[Pete Fagerlin]

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/daily/missionary/mormon_missionary.jpg

Tonight I was driving and two of these fellows approached the intersection, riding against traffic on the sidewalk and pushed the crosswalk button. I Googled a bit and couldn't find any info.

These folks are always riding as peds when I see them. Does anyone know if the church keeps stats about LDS accidents while riding bikes on their missions?

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[RomSpaceKnight]

I'ld rip em a new one myself.

[tippy]

... riding against traffic on the sidewalk ... Riding against SIDEWALK traffic? Unless specifically prohibited, sidewalks are multi-direction. So if there is no law prohibiting bike riding on the sidewalk and no law requiring uni-directional sidewalk traffic then they were OK.

You can only ride against roadway traffic if you are on the road.

No such thing as riding against roadway traffic while on the sidewalk.

[sggoodri]

In Cary, we classified our police reports of car-bike crashes over a six year period according to type and vehicle positions.

Of the drive-out type where a driver on a side street or driveway strikes a cyclist on the corridor having priority, the crash numbers over this six year period were as follows:

Roadway cyclist on right side of road: 5.
Roadway cyclist on wrong side of road: 4.
Sidewalk cyclist on "right" side of road: 0.
Sidewalk cyclist operating "wrong way": 25.

So yes, coming at a motorist from their right hand side on the sidewalk is a lot more hazardous than coming from the left.

http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/library/collisions/cary2003.pdf

[noisebeam]

Riding against SIDEWALK traffic? Unless specifically prohibited, sidewalks are multi-direction. So if there is no law prohibiting bike riding on the sidewalk and no law requiring uni-directional sidewalk traffic then they were OK.

You can only ride against roadway traffic if you are on the road.

No such thing as riding against roadway traffic while on the sidewalk.
In Tempe, AZ it is illegal to ride against vehicular traffic flow even if riding on a sidewalk, unless specificially designated for two way bicycle flow:

http://www.tempe.gov/citycode/07bicycles.htm
"Sec. 7-52. Riding on sidewalks or bicycle lanes.
(c) No person shall ride or operate a bicycle in any direction except that permitted by vehicular traffic on the same side of the roadway where the sidewalk or bicycle lane exists; provided, that bicycles may proceed either way where signs or pavement markings on the sidewalk, bikeway or bicycle lane appear designating two-way traffic."

Al

[noisebeam]

Here is data from Phoenix, AZ.

First note data is number of collisions out of 682 total bicycle collision. This is not rates comparing wrong way vs. correct for a given riding location.

First look at correct vs. wrong way riding total collisions while in a bike lane:
http://azbikelaw.org/Bikestudy00.ppt#268,15,Slide 15
With vehicular flow: 9 Against: 4
Again, this is totals, not rates. One can assume with high likelinood of being correct that most (far more than 2x) cyclist operate in the correct direction while riding in a BL, hence a higher number (but not rate) of collisions from correct way riding.

Now look at sidewalk riding:
http://azbikelaw.org/Bikestudy00.ppt#269,16,Slide 16
With vehicular flow: 43, Against: 156

Here it is more difficult to make an accurate estimate of which direction is more commonly ridden when on a sidewalk. However the number of 'against vehicular traffic flow' cyclists on sidewalk would need to be 3.6 times the 'correct' way cyclists for an equal collision rate to result. My gut feel is that there are not 3.6 times more wrong way sidewalk riders, I estimate the split to be about even. If this assumption is correct this data supports that 'wrong way' cycling on sidewalk is more likely to result in collision.

Al

[I-Like-To-Bike]

Here is data from Phoenix, AZ...This is not rates comparing wrong way vs. correct for a given riding location...Again, this is totals, not rates. One can assume with high likelinood of being correct that most (far more than 2x) cyclist operate in the correct direction while riding in a BL, hence a higher number (but not rate) of collisions from correct way riding...Here it is more difficult to make an accurate estimate of which direction is more commonly ridden when on a sidewalk. However the number of 'against vehicular traffic flow' cyclists on sidewalk would need to be 3.6 times the 'correct' way cyclists for an equal collision rate to result. My gut feel is that there are not 3.6 times more wrong way sidewalk riders, I estimate the split to be about even. If this assumption is correct this data supports that 'wrong way' cycling on sidewalk is more likely to result in collision.

Al, I commend you for pointing out that just listing total numbers of accidents doesn't mean much without even an attempt at gathering info (or making credible estimates as you have) about the exposure to the hazard. You may want to send a PM to other frequent posters of the VC persuasion that post raw "crash" numbers alone; posters who are smart enough to know better.

[sggoodri]

Al, I commend you for pointing out that just listing total numbers of accidents doesn't mean much without even an attempt at gathering info (or making credible estimates as you have) about the exposure to the hazard. You may want to send a PM to other frequent posters of the VC persuasion that post raw "crash" numbers alone; posters who are smart enough to know better.

