

Who Causes Cyclists’ Deaths? - cwan
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/who-causes-cyclists-deaths/

======
JshWright
Anecdotally, every bicyle related accident I've been involved with (as a
FF/EMT) has been the drivers fault.

However, as a motorist, I am often very annoyed at the cyclists (including the
ones all dressed up like they should know what they are doing) who seem to
think they can ignore things like stop signs, red lights, and other traffic
warning devices. If you're gonna ride on the road, and expect me to follow the
rules, you should too.

~JW

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veqon
I am an avid bicyclist who has been hit twice by motorists. Once when a car
pulled out of a driveway right in front of me and once when a car pulled into
a driveway right in front of me. But the most interesting incident was when a
van almost ran into me. I caught up to the driver and asked if she was trying
to hit me and she said "you're on a bicycle, you have to get out of my way".
Rather than enlighten as to the law I looked at her two children in the back
seat and said "you better hope other drivers are more courteous".

~~~
cduan
I made myself a credit-card sized copy of the relevant bike laws for my state
(California), so I can pull it out and read/give it to people like this. I've
only actually done it once, but it sure shut the guy up fast.

~~~
jrockway
I would just call the police. Leaving the scene of an accident? Enjoy your
time in jail.

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chaosmachine
This data matches my personal experience pretty well. I've been hit twice by
careless drivers.

I was hoping this article would have some data on helmet vs non-helmet deaths.

~~~
burnout1540
The data doesn't match my personal experience. I've only come close to hitting
a bicyclist once and that's because he suddenly decided to take a left turn
from the right lane, at night, while it was raining, without looking.

Anyway, it's no surprise that most accidents are caused by the drivers: 1\. A
bike can make small maneuvers and brake much more quickly than a car can. 2\.
Bikes usually aren't going as fast as cars. 3\. Bicyclists are also more
likely to get hurt in an auto vs. bike collision. 4\. Bicyclists are a bunch
of morons who almost never stop at stop signs or lights, which most likely
bothers drivers so much that they vow to run over the next bicyclist they see.

~~~
cgs
I used to tend to agree with 4) until I became a cyclist. You can follow the
spirit of the law without following the letter of the law. If you're on a bike
and you're trying to get somewhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time,
it is highly impractical to come to a complete stop at every stop sign. Should
you slow down and be ready to stop? Yes. Should you stop if there's traffic?
Definitely yes. If the streets are deserted is it OK to coast through? With
caution. Ride a couple miles in cyclists shoes and things look very different.

Please don't assume all cyclists are assholes. Sure, some cyclists are
complete douchebags. Idiocy abounds here in Chicago. I recently saw a guy on
the Lake Shore trail in Chicago talking on his phone and smoking a cigarette.
And don't get me started on the hipsters riding their fixies with their iPods
cranked up. Trust me, I want to punch them myself - but not all cyclists are
to blame.

~~~
anamax
> If you're on a bike and you're trying to get somewhere in the city in a
> reasonable amount of time, it is highly impractical to come to a complete
> stop at every stop sign.

By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car.

> Should you stop if there's traffic? Definitely yes.

The question is rarely what should one do, but what one does.

> Trust me, I want to punch them myself - but not all cyclists are to blame.

No one said that they were. However, the excuses for "bad behavior" by drivers
and bicyclists are very different.

~~~
jrockway
_By that standard, it's just as impractical in a car._

Last time I checked, you don't have to unclip to stop your car. And anyway, I
live by a stop sign, and I have never seen a car come to a full stop either.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever ridden a bike? You get a sense of what
rules you can and can't ignore. A stop sign when you are on the non-
conflicting side of a T intersection? Probably safe to slow for, rather than
stop, unclip, wait, and clip back in. A red light at a major intersection?
Might as well wait.

