Bike path Fatalities and serious injury.

[2manybikes]

Do you know of anyone that has been killed or had a very serious accident while riding a bicycle on a
separated bike path or an MUP? Not a lane on a road, something physically separate from roads. How about while riding on a sidewalk?
How about anyone killed or seriously hurt by a car where a separate bike path crosses a road, driveway, parking lot entrance etc. ? How about hit by a car, even if not serious?

[pj7]

It could not have been more than a few months ago I saw a thread here in A&S about a drunk driver who somehow ended up on an MUP and killed a cyclist.
I'd look for the thread, but I'm apathetic and lazy.

[donnamb]

The only one I could think of was when that drunk drove onto the MUP in Manhattan and killed a cyclist. I think it's the one pj7 is remembering. Some of the NYC guys who post on Commuting went on the memorial ride, I believe. :(

[deputyjones]

Do you know of anyone that has been killed or had a very serious accident while riding a bicycle on a
separated bike path or an MUP? Not a lane on a road, something physically separate from roads. How about while riding on a sidewalk?
How about anyone killed or seriously hurt by a car where a separate bike path crosses a road, driveway, parking lot entrance etc. ? How about hit by a car, even if not serious?

Almost every bicycle/car accident I have ever taken part in policing or providing EMS to (5 or 10, they are pretty rare) have been on the MUP as almost everyone here rides the MUP, and they have all been pretty minor. The few notables have been the couple of very serious accidents I have taken where the riders where riding in the road.

[pj7]

I can say for certainty though, that in my area, more cyclist injuries happen on the open roads than do on the sidewalks, paths, shoulders, crosswalks, etc. At least for the last year that I have been making a mental note.
For clarity, since August of 2006 there have only been 6 bicycle accidents reported in the Detroit Free Press and only one of them happened in a crosswalk, was a child crossing against the light.
Granted, these aren't good statistics and prove nothing, but they are all I have to go by.

[The other Inane]

All I know is that the vast majority of fatalities involve a car/bike collision on the road. When it comes to serious accidents it shifts a lot more towards 50/50 with a lot of children (and adults) having "off-road" accidents and a lot of these would be on seperate MUP's. I will try and find the accident stats again and see if any of the stuff you want is in there.

[Helmet Head]

Do you know of anyone that has been killed or had a very serious accident while riding a bicycle on a
separated bike path or an MUP? Not a lane on a road, something physically separate from roads. How about while riding on a sidewalk?
How about anyone killed or seriously hurt by a car where a separate bike path crosses a road, driveway, parking lot entrance etc. ? How about hit by a car, even if not serious?
Off hand, the first incident that comes to mind is a kid riding on a sidewalk who got killed a few years ago, but that's when he continued into the crosswalk. Still, that, and driveways, is what makes sidewalk cycling (at faster than ped/jog speeds) dangerous.

[CB HI]

Off hand:
1) as mentioned, the Manhattan drunk driver
2) the German women in the southern US state, killed by the beauty queen (wife of Lt. Governor I believe) driving a SUV. German women was crossing road/MUP intersection. The intersection was an obvious bad design.
3) the cyclist killed in a head on collision with another cyclist on a MUP. Both had helmets on.
4) Prokop seriously injured on LA MUP
5) Honolulu City Council Chairman jogging on Pearl Harbor Bike Path hit by cyclist and suffered broken arm and/or dislocated shoulder. Cyclist was never located. (I think the jogger actually turned un-expectantly in front of the cyclist, but we only got to hear one side of the story). I had warned the City Council Chairman about unsafe pedestrian practices on the bike path by him and people campaigning for him a couple of months before he got hurt.
6) My worst cycling injury occurred when commuting on the Pearl Harbor Bike Path. Dislocated elbow in 1998. I still have pain in the elbow and it sometimes locks up. Accident caused by runners participating in a large non-permitted race organized by the Navy. (Nothing more than road rash from recreational road riding, road commuting and single track mountain biking though)

I assume we are not including the cyclist muggings and murders that have occurred on the Washington DC paths and the women murdered in the south in a sexual assault on a rail-trail. Right.

