Not A Safe Week To Ride

[DrP]

NPR had a short piece on the increase in bike injuries today too:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/436662737/as-more-adults-pedal-their-biking-injuries-and-deaths-are-spiking-too

[dasgeh]

@DrP 123376 wrote:

NPR had a short piece on the increase in bike injuries today too:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/436662737/as-more-adults-pedal-their-biking-injuries-and-deaths-are-spiking-too

This piece is just bad reporting and makes me think less of NPR.

[Starduster]

Something else of note: Check Bikeyface’s FB or twitter page- she has to deal with an op-ed piece in a Boston paper saying “bicycles do not belong on Boston streets”. Not good. I will have no opportunity to read and respond myself until later this evening.

[jrenaut]

@Starduster 123379 wrote:

Something else of note: Check Bikeyface’s FB or twitter page- she has to deal with an op-ed piece in a Boston paper saying “bicycles do not belong on Boston streets”. Not good. I will have no opportunity to read and respond myself until later this evening.

You’ve read the article before. No facts. Anecdotes about that one jerk cyclist. Roads are for cars. Complete waste of time.

[creadinger]

@jrenaut 123388 wrote:

You’ve read the article before. No facts. Anecdotes about that one jerk cyclist. Roads are for cars. Complete waste of time.

Also using the statistics that cyclists die on the roads to say that cyclists don’t belong on the roads… I wonder how many drivers have died on Boston’s roads in the same period that 13 cyclists did??

[GovernorSilver]

@DrP 123376 wrote:

NPR had a short piece on the increase in bike injuries today too:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/436662737/as-more-adults-pedal-their-biking-injuries-and-deaths-are-spiking-too

Not surprising that the injury and death counts go up, as the number of adult cyclists goes up.

I don’t agree with the Lance Armstrong Effect – I didn’t learn how to ride a bike because I wanted to be like Lance (doping/performance enhancing drugs aside). It’s just something I’ve been wanting to do for years because I didn’t know how to ride a bike, and I really enjoy just pedaling around and going places. I took two adult how-to-ride classes and not a single classmate cited bicycle racing as a reason for wanting to ride a bike.

I don’t know how many people feel like they have to dress like a racing cyclist to ride a bike. Maybe the Lance effect is in effect there?

What I do agree with is the bit of advocacy slipped in there towards the end.

[creadinger]

@GovernorSilver 123409 wrote:

I don’t know how many people feel like they have to dress like a racing cyclist to ride a bike. Maybe the Lance effect is in effect there?

The answer to that is simple: Functionality. No one (edit: no males) look good in bike shorts and weird jerseys with pockets in the back. It’s not a style thing for the vast majority of us. I don’t race. I’m actually pretty darn slow according to strava segments, but for my long rides and fairly long commute I need padded shorts and light weight non-chafe lycra. For long weekend rides, I also like having stuff I need in the back pockets of my jersey. The best tools for the job.

Simple.

If it wasn’t functional I don’t think people would “dress like a racing cyclist” – including racing cyclists.

[mstone]

@DrP 123376 wrote:

NPR had a short piece on the increase in bike injuries today too:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/436662737/as-more-adults-pedal-their-biking-injuries-and-deaths-are-spiking-too

It’s a pretty useless piece. They seem to not grasp that the studies aren’t normalized by miles travel (because those data do not exist for cyclists)–it should not be at all surprising that if people bike more now than they did at some point in the past, more of them die while biking. It’s also not at all surprising that fewer kids are killed while biking, since nobody lets their kids bike anymore.

[Lt. Dan]

WHY WHY WHY did they not have lights or safety gear?!?!?!

[Rod Smith]

Lance started riding to be like me.

[Supermau]

I will never understand why so many cyclists and regular “people on bikes” feel perfectly safe out there at dusk and beyond without any lighting at all. Just last night I was driving past the Masonic Temple in busy traffic and came up on a guy on a bike – no lighting, no helmet, riding in the street. Passed another couple near Glebe with blinky lights so dim as to hardly be noticeable. I’m absolutely baffled by that.

[Crickey7]

@Supermau 123479 wrote:

I will never understand why so many cyclists and regular “people on bikes” feel perfectly safe out there at dusk and beyond without any lighting at all.

I think people overestimate how visible they really are.

[cvcalhoun]

@Crickey7 123483 wrote:

I think people overestimate how visible they really are.

I ended up with a reflective vest, reflective strips on my panniers, three taillights, two headlights, and three lights (red, green, and blue) on my front wheel. I decided I finally had enough when people outside a bar that I passed called out “nice lights.” I figured that if drunk guys who weren’t even on the road noticed me, my efforts to be visible were working.

[mstone]

@Supermau 123479 wrote:

blinky lights so dim as to hardly be noticeable

Good lights are too expensive, and it’s really hard to tell when a rear battery is low. The solution is a better selection of low cost, high quality generator lights–but I don’t see how that will happen without regulations mandating lights (to increase sales volume) and I don’t see new regulations as likely. So the current situation of no lights or dim/dying blinkies is probably the reality for the foreseeable future.

It doesn’t help that some people go so far as to remove the already-mandatory reflectors for fashion reasons. I guess the other part of the answer is for people to get over themselves–reflectors actually work pretty well, and they never run out of batteries. And make sure there are reflectors on your pedals–those things scream “a bike is here”.

[Tania]

There was a guy on S Four Mile Run Drive Tuesday night at around 7:50 pm (just as it’s solidly twilight) on the road (not the trail) fully kitted out on a sleek racing bike with no rear or front lights. I almost didn’t see him (I was driving) but was able to change lanes. As I passed him, I saw that he did have a weak blinky on the SIDE of his bike and only visible from the side.

(I also saw more than a few cars on 50 without their lights on…)

I have a few rear lights on my bike (at all times) and now that the daylight is waning I keep a front light in my pack and a spare at work. I also have the flexible wrap-around-your-frame lights in hot pink and purple that I’ll stick on for winter commuting. You can mock me for that but no one can say they didn’t see me…

[Author]

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