around those inevitable assholes. This article makes no such suggestions and just adds to the unproductive non-issue by framing the two groups as enemies. Two groups who, the author fails to note, are sharing what tiny sliver of public open space is available for them to avoid the danger of exercising among automobile traffic.Rich.
If the author were truly worried about the safety of pedestrians, he might have written an article about the terror of sidewalk cracks, which killed 24 people in 2012.

As of last Tuesday in Chicago:
Fatality Tracker: 2014 Chicago pedestrian and bicyclist deaths
Pedestrian: 21 (6 were hit-and-run crashes)
Bicyclist: 6 (1 was a hit-and-run crash)

[danswick]

E's email response:

i think there are multiple issues at play here...

1. we're smack in the middle of a culture shift where biking in urban areas is becoming perceived as a reasonable mode of transportation so there are many, many more people who are biking novices trying it out. inevitably this will lead to a spike in all modes of transportation being affected in SOME way, either positive or negative. in my opinion this increase of bikers is positive for a variety of reasons- using less fossil fuels for driving, increasing opportunities for physical activity, lower carbon emissions and decreasing instances of asthma attacks in kids (this is a WAY bigger deal than the general public realizes)
2. there is a total lack of education for bicycle safety and awareness. this is mostly a result of drivers education courses being completely focused on driving instead of all modes of transportation. especially in urban areas there should be biking and transit use education in these courses. drivers are ill-equipped to handle cyclists on the street as a result of this, and people using transit (especially 14-16 years old taking drivers ed courses) dont get the proper education required for transit use
3. enforcement is an issue in ALL major metro areas when it comes to enforcing bicycle laws. fortunately in chicago this is slowly (SO SLOWLY) becoming less of a problem. officers are slowly becoming not only better trained but also more likely to enforce laws that protect ALL users of the roads. i attribute this to a cultural shift of biking becoming a more prominent mode of transportation.
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY related to this article---- infrastructure is also a major issue, in this case for safety. this piece reminds me of all the issues we've had on the lake shore path. that path is pure insanity most of the time and incredibly dangerous for bikers and pedestrians. fortunately there are plans in the work to make this a safer path for all users. i could go on about this forever. infrastructure is my big thing. if you build it they will come, and when you build it it must be safe and consider all users.

all this to say this is not a simple issue and it's not all one side's fault (bikers vs pedestrians vs drivers).