[cs1]

Do you know of anyone that has been killed or had a very serious accident while riding a bicycle on a
separated bike path or an MUP? Not a lane on a road, something physically separate from roads. How about while riding on a sidewalk?
How about anyone killed or seriously hurt by a car where a separate bike path crosses a road, driveway, parking lot entrance etc. ? How about hit by a car, even if not serious?

Why do you ask?

Tim

[CB HI]

7) Oh, I just remembered a cyclist on cyclist collision where a MUP ends into an L shape road. One cyclist with just road rash, the other cyclist went over the bars resulting in serious head injury (no helmet).

[Horse]

...

[I-Like-To-Bike]

Well, there's that that time on a MUP a few years ago, think a sheepish looking lycra-clad guy standing next to his road bike, a kid crying on the ground, and paramedics. I can't speak of the circumstances / severity.
Oh, The Humanity!

[sbhikes]

I remember riding my bike to work in the road one morning and seeing an overturned car on the bike path adjacent to the road. There weren't any cyclists there at the time, however.

There is a dangerous cross walk near the university that a lot of cyclists use to get from the street to the bike path. It's a T intersection and they are going perpendicular to the top of the T in order to cut across the grass to a bike path parallel to the top of the T. They need to use the button to change the light, then they go straight across the street and cut across the grass to the bike path. I guess right turners sometimes get them, or else they don't stop and cross traffic gets them. Same thing happens to the peds who use this same crosswalk. Usually one or all the people involved is drunk at the time, too.

[ollo_ollo]

The woman cyclist killed on the Silver Comet trail MUP last July. http://www.americantrails.org/resources/safety/docs/SilverCometMurder.pdf

[Stacy]

In addition to Eric Ng, who was killed by a drunk driver on the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway (at Clarkson Street), about six months earlier and two miles north of there, Dr Carl Henry Nacht was killed by an NYPD tow truck that was crossing the MUP enroute to the Tow Pond at 39th Street.

[cc_rider]

Two summers ago two cyclists were killed In Loudon County Virginia on the W&OD trail. Hit by cars at two different road crossings two weeks apart.
Last year a cyclists was found dead on the W&OD near Hunter's Mill Road. Signs up in the area were asking if anyone know anything about it (searching for witnesses.)

Last year a cyclist was beaten to death by a deranged guy. Happend on the Mount Vernon Trail, north of Old Town.

[randya]

...a sheepish looking lycra-clad guy standing next to his road bike, a kid crying on the ground, and paramedics.
In this case, the roadie probably should have been on the road...

[Keith99]

Yes. Though most years ago. Of course I rarely ride bike paths these days so I now have almost zero chance of seeing any or finding out unless it makes the news.

I saw the results of 5 non trivial crashesAll 5 of these are on the Beach bike path in Los Angeles (Santa Monica). 3 were or might have been serious.

Just north of the Santa Monica pier. Cyclist down possibly concussed, front wheel pretzeled. A large part of this was bad design. The path wiggles like a snake (not always bad). But add to that curbs like a street and it you dodge anything... you end up like the cyclist.

Same path 5-10 miles farther south. Path transitions to very narrow bike lane. Again a nasty section. (For locals, this is Fiji Way). The road is 2 traffic lanes each way. The path is 2 feet wide. But worst of all the path comes in at a right angle and posts set up to keep cars out insure the cyclict is at a right angle to the street. Saw the results. Cyclist being transported. I came by just as they were strapping him to a back board.

Transition the other way. Where it goes from bike lane on Washington to a bike path going through a strip park. Rider down, cuts and bruises, but paramedics were checking him out so perhaps. Older but not ancient guy, but it does raise the possibility that the crash was the result of major problems as opposed to the cause. I've always found that section nice. But thinking about it after leaving the street the path does rise about 15 feet. No big deal, except that in this 25 mile plus path the only other place I can recall that is not dead flat is where the path climbs going past the sewage plant. (A final treatement one and you would never guess by smell or more lack of smell).

