bjorke

A local PD is doing analysis of auto/bike/pedestrian accidents

https://mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=6312

For pedestrians, the cars are usually at fault and are hitting people IN CROSSWALKS

For cyclists, the cyclists appear to be at fault in the majority of cases -- cutting traffic, not stopping, etc.

Argue for or against, I think it's good info to know and I hope everyone can use it as another bit of data in managing their own rides.

pallen

If the data is gathered in a fair and non-biased way, it is what it is and everyone can learn from it.

acidfast7

i find that the cyclists here have every dedicated piece of infrastructure and they still ride like ****.

squegeeboo

The 'riding to fast in slow traffic' bit seems questionable. If I have a full shoulder, or a bike lane, why can't I go faster than cars? That said, when on a shoulder you still have to look for cars with blinkers on, but in a bike lane, a car should be merging into it, safely, to make a turn across it.

acidfast7

CommuteCommando

You will find idiots at the wheel, and morons at the handlebars. A statistic I saw at a presentation was that about 65% of "reportable collisions" involving cars and bikes, the blame was put on the cyclists by the reporting agency, usually police. From my personal observation of the behavior of vehiculists, motor, and human powered, I have no reason to doubt it.

maidenfan

+1

gmt13

To routinely blame a cyclist for not being visible is common. This quote seems to say that cyclists should not filter up at all. Filtering can be done in a manner that visibility should not be an issue, although some cyclists do put themselves in harm's way.

The study does look promising.

-G

Notso_fastLane

Hamburg was kinda the same way when I lived there. I remember stopping for red lights,and other cyclists getting irritated because they had to go by me to run the light.....

Luckily, I had the excuse of being an Americaner.

squegeeboo

Isn't filtering illegal in most states? If you get hit filtering how is it not the cyclists fault?

unterhausen

why would filtering be illegal. Passing on the right isn't illegal except in New Jersey. If you are specifically allowed to ride on the shoulder, then that wouldn't be illegal either. Filtering can be dangerous, but I don't see how it is illegal

squegeeboo

Maybe I don't understand what filtering is then? To me, if you're passing people on the shoulder you're not filtering. Filtering is moving up between two lanes of traffic going in the same direction. That said, if you are moving up on the shoulder, and someone who was already in front of you right hooks you, you're still at fault. The shoulder isn't a lane.

Commodus

If this was true, you would never be allowed to ride on a shoulder. I'm sure there are places with such idiotic laws, but no one could reasonably conclude that the cyclist was at fault in such a situation.

squegeeboo

A cyclist passing cars, on the right, on the shoulder, at an intersection? That's totally the cyclists fault for a right hook. Now if cars are passing you, it's the cars fault. Always take your lane at intersections, that way it's much less likely to become an issue.

Ns1

Well, if you take this out:

Police say the biggest mistake bicyclists make is riding on the wrong side of the road, which accounts for 41 of the collisions. "Drivers are not expecting a bicyclist coming up the wrong side of the road,"


This is the stat that's ****ing it up for us, not the "riders going too fast" or riders blowing through stops or w/e

rumrunn6

I'm always at fault, whether I am on foot, on 2 wheels or behind 4 wheels

Commodus

That's not what fault means. It may be wise to take the lane in various situations, including this one, but this is not a requirement and does not absolve a motorist of the basic requirement to look where the fugg he is driving.

mr_pedro

Let's not jump to conclusions here.


I don't know about you but 73 vs 40 does not sound like "overwhelming" to me, maybe as the result of an American Football game but not in this case.

In the case of cyclists it is 124 vs 92 cases, statistically this is practically 50%-50% as a distribution of 52%-48% can already not be rejected given the data (In English that means that if we assume cyclists have a 52% chance of being at fault when in an accident with a car, the 124 vs 92 observations can very well have occurred due to random variance).

squirtdad

I did not read that this was filtering...more like bikes going faster than drivers expected either in the bike lane or in general.

Filtering is legal in California.....you should see what the motorcycle guys do on the freeways (many not all). I fully expect to see a motorcycle go down because of high speed filtering.

CB HI

When cyclist vs motorist collisions includes data with child cyclist, then the cyclist are at fault just over 50% of the time.

When cyclist vs motorist collisions excludes data with child cyclist, then the motorist are at fault 65-90% of the time (depending on which study you look at). I forget which study had 65%, Honolulu came out at 75% and Australia had 90 or 95%. Listening to the reports of Australia cyclist, I can believe 90% there.

A San Francisco paper reviewed SFPD accident reports and SFPD blamed cyclist just over 50% of the time. When those reports were closely reviewed, SFPD was blaming cyclist for the collisions claiming "excessive speed". Now who speeds most of the time, cyclist or motorist?

nashvillwill

What about dual fault?

The only serious automobile accident I've ever been in (as a 16 yr old), I was turning left across two lanes of stopped traffic, after being waved on by both drivers. A third driver coming down the emergency shoulder hit me at 50mph. Destroyed both of our cars. The policeman called it dual-fault, since I "failed to yield to oncoming traffic". Even though he was in the lane illegally (and speeding), he was "oncoming" which I didn't yield too.

I wonder if the same would have been said at that moment if it was a cyclist.

treadtread

A helpful person in my company pointed me to this link:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21755.htm

A bike passing a car from the right, on the shoulder, isn't illegal - at least in California. May not be directly applicable in the MV case, since the article doesn't have any specifics - but thought Californians here might want to know.

Andy_K 

And in the other 35% the motorist said "I didn't see him" and it was reported as "no fault"?

ItsJustMe

From what I've seen on these boards many times on studies like this, if you eliminate cases where the cyclists doing something idiotic like riding on the wrong side or riding at speed on sidewalks in front of driveways and proceeding at speed off a sidewalk and into a crosswalk at an intersection, and eliminate children who don't even know the traffic laws and are riding randomly in the street or lose control due to lack of skills, cars move to being at fault most of the time.

If you don't ride like an idiot, the odds are far above 50% that if you're involved in an accident, it will not be your fault. I recall seeing numbers here pretty close to 90%.

ben4345

That page reads like an anti-gun ad.