What is an Expert?

Often in the cycling world, we have the testimony of “experts.”

Overall, this sounds like a good idea

We need to have people who really know what they are talking about before we make decisions on riding style and infrastructure.

Right?

I’d argue that, “no”, we don’t need an expert at all. What we need is good data to decide what’s best practice.

But won’t an expert give us the best data?

I’m not sure. Maybe. I’m not against educated people looking objectively at data. However, I am a little suspicious when I can clearly see things being true, in professional data, and I am told the opposite is true, and that I’m too stupid to even read some simple statistics.

If we are to decide whether we need experts or not, we should first decide what makes an expert cyclist advocate?

Let’s first look at what does NOT make an expert.

An expert is not someone who is merely old. It is ageist (sic) to say that a younger person needs to “respect his elders” with regard to the facts.

In fact, the facts are open to all of us to look at and are not the monopoly of a single generation especially ones that keep telling us how awesome they are. (I’m looking at you, Greatest).

An expert is not someone who repeats himself–yes, himself, there are few older women who try to lord their non-existant expertise over others–over and over again.

So what is an expert?

I have worked for a number of them over the years, and in general, but not always, are bad speakers. But not all bad speakers are real experts, of course.

Experts give data to back up their claims. If they don’t have data, they will say “I don’t know”. Experts are well read in their topic, and they are constantly learning new data.

Experts don’t assume that the past will be like the future, but they are constantly looking for new findings.

Experts are generally unsure of themselves and will lose a public “debate” with someone who knows nothing on the topic, but is able to give a false sense of confidence.

Experts are humble and are more interested in learning the right thing rather than being right in a moment.

Experts often change their minds and are not afraid to admit it.

The more the expert knows about a topic, the less dogmatic and less certain they will be on anything because they will realize that there are always exceptions. Still, an expert will not get distracted by exceptions, but rather will be able to give the facts which are relevant in most cases.

When an expert evaluates something, such as a road for safety, they will be able to give, ahead of time, the criteria that they are looking for. Experts can train other experts and are happy to do so. But an expert will urge others to go and read on their own as well.

One of the biggest problems that experts have is confirmation bias (read _You Are Not So Smart, book). This infects everything we learn because we have said things in the past, and we like to seem smart. Thus, when contradictory data comes along, we’ll mentally fight it.

The way around this is the corny, but true saying, “Zen mind, beginners’s mind” which means we try to keep everything fresh by forgetting what we know to learn more. Another way of putting this is “empty your cup” which means that we need to have an open mind when learning, always.

Thus, if someone is truly an expert, you will know that they are right through the clear presentation of data rather than the insistence that you are too stupid to understand anything and thus should take their word for it.

Door Zone Face Off!!

Below is an interesting discussion I had with John. We went back and forth for a while.

Originally, I was upset about his door zone webpage.

I do agree that bike lanes should not be in door zones even though it’s “within code” in the highway manual. This is why the highway code is not always the best place for bikway design, and we need to use things that work elsewhere.

Initially, I thought that the door zone page had useful info, but then I realized that like other door zone pages, it was merely a thinly disguised anti-bike lane page.

I looked at the data and presented it to Mr. John. He got angrier and angrier.

At first, he repeated stale notions like the idea that most rear end collisions occur in rural areas, which is not true as most bike collisions are urban and many of the studies do not even list rural collisions.

The results are very consistent in showing how there are some major injuries and a few deaths in the door zone there are worse kinds of injuries.

The more data I gave, the more personal John got. I noticed that this was a pattern.

If the data is bad then we get personal. Then we argue from authority.

Yes, I love being insulted in arguments because it makes me feel as if I’m getting somewhere. 🙂

But then again, I’m not a bik exprt (sic), but I do know how to spell expert. 🙂

Below is the transcript:

We both want to make riding safer by better informing cyclists.

I have no interest in angering you, and no interest in debating you.

