10 Responses to “Cycling Safety”
Comments
January 29th, 2011
Portions of our "Rights and Duties of Cyclists" video (link below) were filmed on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore before the sharrows were put in. It was just as safe using the lane then as it is now. But it is sure nice to have the markings to inform both motorists and bicyclists. http://www.youtube.com/cyclistlorax
January 29th, 2011
Get a rear-view mirror for your bicycle, and keep an eye on cars and trucks coming up from behind. Wear a reflective vest, and get a Ladies bicycle, because it's easier to dismount . Make sure the bike's brakes work, watch where you are going and stop if it looks like a car is pulling out in front of you. Put blinking LED lights on your bike and use them even in the daytime. Ride slow and stay to the right, pull over and stop if trucks or buses need to pass. Want to race?- Join a Bicycle Club. I'm an experienced cyclist, but I drive a car too. It's good if a bicyclist can see it from the motorists point of view, and it's even better if the motorist can see it from the bicyclists point of view. ALL road users need to be aware of their surroundings.
January 29th, 2011
While I certainly respect Mr. Peters opinions and activism. I am concerned this is going to lead to accidents. First of all yes, we all know according the vehicle code bikes are legally the same as cars. Until one hits a car. I hit a car on a bike as a kid, on PCH down where MacDonalds is now - someone opened their door on me. Guess who lost? But that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't riding a 10 speed at breakneck speed and had been on the sidewalk where cars wouldn't squash me like a bug. No, I stay on the sidewalk now, which I know is illegal. But like they say, "better tried by 12 than carried by 6." Slowing traffic in CDM is NOT in the best interests of the public. PCH is a major traffic corridor. It is already backed up on weekends. The traffic bottleneck is rapidly becoming an issue and I would expect if it continues to worsen that CalTrans and the State will reassert jurisdiction. The new City Hall isn't going to help matters. CdM is already one of the most pedestrian friendly towns there is. It is rated as "highly walkable" by real estate web sites. As for "slowing the pace of life." Has anyone noticed why the US dollar is strong? It's because Europe is in the financial toilet. They have a slow pace of life because many places still use horse drawn carts because it is all they can afford. I think any decision to "slow the pace of life" in CdM needs to be a choice of all the residents, not just the bike riders.
January 30th, 2011
Jamie, sharrows do not lead to accidents. You may believe that but that is only because you have not been trained in modern bicycle safety. I recommend the Traffic Skills 101 course by the League of American Bicyclists or books like Effective Cycling, Cyclecraft or Bicycling Street Smarts. Bicyclists on the sidewalk endanger pedestrians who are moving in all directions and with little attention to their surroundings. A bicyclist in the middle of a traffic lane riding with the flow of traffic is highly visible and predictable. That is the key to safety. Drivers can easily see a bicycle in front of them and determine that they need to change lanes to pass. It works in theory and it works in practice. It has been working in Long Beach sharrows for a couple of years now but controlling the lane has been working for trained cyclists for more than three decades. Traffic calming has been shown to be in the best interest of communities everywhere, especially where there are lots of street side businesses. Not only does it improve safety, but it has also been shown to result in more pleasant neighborhoods, where people like to walk and ride and go to the local shops. The U.S. dollar is actually quite weak right now and the Euro is quite strong. I don't know where you get your currency trading information.
January 30th, 2011
Euro 1.36 down from around 1.50+ against the US dollar. Yes it is weaker than it was 18 months ago. As for training. I admit it. I am not a trained bicyclist. I recall my Father taught me about 50 years ago. Put me on a bike and gave me a push and I ran into a bush. I have however driven ambulances and fire trucks and had extensive emergency vehicle training. So I am not ignorant of the bicyclist viewpoint, having scraped up more than one after being hit by a car. Have you driven through Belmont Shores? It is a 2 mile traffic jam. Traffic calming? People need to get around. I think having bicycles in the middle of traffic will cause accidents and is the result of a tiny but very vocal group of bicycle activists. Further slowing traffic through CdM is an inconvenience to millions of people who use PCH, so that a handful of weekend bicyclists enjoy their exercise, and so that a much smaller group who either lost their drivers licenses or who ride their bikes to work because they have the time. A question for the readers - do you actually know anybody who rides a bike to work? I don't. Anyway, I've got to pour $100 worth of gas into my truck so that I can fight the slow traffic on PCH, I'm not going to spend time trying to change minds on this topic any longer.