The one fatality I know of was at UCSB and from what i was told it was on a section of the path where no cars could have been. Bike vrs. bike.


My experience is as a recreational rider. Far fewer incidents per mile on roads than on the bike path. But the other side is in general a more experienced and less distracted class of riders on the street.

[I-Like-To-Bike]

In this case, the roadie probably should have been on the road...
Let's speculate, eh? The child did not respond promptly enough to to the roadie barking at him "ON YOUR LEFT!" on the bike path?:eek: The child wasn't walking vehicularly? :rolleyes:

[pmseattle]

Do you know of anyone that has been killed or had a very serious accident while riding a bicycle on a
separated bike path or an MUP? Not a lane on a road, something physically separate from roads. How about while riding on a sidewalk?
How about anyone killed or seriously hurt by a car where a separate bike path crosses a road, driveway, parking lot entrance etc. ? How about hit by a car, even if not serious?

Last winter, a drunk cyclist in downtown Seattle hit a pedestrian while riding on the sidewalk. The pedestrian was knocked off the sidewalk into the path of a bus. The bus ran over her and she was killed.

[2manybikes]

Last winter, a drunk cyclist in downtown Seattle hit a pedestrian while riding on the sidewalk. The pedestrian was knocked off the sidewalk into the path of a bus. The bus ran over her and she was killed.

Wow ! :eek:

I'll have that in the back of my mind when reading about drunk cycling in other parts of the forums.

[Toyman991]

I know of at least 3 fatalities on the Pinellas Trail which runs from Tarpon Springs to south St Petersburg FL:

~5 years ago a cyclist was killed trying to avoid a small child while descending one of the trail overpasses.

~3 years ago a cyclist was killed in predawn darkness crossing a road on the trail on his way to work. Car collision.

~1.5 years ago a local club rider was killed the the carbon fork on his eBay-purchased Madone failed.

There may be more further south but these all occurred on the northern portion as I recall.

[John Wilke]

If the bike path users around here keep their current behavior, there are going to be some injured kids or dogs! No one uses a leash, the dogs just run wild and fancy free, and the kids are unsupervised, tossing their bikes to the right as they bail and run to the left. I wouldn't ride the paths if the roads weren't 10x more dangerous.

jw

[Dchiefransom]

There was one a couple of years ago where a guy crossed the centerline on a path and hit another cyclist head on. I think it was in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

[MrCjolsen]

What makes MUPs dangerous is not the MUP itself, but where it inevitably meets up with the road. When a cyclist is riding on a bike path and the path ends and the rider in suddenly ejected onto a street and get's hit, he wasn't hit on the MUP, but rather because of it.

[John Wilke]

There was one a couple of years ago where a guy crossed the centerline on a path and hit another cyclist head on. I think it was in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Gee ... THAT sounds familiar. :rolleyes: That happened to me ... my head light battery went dead before I got back to my car and comming the other way was a guy with no lights to start with. I thought I was seeing enough in the dark to be okay, but suddenly I caught sight of this big eyeball right in my face :eek: :eek: then it was * SKY - GROUND - SKY - GROUND * and lots of stars (cloudy night - if you know what I mean).

That was a BAD one. The guy that eventually found us laying there after 10 or 15 minutes should have called 911, but he didn't and we were lucky. I was very afraid to go to sleep that night.

jw

[CB HI]

What makes MUPs dangerous is not the MUP itself, but where it inevitably meets up with the road. When a cyclist is riding on a bike path and the path ends and the rider in suddenly ejected onto a street and get's hit, he wasn't hit on the MUP, but rather because of it.
As you note, the crossings are generally the greatest danger, but not the only ones.
I know of a Bike Path with back to back 90 degree turns.
Plus, stray cats running all over the Bike Paths at night can be dangerous (because of the old folks feeling the path is a convenient place to feed them).
Lots of paths are built without proper lines of sight.
Many old paths were built 8 feet wide, OK for bikes only but way too narrow for the multi-use the paths actually get.