The most recent fatality of a cyclist in the Raleigh area was a driver who pulled out in front of her from a side street as she was descending a hill on the main road. From today's paper:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/story/631042.html

I used to ride on this hill regularly when I worked in west Raleigh. One can easily reach 35 mph coasting. I always turned right onto the side street, Farm Gate, near the bottom of the hill, but this cyclist was going straight. The lane is wide on the downhill lane/direction, and I don't know where she was in the lane, but I certainly wouldn't want to be in the far-right location of a typical striped bike lane if I were going straight.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...wloc=addr&om=1

The most common fatalities in the Raleigh area, which is mostly urban/suburban, involve intersections or darkness. We haven't had any fatalities in Cary on record as far as I can find, but our most common reported injury crashes are intersection related.

Yeah... I was trying to stay away from that point, but the shrill keening of anti-facilities zealots about the dangers of intersections and door zones seems to be mostly used, to great effect (they think) in their
arguments as "proof" that facilities are dangerous. can these places be dangerous? yeah. is the danger overstated by some? oh, yeah. in my opinion.

I had a friend that got killed the same way.

When descending at speed I move out into the middle of the lane.

Do most facilities supporters intentionally understate the dangers of intersections and overstate the protection offered by bike lanes in order to support their agenda? H e l l yeah, in my opinion. Look at Bek's posts for good examples.

You should study the Cross statistical study of car-bike collisions before you sound off on this subject. Or, since getting a new copy is difficult, see my detailed analysis of Cross's statistics in Bicycle Transportation, which is easily available.

AKA You should "Buy My Book" for "My Spin" on the subject. Accept no substitutes.:rolleyes:

bicyclists and motorcyclists get left hooked regardless of their lane position, steve.



I'd agree. the dangers are overstated by the shrill & zealous anti-facilities crowd on Bike Forums.

You are agreeing to a claim in a subject about which you have no information, when substantial information has been available for years. Your credibility is zero.

sad to see you attempt to refute the obvious, jhon.

whoo hoo! a Bek/JF pissing match! I feel like my little thread has arrived!

John, thanks for jumping in to argue completely off-topic points. I'd expect no less.

You've made a completely irrelevant comment. Please try to read more carefully before posting.

The subject collision in Raleigh was a near-side drive-out, not a left hook. Operating farther from the curb is helpful for reducing the danger of near-side drive-outs, because it greatly increases the cyclist's conspicuity to the driver at the side street, increases the time and distance the side-street driver must travel to enter the cyclist's path, and increases the amount of room the cyclist has to maneuver.

In my own city, the number of right-side cyclists struck by drive-outs is similar to the number struck by left crosses. (The number of left-side cyclists on sidewalks struck by drive-outs is about five times higher.) The total number of intersection collisions is about fifteen times the number of overtaking collisions.

The hazards posed by less effective intersection negotiation on sidewalks or curbside are not so great as to warrant prohibiting such behavior or trying to make people feel bad for operating that way. But, assuming we care about reducing collision risks among cyclists who are willing to listen, it is sensible that we encourage operating on the right half of the roadway, avoiding suddently swerving in front of overtaking traffic close enough to create a hazard, but operating in a visible location at junctions. It is also sensible that we avoid employment of traffic control devices (such as curbside bike lanes through intersections and signage of sidewalks as two-way bike paths) that encourage operation contrary to this benevolent advice.

Of course, the bottom line in all this discussion is, "how do you ride?"

Forget about bike lanes for a minute. Do you exercise additional care at intersections?

I do.

I keep a heads up at intersections, but am certainely not compelled to be in the middle of the road for each and every curb cut and driveway...

by the way, steve, bike lanes encourage road cycling versus sidewalk riding, and bike lanes buffered away from the curb help encourage a more visible road position from average bicyclists than wide outside lanes alone....

Shared use arrows and share the road education campaigns also encourage roadway use, without dictating inappropriate positioning. The bike lanes stripes in my area are marked 4' from the curb at over 95% over of the significant intersections they cross. They cannot be marked farther left because the right of way is limited (unless the road was over-built in the first place). A better solution for promoting safer intersection negotiation at these locations would be no bike lane stripe combined with better education of road users.