I do encourage engineers and planners to provide more user trip data when comparing locations. A common technique for rating intersections for pedestrian safety in my state is to use raw pedestrian collision counts. This leads transportation planners to the conclusion that the most dangerous intersections are those next to bars at college campuses, and the safest are wide intersections between semi-limited access suburban thoroughfares. We know that normalized per pedestrian trip, the opposite is true. It is very easy for a sober person to cross Hillsborough Street between NCSU and Mitch's Tavern, and not so easy to negotiate wide, free-flowing interchanges.

But sometimes raw numbers are enough. Take the police reports of sidewalk collisions I described in my last post. No "right side" sidewalk collisions involving drive-out motorists, twenty-five "wrong-way" collisions.

One would have to argue that there are over twenty times more contra-flow sidewalk cyclists than right-side sidewalk cyclists to explain this as anything other than an inherent problem with contra-flow travel. I think it's safe to assume that the actual usage split of right-side and contra-flow sidewalk cycling is much closer to 1:1.

[ghettocruiser]

One would have to argue that there are over twenty times more contra-flow sidewalk cyclists than right-side sidewalk cyclists to explain this as anything other than an inherent problem with contra-flow travel. I think it's safe to assume that the actual usage split of right-side and contra-flow sidewalk cycling is much closer to 1:1.

True, but I would be interested to see what about the pedestrian data is like for this same accident type, given that I've been clipped twice as a pedestrian by a drive-out when I was walking "contra-flow" on the sidewalk/crosswalk.

i.e. does this problem have anything to do with cycling, or are all sidewalk users in the same risk class?

[I-Like-To-Bike]

One would have to argue that there are over twenty times more contra-flow sidewalk cyclists than right-side sidewalk cyclists to explain this as anything other than an inherent problem with contra-flow travel. I think it's safe to assume that the actual usage split of right-side and contra-flow sidewalk cycling is much closer to 1:1.
Given that the usage split of right-side and contra-flow sidewalk cycling is close to 1:1, a prima facie case is made that when cycling on the sidewalk it is safer to go in the direction of the adjacent traffic. No such case can be made comparing the sidewalk cyclists with any direction street cyclists given that no comparative exposure data is provided. Are there a hundred sidewalk cyclists for every street cyclist throughout Cary? Or maybe just where the traffic patterns are most busy and difficult and the sidewalk choice may be less than perfect, but it is prefered by 99% of the cyclists to the street alternative.

[sggoodri]

True, but I would be interested to see what about the pedestrian data is like for this same accident type, given that I've been clipped twice as a pedestrian by a drive-out when I was walking "contra-flow" on the sidewalk/crosswalk.

i.e. does this problem have anything to do with cycling, or are all sidewalk users in the same risk class?

It is a real problem for pedestrians too. The last pedestrian fatality I can remember in Cary was of this type, with a driver turning right on red. I've had close calls myself as a contra-flow pedestrian. Better education and enforcement of drivers is needed.

Contra-flow cyclists who move faster than pedestrians have less time to see and be seen by drivers approaching the intersection, and are thus more likely to surprise drivers. Cyclists can't jump backward or sideways, either, and can have long stopping distances. Therefore I think cyclists need to be especially aware of this problem.

[sggoodri]

Given that the usage split of right-side and contra-flow sidewalk cycling is close to 1:1, a prima facie case is made that when cycling on the sidewalk it is safer to go in the direction of the adjacent traffic. No such case can be made comparing the sidewalk cyclists with any direction street cyclists given that no comparative exposure data is provided. Are there a hundred sidewalk cyclists for every street cyclist throughout Cary? Or maybe just where the traffic patterns are most busy and difficult and the sidewalk choice may be less than perfect, but it is prefered by 99% of the cyclists to the street alternative.

Lots of our sidewalks are on only one side of the street, as are the official sidewalk bike paths. The bike traffic on these sidewalks seems to be 1:1 each way. The sidewalk cyclists I've observed appear to try to use a sidewalk wherever present, using the roadway only when it stops or is blocked, or they need to cross a street. Many of them cross the street to operate contra-flow on the sidewalk where present only on the other side.

But the roadway cycling miles outnumber the sidewalk miles here by more than 3:1 according to studies done by our transportation planning consultants. Other studies have compared roadway versus sidewalk use in the same locations, and show similar results for contra-flow sidewalk cycling being 4-10 times more dangerous than right-side roadway cycling.

I looked at the crash reports of the sidewalk cyclists. These are mostly adult cyclists, in daylight. They are scattered all over town - on pleasant neighborhood streets, arterials used by bike clubs for organized rides, collector roads with 16' wide lanes and/or bike lanes, etc.