We are too intelligent, and reasonable people with the same information in front of us.

I feel that you should tell cyclists ALL the information that they need to make a smart decision.

I was merely asking for more data because I thought that your webpage was misleading by telling cyclists to ride in places where they are more likely to die.

I avoid the door zone as much as possible, but I also like to stay out of the travel lane especially when cars are moving faster than 30 MPH because we both know that’s the speed where collisions become deadly and that’s the speed where overtaking by motorists is more necessary.

In San Diego, most roads are very fast. Fortunately, more of them are getting bike lanes which force motorists to pass with greater
distance. Bike lanes also allow me to ride further away from the door zone.

Can you please just look at the data in a new way rather thanimmediately trying to make up some kind of excuse on why this is unimportant.

I can show you places where you distort the data.

I looked at your quote:

>>http://www.bikexprt.com/massfacil/cambridge/doorzone/laird1.htm

“Ms. Laird could have understood that the relative risk of riding in the “door zone” from “dooring” collisions and other crashes is many times higher than the risk of being struck by overtaking vehicles when riding outside the “door zone.” She might then have ridden at the very left edge of the marked bike lane, or outside the lane. ”

I found dooring to be 0.44% in New York and Orlando, 0%, both of which are not rural. NYC is WELL LIT as well.

Toronto has a 0.4% of deaths in 2003 from dooring while there are 4x as many deaths from being rear ended.

Also, there are no more COLLISIONS in Toronto from dooring than being rear ended.

In every study, I listed below there are at least 4x more overtaking deaths than door zone deaths including the original Cross study.

In his study, dooring was a mere 0.6% fatal vs. 24% by being rear ended.

Even with the statistical games that John Forester plays, which discounts situations where I find myself all the time, it’s 5% of
deaths are by rear ending which is 8x as high for being rear ended.

I’m just saying that whenever you give risk of the door zone, you need to give fatalities as well as the number of fatalities in other areas such as the travel lane. Otherwise, the data is misleading.

>And that some places are different from others — but on the other hand, most streets with parallel parking do not have high speed >limits.

Which would suggest that they are safer.

However, I ride on a road, daily, where there is parallel parking and people ride > 50 MPH. Should I take the lane and increase my risk of death by 4x?

> The fact that something is illegal doesn’t keep it from happening, now does it? Doesn’t keep either of these kinds of crashes from happening.

Nor does it prevent the 4x (or much more) chance of being rear ended.

>> No, actually, rear-ending often happens to cyclists riding at night without lights.

So rear ending never happens during the day?

Actually, during the day, collisions with motor vehicles, in urban areas, is still more deadly than being hit by a door.

>Diving into a pool where you can’t tell if it’s deep enough is legal too.

Why are you talking of swimming pools.

John, you are intelligent person. Please stay on topic.

> Yes, getting rear-ended on rural roads is a major cause of fatalities. It is  not the major cause of fatalities in urban areas. Read this:

Getting rear ended during the day, indeed, is more common for  fatalities in urban areas than being doored.

Even the crusty Cross study from the 1970’s show rearending is 3x higher than other one.

> That’s because the Cross study only accounts for how many crashes occurred.  It makes no account of whether there are parked

> cars. Studies in urban areas show several times the rate of doorings. Then there are all the other types of crashes that happen by

>riding too close to parked cars. You didn’t read my examination.
No, the Toronto study that you linked to showed no more rear ending COLLISIONS than doorings.

Still, I argue that using  collision data is misleading. This is a common tactic used to distort data and to make things look more dangerous than it is. For example, when a study shows that cycle tracks have more collisions this is said to show that they are unsafe even when they save lives.

This data is not put under the same microscope that other data is put under, but merely accepted due to confirmation bias.

When people talk about risk, they want to know if they will die or be seriously injured. Why do you use the word “risk” in a non-standard way?