Anyway, I am pretty conservative in breaking the rules, but I don't feel at
all bad ignoring a stop sign when there is literally no traffic.

~~~
anamax
> Last time I checked, you don't have to unclip to stop your car.

The last time I checked, clipping was a choice. We don't excuse drivers who
make choices that make it inconvenient for them to obey traffic laws....

And no, "training" isn't an excuse either.

> Just out of curiosity, have you ever ridden a bike?

Yes, what of it?

> You get a sense of what rules you can and can't ignore.

Oh really?

> I don't feel at all bad ignoring a stop sign when there is literally no
> traffic.

That's nice, but observing bicyclists shows that "no traffic" often means "can
I beat it if other folks give me a pass?". (My assumption that they're
checking may be unfounded.)

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clt
I started commuting by bike about 3 years ago and it was then that I realized
how many bad motorists are on the street...and how many bad cyclists are on
the street. I believe that every vehicle on the road, no matter the number of
wheels, should follow the rules of the road. I think of traffic laws as a
protocol. If some one doesn't follow the protocol, then there's ambiguity. And
ambiguity will lead to accidents.

~~~
jrockway
This is true. But it is clear that licensing doesn't help anything; automobile
drivers are required to know the rules of the road, but they violate them
anyway.

The best solution I can think of is to drastically reduce speed limits in
areas where bicycles, cars, and pedestrians are going to be using the roads.
Nothing moving faster than 20mph, and the once-fatal accidents become mere
annoyances.

It will never happen, though, because people would have to take public
transportation to get to work quickly. The horror!

------
rjurney
A critical masshole nearly bowled over the two guys ahead of me at a crosswalk
today, while doing a super cool track stand, running a redlight, while we were
crossing on a green cross signal. He topped it off by calling the gentleman he
almost hit a 'bitch.' Classy masshole hipsterism at its best.

Wanting respect by cars is one thing, but pedestrian hostile cyclists deserve
to get clotheslined.

------
jsz0
My local problem with cyclists are ones who ride on the shoulder of fast
narrow roads. Most of them are dressed up like they are cycling for the sake
of cycling -- not trying to get somewhere. This behavior makes the automobile
drivers less safe by causing them to move closer to oncoming traffic in the
other lane. I may be able to see them and give them room but it doesn't mean
the oncoming traffic understands what's going on -- especially when the roads
are curvy. In those situations I feel like side swiping the cyclist would be
preferable to a head-on collusion with an oncoming vehicle.

~~~
natrius
Car drivers go on joyrides too. Are spans of straight road that few and far
between? You don't have to pass immediately.

It seems like it would be harder to pass a car going 5 mph under the speed
limit, which I presume happens more often. More people need to recognize how
humans tend to perceive the actions of minorities and adjust their sentiments
accordingly.

------
rudle
Note that the stats are from Toronto, ON. Having lived there, I can comment on
how dangerous some patches of road are to ride on. Many sections of bike lane
are directly in the "door zone" and the lanes themselves are often obstructed
by illegally parked cars. Despite the lively cycling community, the city is
not geared (pardon the pun) towards cyclists.

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mhb
_many people seem to assume that such accidents are usually the cyclist’s
fault_

Really? Of everything in this content-less article, this is the one I find
surprising and for which I would be interested in some data. Other than New
Yorkers witnessing crazy bike messenger antics, who thinks that bicycle riders
are usually at fault in bike-car interactions?

~~~
laut
Maybe it's a US thing. The roads and traffic culture isn't good for cycling
there.

~~~
jrockway
Depends on where you are. In redneck country, maybe. In any major city, not
really a problem.

I am sure Europe is very similar.

(As an aside, I noticed while in Copenhagen that they have laws to prevent
cyclists from riding safely. In some places, you are forced to ride on the
sidewalk, sometimes separated from the street by trees, which leads to
dangerous encounters at intersections where the cars are turning across the
flow of forward-moving bicycle traffic. This is where most accidents happen,
and is why it's _illegal_ to ride on the sidewalk in the US... in many places,
anyway.)

------
anigbrowl
_When it comes to sharing the road with cars, many people seem to assume that
such accidents are usually the cyclist’s fault_

Well, there's a context-free assertion. but that's OK, because it means we can
fill up that Important Daily Blog Post with a rather obvious and unsurprising
statistic. It might have been interesting to correlate accident levels with
surveys of driving manners in different cities - I hear New Yorkers are
famously discourteous drivers, which may have prompted the quote above - but
this didn't happen. Indeed, the discussion here, even among people who
consider this irrelevant, has been considerably more education than the trite
little article that inspired it, and for which I hope the writer was paid a
mere pittance.

