Daves_Not_Here

After hearing of 2 recent local fatalities on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach, it occurred to me that it would be helpful to know which locations have high accident rates for cyclists. Obviously, we always need to remain vigilant when riding in traffic, but I'd take an extra measure of care when riding through an area that has an excessive accident rate.

In the case of one of the Newport Beach fatalities, it occurred at the intersection of PCH and Bayside drive, an intersection that is apparently notorious among local cyclists for accidents and close calls. I've ridden through there a number of times but was unaware of its reputation. It would be nice if we had a way of knowing this information in advance.

I was able to find the League of American Bicyclists' site named Every Bicyclist Counts, which provides a map of cyclist fatalities, which hot-link to specific information about each accident and its victim:
https://www.everybicyclistcounts.org/site/map

It's a nice site, but incomplete -- it only provides a subset of the fatalities that have occurred in 2012 (at 700 per year, I'd expect to see about 500 so far, but there are only about 100 listed). And, only fatalities are listed. What would be ideal would be a map of fatal and non-fatal accidents over the span of a number of years. Then you could really see the trends. Seems like insurance companies and other agencies would already have this data mapped out.

Anybody aware if this data is available to the general public?

Daves_Not_Here

Had better luck with googling when I did not limit myself to cycling accidents. I can probably assume that a location with a high rate of motorist and pedestrian fatalities will be bad for cyclists as well.

This is the best I found so far - contains motorists, cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians. Only problem is that only fatalities are included.
https://map.itoworld.com/road-casualties-usa#

Daves_Not_Here

Another link that provides information about traffic accident "hot-spots" -- these are locations that have experienced multiple accidents within 1,000 ft of each other. Again, a limitation is that only accidents with fatalities are included.

https://riskyroads.org/

David Huntsman

Here's an article specifically about Newport Beach (Mariners Mile to Newport Coast Drive crash data): https://bikenewportbeach.org/data-danger-corona-del-mar/

Daves_Not_Here

Hey David -- This is exactly what I was hoping to find -- that article pinpoints the exact locations and references a state accident database, not only of fatalities but also of injuries.

I rode from Long Beach through Corona Del Mar to Laguna on PCH today - beautiful place to ride, but a little hairy with the all the congestion and high-speed through traffic. Literally a highway with highway speeds. This is definitely one place where it helps to get enough in the lane to encourage people to merge over and overtake in the left lane (no good when there's an approaching clot of traffic two abreast).

By the way, welcome to the forums!

David Huntsman

Thanks Dave - look for Sharrows on PCH through Corona del Mar by the end of October!

By the way the primary source for the data in that article was Brenda Miller of PEDAL out of San Clemente. She accessed the SWITRs database and created the graphics.