> Again, because he made no study of whether the streets had parallel parking or not, greatly diluting the results. Read my material > bout Santa Barbara, Gainesville, Austin, Boston, Toronto.

I’m arguing that you are misleading people and you should include travel lane deaths from the papers you show as well as more recent evidence from urban areas such as New York. I did much of this work for you by giving you three new papers.

You did not read the papers, but merely referred me to your biased view of doorings based on misreadings of papers.

I am trying to correct you on this. I have no idea why you are wasting time arguing rather than looking at the data.
I’d like you to put this up on your site.

Don’t say that it happened on rural roads at night.

>Now you’re getting me angry. Don’t you tell me what to say, thank you very much. I have a right to my opinions, and you don’t

> have a right to order me around.

But this is a matter of data and not opinion, right?

We have to go with the data no matter whether we like it or not.

Or are you suggesting that riding style is a “matter of opinion”?

I did and I was told there was “scientific evidence” of a riding style. I looked at the evidence, and it was the opposite of what was claimed. I’m seeing a pattern here.

2. Rural roads are not rural, this means that the cyclists has no bike
lane nor shoulder. By riding vehicularly, you are converting an urban
road into a rural one.

> Rural roads are not rural? Yeah, and the Pope isn’t Catholic.

You are familiar with Cross’s definition of rural roads which are high  speed and with no shoulder, right?

To say “rural” road like you did is misleading because you don’t clarify that many of these roads are in cities. I ride on one
everyday.

> You are becoming a troll now.

Why are you becoming angry when I am giving you good information?

What do you mean by troll, a well informed person?

> There is no “only reason” for any type of crash. The major reason is that traffic is slow. People are compelled to
> ride in the line by many things, even if they don’t want to.

This is true, but you seem to imply that merely riding in the door zone, a single cause, creates accidents. This is untrue. Other causes MOST door zone deaths are one motorist acting unlawfully and high speed traffic. Cyclists can not control for these things.

Riding in the lane to “prevent a door zone accident” opens a cyclist up to other dangers which is why better infrastructure is needed.

I am working to eliminate these kinds of risks as well as the notion that people have to wear stupid, bright colors and to have big
flashing lights. There are people who are rear ended here, in San Diego, and they have all the lights.

> You have cited a lot of numbers without saying where they are from or what  the amount of mileage was on any of these, or what > kind of streets.

I gave you links to all my data.

> Nonsense to make this comparison because there are many kinds of crashes
> between intersections, and not only the overtaking crash. And because 75% or
> more of bicycle crashes don’t involve a car at all.

Most deaths do.

The link you gave me above was talking about how to prevent DEATH.

This is another statistical trick. To compare door zone collision rate with the death rate for rear ending which is divided by some arbitrarily large number like total cyclist collisions.

We must compare apples to apples and door zone deaths are so low in many areas to be non-existant. Why make such a scary page about something that doesn’t even exist in some places?

I smell a hidden agenda.

My argument is that riding vehicularly will increase risk of death or serious injury.

I posted tons of evidence to support this.

I am starting to feel that you are attached to certain ideas and everything is getting distorted around it.

In fact, being rear ended is the most deadly of all collisions in every study I have seen including the ones you presented.

> But it is very rare.

If by rare, you mean to say that “while rare, there are 4x as many travel lane deaths as door zone deaths.”

Another way to say it is that travel lane deaths are rare, but door zone deaths are 4x as rare.

In fact, door zone deaths are so rare as to not even worry about. I don’t even worry about riding in the door zone for this reason.

I agree that cycling is relatively safe, though several times more dangerous than driving a car and to many more complicated.

Since it is so safe, the travel lane is mostly safe, the door zone is much safer, why are we concerned about the door zone at all?

Why not make a page urging for better infrastructure so more people can ride?

Buffered Bike Lane

I am writing this to answer many of the objections to buffered bike lanes.

Most of these objections are going to seem silly and stupid. That’s because they are both.