January 30th, 2011
A couple more FACTS about the sharrows on 2nd Street in Long Beach. First, the number of car-bicycle accidents on that section of 2nd Street has been constant since the installation of the sharrows (5 in a one year period). However, the number of bicycle trips on that section of road has approximately doubled while the number of vehicles using the road has remained approximately constant. Therefore, the accident RATE is about half of what it was before sharrows were introduced. Additionally, the number of sidewalk pedestrian-bicycle accidents is now essentially ZERO. Second, the vast majority of businesses along 2nd Street in Belmont Shore are in favor of the sharrows. In fact, most businesses in the East Village section of Long Beach are in favor of similar infrastructure improvements. The improvements are proving to be good for businesses. As for cycling through Corona Del Mar, I personally ride through there several times per month, mostly on the weekend. I take my legal and appropriate space on the lane and sometimes get harassed by drivers who don't know California law. I can just imagine how the numerous pedestrians that I see would feel if the current bicycle traffic were on the sidewalk. BTW, for the individual who got "doored," by law, you can ride approximately 3 feet away from parked cars to minimize the possibility of an inconsiderate motorist opening their door in your path.
January 30th, 2011
2nd Street in Belmont Shore is a city street, not a state highway. There are stop lights through out the Shore that make it much safer than PCH in CDM. The type of cyclist is also geared much more to recreational beach cycling as compared to the the speed demons who don't follow basic traffic laws and rules of the road in CDM. You can't equate the traffic conditions of Belmont Shore with CDM. I'm sure sharrows have a place somewhere, like the Balboa Peninsula, but not on PCH.
January 30th, 2011
Was your father a trained bicycle safety instructor? I somehow doubt it. 50 years ago is also before vehicular cycling was widely known. In any case, if you don't have the training, then it will be difficult for you to fully understand why it is safer for bicyclists to ride in the middle of the lane. I commute every day on busy streets, 9 miles each way, with speed limits varying along the way and in some spots the speed limit is as high as 55mph with no bike lane and no shoulder and a narrow right lane. I don't have close calls, because I have the proper training and know how to make sure that I am always highly visible and highly predictable. No driver is ever surprised or confused by what I do in front of them and they always have very long reaction times to anything I do. I know over 100 people who bicycle commute daily, because I participate in my local bicycling community. Bicycle commuters are a lot more common than most people think. That is because people ignore what they think they don't have to think about. You see a lot more bicyclists on the road than you remember. It's been many years since I drove through CdM but I remember it being awful. I'm not sure how you think that bicycles will make cars that are stopped in a traffic jam go any slower than they're already going. When the Long Beach sharrows were put in, many drivers objected, making the same claim that you are. Some bicyclists with helmet cams showed that that was a delusion. They kept up with rush hour traffic in the sharrows just fine. They were no different than a car and would in fact have been going a lot faster themselves if not for the cars going slowly in front of them. People have a tendency to look at these things without knowing all the facts and then jump to a lot of wrong conclusions. My commute is 9 miles each way, but bicycling only costs me an extra 15 minutes or so each way vs. driving, and I don't need to make extra time to go to the gym, because my commute is my daily workout. I also enjoy my commute as do most bicycle commuters that I know. I don't know a single driver who enjoys their commute.