The formal issue is whether intersection dangers are overstated by those who oppose bike lanes. My statement referred to Bekologist's statement that they were, without any reference to data as to the prevalence, or not, of turning and crossing collisions, when such data have been available for thirty years. That's on the stated topic.

yes, john, intersection dangers are overstated in this forum by anti-accomodationalists.

And I find Noisebeams' quacky insistence bike lane stripes HAVE TO END 200 feet before all intersection and CURB CUT fearmongering in the extreme.

Are the dangers of intersection negotiation overstated in this forum? YES.

Provide the data, Bekologist, to support your claim.

data? it's anecdotal, not evidence, in regards to forum banter.

should I be applying metrics to noisebeams' unrealistic, unecessary fears of intersection negotiation that drive his stalwart posts about '200 feet before all intersections and curb cut?' :lol: hilarious!!!

200 ft? not 150? or 250?

I remember back at a time, that the "200 ft" rule was used by noisebeam and others simply as a retorical device to get someone to agree that there is no purpose for a bike lane stripe at all. After all, as the argument went, if you fragment the bike lane with the "200 ft rule", then you'd have nothing left at all and might as well eliminate the bike lane line all together.

But then again, the driveway to the local kwiki mart was considered an intersection, even if it did only attract a car an hour.

I am gaining the strong impression that, while there is an underlying order to the traffic system in the US, it is so littered with exceptions and novelties (where else on the road are vehicles asked to share lanes at speed?), that almost anything can be made to work and people will learn to work it. It's just a matter of exposure and the driver's manual. Just as you have to teach people what an unprotected left turn is, you just have to teach people how to deal with the possibility of a cyclist in the bike lane when making a turn into a driveway. And, similarly, teach cyclists the somewhat modified (as compared to car drivers) techniques for dealing with little inconsistencies stemming from the large speed differential. Oregon's drivers manual and bicycling manual are examples of how the word might be spread.

In other words, it's kind of like what scientists have found out about diets. It doesn't really matter what diet you are on, as long as you stick to it and the diet works towards the goal of reducing body fat. Similarly, it doesn't matter what paradigm a city chooses to accomodate cyclists, as long as it is consistent and works positively toward the goal of accomodating cyclists.

That is interesting ... the view is consistent with the casual observation that state/municipal safe-cycling programs appear to increase cycling safety while it is difficult to identify and measure the effects of the components of these programs.

Moreover, I find it consistent conceptually with more cyclists leading to greater safety. In this case, it would be the idea that cyclists and motorists need to figure out how to negotiate traffic together. If you have more cyclists, motorists get more practice resulting in smoother interaction.

Oh, I get it ... you are referring to metrics on what people post ... not safety/traffic metrics.

Sorry for the interruption. Back to your scheduled programming.

These are an abomination and should be outlawed. They're much worse for pedestrians than cyclists, but bad enough for us. It's hard to negotiate with drivers merging at 40 mph from your four o'clock position. Especially when they're trying to merge all the way into the left turn lane. In some cases you can only hope (or pray) that they don't hit you.

It's just wrong to put people in this situation. The simple fix, but not very effective, is to put "yield" signs instead of "merge" signs for entering traffic. The real solution is to reengineer and rebuild to make the merge into a perpendicular junction with traffic light or "stop" sign.

Obviously, bike lanes will provide no protection or guidance in these all too common intersections. Bike lanes = quick "fix" -- for traffic designers who are too lazy or too cheap to make roads that can be used by everybody.

What do you mean by "accommodating cyclists"? I know of no city in the USA whose streets do not accommodate cyclists, and in some number, too.

More irresponsibility. You cannot know whether or not the fears of intersection negotiation are stated accurately or inaccurately unless you understand the actual dangers as shown by collision statistics.

bwuaghhahahaha. :roflmao: "knows of no streets that don't accomodate cyclists"... worthless rhetoric.

'legality' does not denote 'bikeability', safety, or rideability by the bulk, the majority of bicyclists, john.

the majority of who are likely aware on how to ride bikes according to the rules of the road. there's a lot of ability levels in bicyclists that know how to ride, john.

bicyclists are NOT dividable into two camps consisting of competant/incompetant, despite your best smear tactics.