These objections are not real objections based upon a person trying to make the world a better place, but rather they are only being asked as a last ditch attempt to toss up smoke to prevent infrastructure.

I spoke of this before, this is due to the religious belief that cycling infrastructure is inherently bad.

Since this is an absurd view, to be more politically savvy, the questions are raised as concerns in the usual soft and dishonest manner we have seen before.

Q: What is it?

A: It’s a bike lane with an additional buffer for safety. This buffer is generally a hash mark or a chevron.

Q: Won’t this make intersections more dangerous? Won’t motorists be confused?

A: No it won’t.

PBOT turns tide in East Portland: New bikeway leads to big safety benefits

While it’s difficult to find crash data on buffered bike lanes only, they tend not significantly increase injuries. If they did kill a lot of people or confused motorists to the point where there was a problem, they would have been removed.

Q: Won’t this make traffic flow faster as cyclists slow down traffic?

A: In most cases small changes like this do not cause a change in traffic volume or number of cars that get through a given area. They do reduce motorists speeds, however. This makes things safer for pedestrians, motorists, and cyclists.

In fact, most buffered bike lanes are not put into place for cyclists, but due to their secondary traffic calming which benefits the entire community and takes nothing away from the motorists.

Q: Won’t this take up valuable parking space which will hurt local business?

A: No. There has never been a business became bankrupt because public parking spaces were removed. A business that depends on their usage, for free, of public resources like parking are always going to be vulnerable to changes in the political climate.

However, businesses in bike friendly areas tend to do as well if not better than businesses with more dead space wasted on storage of private vehicles on public land.

Q: Won’t this take away my “right to take the lane”?

I honestly don’t know.

Most people do not want to ride in traffic because they, correctly, see the danger in it.

There is no legal “right for cyclists to ride on all roads” as they are banned from the freeways.

The main reasons one would want to ride in the road is because:

1. There’s not alternative.

With a buffered bike lane this is no longer valid.

2. It’s seen as “safe”.

With a buffered bike lane this is no longer valid.

3. It’s faster.

This may be so, but if we let motorists speed they’d go faster, too. This is obviously not allowed for safety reasons.

4. It’s a “right”.

A right to do something that is annoying, dangerous, selfish, and stupid actually is not a right.

On the other hand, everyone has the right to a choice of a safe, efficient, and comfortable transporation mode and a buffered bike lane facilitates this.

Q: Buffered bike lanes are experimental. It’s foolish to advocate for something that we have not seen.

A: Promoting the benefits of something based upon engineer’s expert opinions is not foolish. Ignoring the data for success in other places is foolish.

Furthermore, there have been several bike lanes with buffers next to them, and there were no problems with them at all. I don’t think that anyone died in any of them. On the other hand, there are many roads where people do die, and there’s little outcry from the same camp to better engineer these roads.

Q: Is the city open to liability if they build a buffered bike lane?

A: I don’t know; as a non-lawyer, I don’t give legal advice.

But there’s no reason to suspect that their liability would be magically higher for this. In fact, the law states that the final decision on design is made by the designer, the engineer.

At any rate, the city has lawyers who will make sure that liability is not a problem.

Q:Will a buffered bike lane be too expensive?

A: No it won’t. This is the least expensive way to get people cycling. With all the benefits it offers regarding more cyclists, safety, better health, quieter streets and more, the buffered bike lane will pay for itself.

Q: Because a cyclist is a vehicle, won’t a cyclist be imprisoned behind a buffered bike lane, unable to move, for ever due to the fact that vehicles can’t cross double lines?

A: No. This is a long, long discussion as there are many parts of the law to consider.

However, on the buffered bike lane on Park Ave just below University St, in San Diego, there was never a question of cyclists being trapped. They rode to where they needed to. Also, motorists were also able to navigate perfectly well. There were no tickets wrongly issued either.