January 30th, 2011
I have an idea. From now on I'm going to take my cue from the numerous self-entitled cyclists out there and I’m going to start driving my car in the same exact manner that these cyclists ride their bikes with the same regard when it comes to obeying traffic laws. You know those annoying laws intended to maintain safety, order, flow and predictability for everybody on our roads and highways. We see examples of this every single day by cyclists whether it’s here in Corona del Mar or Belmont Shore. Here’s what I mean. So as a driver I can now choose which laws I’ll ignore or obey, depending on when and where and how I feel at the time. So with cyclists in mind I will now invoke my own self entitled ideals to the roads and highways on which I pay for… I’m not stopping at stop signs or red lights all the time. I’m going to turn left on a RED left turn arrow, (you see this in front of the Starbucks at PCH & Goldenrod all the time). Personally and speaking as a driver I’m very excited about all that time I’ll be saving by not waiting for lights to turn green. Thank you cyclists. Then there’s weaving across the white line into the adjoining traffic lane when riding three or more abreast when a lane is designed to accommodate only two abreast at most. I understand it's important for everyone you're riding with to hear all the important things you're saying at any given moment and the line of cars you just suddenly swerved in front of has no doubt seen you and has reacted quickly and accordingly to avoid hitting you. Though in a car driving two or three abreast in one lane is going to be a bit tricky but I’m positive it won’t be our fault if there’s ever an accident. Passing on the right. I like this one a lot. Turning right on to a side street or into a driveway is always exciting when cyclists are around but my favorite story is one day, again by Starbucks on PCH & Goldenrod, I was parallel parking on PCH and these two cyclists passed me on my right, right between me and the parked cars. Then they had the unmitigated gall to flip me off as they went by. Somehow I was sure I had the right of way since I was stopped and had my blinker on indicating that I was backing into a space, but I must have been wrong in order to have raised such a strong response from those two law abiding cyclists. And oh how funny was it that the woman texting in a mall walked right into and fell into a fountain because she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about on a bicycle though. How fun that you can share with your friends every single moment of your biking journey as you’re zipping through traffic on a major thoroughfare and you are sure that all the drivers out there are paying attention to ‘you’ as you’re texting away down PCH. How can sharrows here in CdM on Pacific Coast Highway in any way be compared to the sharrows on Second Street in Belmont Shore? How absurd to make any comparison between them. 2nd St. and PCH are comparable? Really? For the majority of you cyclists that are thoughtful and aware and do abide by the traffic laws, I thank you wholeheartedly for your courteousness and you have all my best wishes and gratitude. You are a positive influence to the world of cycling and I enjoy sharing the road with you. Unfortunately it’s the road-warrior types that make all cyclists look bad and they’ll mess it up for you and everyone else. Road-warriors are the ones that demand all the rights of the road but none of the responsibilities. Accidents are always someone else’s fault.
January 31st, 2011
Like Frank, I distinctly remember the first time that I rode my bike though the Green Sharrows in Belmont Shores. They were responsible for an unusually calm ride in comparison to "taking the lane" in a typical riding situation. The Green Sharrows give both bicyclists and drivers a highly visible sign of their shared responsiblity of using the road. As an avid recreational cyclist I look forward to more Green Sharrows and the resulting increase in safe bicycling that they will bring. On the other hand, I can certainly understand where Robincdm's frustration comes from. Like most anything else in life, the 90/10 rule applies to bicyclists and motorists alike. Ten percent of bikers do not always follow the rules of the road, and give a bad name to the vast majority that do. Likewise there is a small minority of motorists that seem to purposely drive with an antagonist attitude toward bicyclists. From a bicylist's point of view this is much more than simply frustrating or annoying- it is downright dangerous. Unfortunately, the 100/0 rule applies to a bicycle versus automobile collision- the automobile is going to win almost 100 percent of the time. Multiple studies have shown that increasing a communities bike ridership actually makes bike riding safer. Part of this can be attributed to better motorist awareness of bicylists, simply because a bicycle on the road ceases to be a novelty. This is one of the benefits of the Green Sharrows. They not only will help to increase bike ridership, but will give both motorists and bicyclists a very clear sign of the legal (and courteous) rules of the road.