I Can Google Now! (Screed)

Hey! Regular readers, no need to read this. You are intelligent enough to know all of what I’m going to say.

This post is aimed at the stupid people who whine about me, and others about our “failure to cite data.”

In debates with people (VC/Quislings, I’m looking at you) continue to claim that I (and my friends) fail to cite data.

That’s really, really funny. Here’s why.

There’s this invention called the internet that doesn’t have everything, but it does have a lot of really, really good data including the most up to date scholarly papers, many of which are available for FREE!

Wait! There’s more.

There’s this other awesome invention called google.com. This is a URL, uniform resource locator. You type it into that bar thingie at the top of the program known as a “web browser” such as IE (for those still reading) or chrome, opera, lynx, or firefox (for those who have rolled their eyes and stopped reading long ago.)

Here’s the skinny. You go to google.com and type in your question. You will get THOUSANDS of hits.

Most lazy people, like me, will only read the first few.

Read ’em!

???

Now profit! 🙂

There’s your data!

You’ll notice that many of my pronouncements that I make match up with the data found on google!

Isn’t that nuts?

Sometimes we don’t agree. That’s because real world experiments are messy. Things differ,in cycling, from place to place and time to time. (Which is, incidentally, why you need to update your cycling safety classes). 🙂

Oh, and that other stuff which can not be proven by experiments? That, my friend, is called an opinion. Again, yours and mine may differ.

That’s OK. But since it’s my blog; it’s my house. 🙂

More On Orlando

First of all, I was mistaken about the combination of sidewalk riding and bike lane deaths. Actually bike lanes accounted for 5% of deaths while the travel lane was 40%.

Additionally, I  clarified dooring data because I was still astounded that nobody had been doored to death in Orlando in the period specified.

Here’s the response from MetroPlan Orlando:

“Dooring is a relatively rare event in metro Orlando, as there are relatively few commercial arterials and collectors with parallel, on-street parking.  Most of our area developed during the 70s, 80s and 90s when on-street parking was not considered to be a normal (let alone desirable) street function.  I can only think of three doorings (that I’ve been made aware of) in my 27 years here.  One in which I witnessed the aftermath (cyclist on the pavement, with fortunately minor injuries).  Another reported to me by the victim (who did not report it to the police) that took place in a door-zone bike lane (also minor injuries).  The third involved a passenger-side door opening into that same door-zone bike lane (which was reported to the police).”

North Carolina Crash Data

Click to access summary_bike_types05-09.pdf

This data set is much more similar to NYC than Orlando’s data.

It has none of the Hindsight Man style of speculating how a cyclist could have avoided an accident had he been a cycling super hero. I say “he” because the vast majority of cyclist deaths are men. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I’d like to learn and emulate them all. 🙂

Also, it answers more questions I had regarding cycling style, risk, and the effect of infrastructure which Orlando tried to conceal by combining illegal sidewalk riding with legal bike lane riding.

My first question is always, the risk of the dreaded door zone.

I found this to be 0.2% of all fatalities which is similar to both NYC (044%) and Orlando (0%).

The biggest surprise in this meta-analysis is that NYC was not bigger. I’d expect areas with less of a grid, and less parallel parking to have much lower dooring rates, but it’s all about the same in the biggest city to the more rural areas: negligible.

Next surprise, or not, the biggest fatal risk to a cyclist is for those who are “taking the lane”.  In fact travel lane collisions made up 62% of all collisions while bike lanes and shoulders COMBINED only gave us 5% of collisions. Even the deadly sidewalk riders were a third less likely or rather 14% of all collisions were for sidewalk riders.

Thus to say “don’t ride on the sidewalk, it’s really dangerous” is not universally true. In fact, if someone starts acting as if they have some magic “skills” to make one safe, look into the data that they have to back this up and search for your own data as well.

It seems that bike lanes have saved many lives as cyclist were 12x more likely to die while riding “vehicularly” (sic) than in a bike lane or shoulder or any other way of getting out of the way of motor vehicles.

In summary of NC data, VC riding or taking the lane is more dangerous than riding on the bike lane, dedicated bike path, driveway, alley, and sidewalk, and non-roadway
COMBINED.

Also, the dreaded intersection accounted for 44% of all crashes while non-intersection were 49%. Thus to say that “the intersection is the most dangerous part of the road, the travel lane is safe” is wrong. It’s slightly more common to have a collision when one is NOT in the intersection. If a cyclist is not on the road, this will elimate the vast majority of these collisions as other data has proven.

Hmm. I imagine I’ll see a lot of Quislings who want to spin this data to blame the cyclist for not their religious dress code (neon) nor having flashing lights and otherwise making a spectacle of himself. Despite all this many of the deaths of NC cyclists were by those who were riding “legally” and “correctly”.

From this data, I have found that taking the lane is dangerous. Riding on a bike path is safe even if it is the door zone.

I feel that “bicycle safety classes” ought to take off their very religious blinders and study the data a lot harder.

Looking for things that cyclists did obviously wrong is a good way to learn to ride safer. However, it is a shitty thing to use this information to bias urban design to be even more dangerous (aka more deadly VC roads) than it all ready is.

Effectiveness and Selection of Treatments for Cyclists at Signalised Intersections

I found a GREAT paper on this topic (of the same name).

https://www.onlinepublications.austroads.com.au/items/AP-R380-11

Clearly, we need much, much more data on this topic before we can say anything definitive. However, this is an excellent start.

In fact this paper is so loaded with gems, it does set off my “confirmation bias” alarms which never allow me to enjoy anything too much. 🙂

Thus, if any of the big John-Johns (you know who you are you old legends) or the various Jims or Bobs of the world want to shred this paper using their superior microscope skills, be my guest.

I haven’t really clarified the rules of commenting, but one of them states that you only get ONE comment to get things right. I won’t go back and forth with people. Also, this should stop the silly ad hoc argument style that is so common in the “community”.

I’m going to put down some gems from the paper, but you should really read the original.

Note, all quotes have some from the above paper unless listed otherwise.

I. UNDER REPORTING:

This is the first paper which has addressed this issue. The rate of under reporting ranged from 71-78%,

With less than a 10% range, this data was pretty tight. I’d like to see some data from the United States. This is obviously hard to do. However, we could set up a toll free number for anonymous reporting of collisions. Better yet would be an online form.

II. INTERSECTION COLLISIONS:

Ah, intersections. These are the anti-facilities proponent’s dream as they LOVE to repeat the old saw on how facilities greatly increase the number of collisions at intersections.

“At intersections, Hunter et al. reported that 93 percent of the intersection conflicts were coded as minor, and THERE WERE NO DIFFERENCES BY FACILITY TYPE.” [Emphasis mine and all mine.]

But what about the extra wide lane? These are used primarily by anti-infrastructure proponents due to the fact that they do give cyclists extra passing space but do not break the illision that a bicycle is exactly the same as a motor vehicle:

“Motor vehicle actions more associated with wide kerbside lane conflicts included turning right (left in the Australian/ New Zealand context) in front of a cyclist after passing, and “other” actions such as failing to give way, improperly turning right and not allowing cyclists enough room.”

Hmm, I thought that separation of cycles and cars, only, caused this problem.

“The addition of an advanced limit line for cyclists is expected to result in a 27% reduction in cyclist crashes…”

So a small change in infrastructure can greatly reduce crashes. Who knew?

“A before and after study by Herrstedt et al. (1994) carried out a study on the layout of cycle lanes, on the approaches to intersections. Following the construction of the cycle lanes, cycle crashes
declined by 35% at intersections.”

Again, I thought that bike lanes increases intersection collisions…

What else can be done to make intersections safer?

“An OECD report (1998) reported that the Danish Road Administration (1994a) had carried out a study at four signalised intersections, where the stop lines for motorists were recessed by five
metres…Prior to implementation, between 12% and 24% of drivers turned right straight in front of a cyclist. After implementation only 3% to 6% did.”

Fascinating. So infrastructure, all by itself, can actually educate motorists!

“Elvik and Vaa (2004) found that adding cycle lanes through a signalised intersection reduce cycle crashes by 12% but increases overall crashes by 14%.”

III. SEPARATED INFRASTRUCTURE (BIKE LANES AND FRIENDS):

“The construction of cycle lanes was demonstrated in the before and after study to reduce cycle crash rates by 10%.”

Enough said. I’m just going to not so silently gloat on this one.

CYCLE LANES…REDUCED CYCLE CRASHES. Haha.

“In New Zealand, most on-roadway cycle crashes occur in locations not specifically allocated for cycling; only 7% of crashes occurred in a cycle lane, Munster (2001). Marked cycle lanes also have been shown in the US to result in fewer cyclist/pedestrian conflicts…”

This number is consistent from other studies which show that less than 10% of collisions are in designated, separated cycling lanes.

I’m actually super-interested where this number is greater than 10% because I like to challenge my own assumptions. If someone can show me a place where the majority of collisions are in cycle lanes please let me know. I’d also like to see places where a cycle lane is put in and rear-ending INCREASES. I never saw this in actual data.

However, I see people claim this is true ALL THE TIME. Please show the data.

In fact, the impetus for much of this research is to explore the above claim. I really did not think that it was so easy to refute which is why I put this off as long as I did. This raises the question on whether someone is either ignorant or out right lying… 🙂

Here’s the closest thing I could find (from above study):

“Jensen (2007) built upon his previous research, again conducting a before and after survey to investigate the safety benefits of where cycle tracks and cycle lanes has been implemented in
Copenhagen, Denmark. The key results from the research showed that there is a 10% increase in cycle crashes as a result of bicycle tracks (behind kerb) in urban areas.”

Note that Jensen is the only Dane, related to cycling, that VCers ever loved. That’s OK,  because I love Jensen as well. I really appreciate this level of detail in cycle infrastructure research.

“…Turner et al (2009) identified that off road cycle paths have higher crash risks particularly at points where they intersect with the local road network.”

I love this quote because this shows that while much care has been given to dedicated cycling infrastructure regarding separation of travel lanes, more work needs to be done for intersections. Since engineers tend to be creative problem solvers, I’m psyched to see what they come up with next terms of cycling safety for intersection design.

This is probably the best quote from the entire article:

“The results initially seemed to indicate that the overall effect of adding cycle lanes in Christchurch and Adelaide were quite different. The addition of cyclist facilities in Christchurch resulted in a 20% reduction in the total number of crashes. However, in the case of Adelaide, a 37% increase in the total number of cycle crashes was observed after installation of cycle facilities. However, closer analysis shows that the differences are largely due to the unusual characteristics of the “other” crash group in each city, which is described below. When other crashes are excluded the
implementation of cycle lanes made little difference to the overall crash numbers. However to the extent that implementation of those facilities increased cycling along those routes, the risk per
cyclist has reduced.”

This is really key because some advocates like the cherry pick data. The point is that infrastructure when done badly can make things worse. This should be written in the sky or something. We need to realize this.

How to make infrastructure better? I don’t know. Did we make air travel safer by banning air travel?

We really need to do many, many more experiments. Overall, this will lead to a saving of lives. Like the introduction of fire, electricity, and running water, this might result in higher deaths if we take isolated instances out of context. Overall, like other technological progress, cycling will get better and better the more we give engineers the freedom to work on it.

IV. EDUCATION

“OECD (1998) found that children under the age of 10 and the elderly do not have the ability to cope in traffic situations.”

This has been tested and found to be true. Even when tested with the unparalleled “expert” of cycling education, young children were at significant risk when riding in the high speed through streets which are present all over San Diego.

“The prime objective was to determine whether children of grades 3 and 5 could learn useful levels of traffic cycling skills in a reasonable time…This cycling on residential streets is probably about as difficult a task as children of this age (8 years) can handle without a lot more experience…Furthermore, all these children appeared confused when confronted with situations in which they ought to consider traffic from several directions simultaneously, as at busy 2-lane 4-way stops. Admittedly, we had given them no training in this situation, but to reach that instructional level would require a lot more instructional time. This age and grade level appears to encompass the appropriate developmental stage at which children can first learn the basics of traffic cycling (at least with present teaching techniques and in today’s very cycling-ignorant society) but are not yet ready for more complicated situations.”

http://www.johnforester.com/Articles/Education/elecpro.htm

Contrast this with Denmark where you see many, many young children peddling around with grandma on cycle-tracks. Hopefully, with Safe Routes to School and other programs, we will soon build the infrastructure to overcome the limitations that younger children have in dealing with the complicated road situations in San Diego, which stump even adults.

Hopefully, we can get cycle training in this region down to two minutes instead of the 15 plus hours (TWO DAYS OF CLASS) that the resident “experts” recommend.

Despite the education vs. engineering debate, there is not an either or when it comes to infrastructure. That is, infrastructure itself can actually educate motorists. Thus every dollar in infrastructure is a dollar spend making cyclists safer AND educating ALL cyclists and ALL motorists. Infrastructure is inexpensive to maintain and they cycling culture that it will promote is robust, lasting longer than the lives of the original proponents.

A dollar spend on education will educate one out of millions of people. Once that person dies, that money is gone forever. Finally, road conditions are evolving, and eduction needs to be lifelong. The mere act of riding a bicycle itself in decent infrastructure provides this life long school for cyclists.

V. MISC. CHANGES

Here are some items I could not find a category for:

“Traffic management strategies like traffic calming have been shown to reduce cyclist crashes by 36%…”

“The crash prediction models show a pronounced safety in numbers effect, i.e. the crash risk per cyclist reduced at higher cycle volumes.”

This has been talked about a lot. All data, so far, shows this to be true. Thus, even if infrastructure is neutral in its “true” safety, if it gets more people on bikes, it will increase overall safety for both motorists and cyclists.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

Like all real world data, the data here is a bit muddy. That’s OK. In fact, having too clear data is a clue that some kind of fraud is being committed.

“The overall effect of cycle lanes was neutral. Cycle lanes built to high standards improve cyclist safety. Those built to lesser standard can reduce cyclist safety.”

In cases where it seems to increase collisions, this is often a local effect that is mitigated by intersection treatments, safety in numbers, and other means.

Thus, I will conclude that infrastructure really saves lives.

Bicycle Advocacy Racism

To deal with a big problem, I called in some bigger guns. I sent an email to Smooth995, who makes great youtube videos:

 

Below is the letter:

 

I googled about this problem for a while, but I have failed to find an adequate way to explain this (really simple) concept.

Now, I could be wrong, but I think that appropriating the long hard battles for civil rights in order to use to defend a cycling racers right to race on public roads is offensive.

Am I off base?

To give you some background, there’s a term in the community that I consider to be a loaded word which is “segregated facilities” (sic) which just means a bike lane:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregated_cycle_facilities

Here’s a really bad quote:

“Lastly, about Ollie’s “pipe dread”… L.A. has tried the center of the road separated bike routing, other cities are trying to find ways to segregate bicycling from motor vehicle traffic. My take, separate ain’t equal.”

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/BikesAlot/comments/

So my questions for you are;

1. Is this racist? Or am I just overly sensitive?

2. If it _is_ racist, how do I explain this?

It’s getting to the point that the term is more and more entrenched, and I’d like to nip this garbage before it’s too late.

3. I so love your videos. I’d love to see one on this topic.