~~~
natrius
_"Well, there's a context-free assertion."_

Read the comments on _any_ newspaper article about a car-bike collision. Hard
data would've been nice, but it's still a fact.

~~~
anigbrowl
I know the view exists, but I slighted it as 'context-free' because I don't
know what constitutes 'many people', especially given that commenters are
self-selected and thus not statistically representative of the general
population. Here in San Francisco, for example, the main newspaper (the
moderate-liberal _Chronicle_ ) is awash in conservative reader commentary, but
this vocal contingent's influence on election results seems to be marginal. So
perhaps all the above tells us is that (for example) drivers are more likely
to read newspapers as well as owning valuable vehicles, which cyclists are
more likely to chat on blogs, in keeping with their lower economic outlay.

I know I'm being pedantic here. Perhaps an interesting freakonomics post would
examine different perceptions of few, some, man,y most, all and other such
terms, the softness of which is often abused in public discourse.

------
zargon
Traffic signaling designed for cars makes drivers lazy. This would help:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533248/Is-this-
the-e...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533248/Is-this-the-end-of-
the-road-for-traffic-lights.html)

------
Semiapies
US roadsways, driving laws, driver education, and even drivers' habits are all
based around cars interacting with cars. A quick glance that will catch a car-
sized object will miss a cyclist. A collision that would be a fender-bender
will do far more damage to a cyclist.

I honestly don't know what would possess people to ride a bicycle on a busy
street, bike lane or no.

~~~
antonovka
_I honestly don't know what would possess people to ride a bicycle on a busy
street, bike lane or no._

Quality of life -- I do it so that I don't have to deal with the anger,
frustration, and sunk time and money that seems to be inherent in driving (and
owning) a car.

I haven't died yet. _Knock on wood_

~~~
Semiapies
Here's to further not-dying!

------
karzeem
This makes intuitive sense. A car vs. bike accident is fer worse for the
cyclist than for the motorist, so it makes sense that the cyclist would be
paying more attention on the road.

------
gojomo
I think some cyclists -- because they are in the open air, with full
peripheral vision and hearing, looking through no windshield, totally in tune
with the environment -- expect all other vehicles on the road to have the same
awareness.

But the same total awareness is impossible in a car, even among the vigilant.
That's why the visibility aids, legal/customary traffic rhythms, and assigned
places for different travelers on shared paths are so important.

The cyclists who scare the crap out of me seem to believe that everyone will
see them even though they're in dark clothes, at dusk, with a dim taillight if
anything at all, and traveling in an unexpected place (like against traffic,
in crosswalks/from sidewalks as if they were pedestrians, or making turns at
places or angles where other vehicles don't). I tend to see them -- though
never as soon as if they were in normal flows -- but it only takes one
momentarily inattentive driver for disaster to strike.

(And don't even get me started about joggers who prefer to jog in the street,
often with headphones on or in dark clothes at dusk, when there's a sidewalk
_right there_. I think the "runner's high" impairs judgment as much as some
other highs.)

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onreact-com
I strongly advise you to follow the link to the source which reveals many more
astounding data tidbits like "U.S. cyclists are three times more likely to be
killed than German cyclists and six times more than Dutch cyclists, whether
compared per-trip or per-distance traveled"

[http://www.projectfreeride.org/team/cycling_health_and_safet...](http://www.projectfreeride.org/team/cycling_health_and_safety/index.php?slide=2)

~~~
tdonia
this is interesting, from the parent: "As levels of pedestrian and bicyclist
activity rise their per capita risk falls. Drivers adapt their behavior in the
presence of increased cycling and walking (17)." (17) Jacobsen P. Safety in
numbers: more walkers and bicyclists, safer walking and bicycling. 2003.

~~~
natrius
This is exactly why I proselytize.

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WhyIsThisOnHN
Why is this on Hacker News?

~~~
n8agrin
Even though I'm an avid biker I have the same question as you and, I'm
assuming, share the same sentiment about the stories that have been appearing
here lately. Still, I have to question your reasoning behind creating an
account called "WhyIsThisOnHN". That's just trollish. Earn enough karma and
flag posts that seem irrelevant.

~~~
lurkinglurker
Avid biker and long time lurker here, and I believe that (a) this article
belongs on reddit, not on HN, (b) there has been a recent flurry of
submissions with no connection to hacking or hackers and a low barrier to
entry that generates inane discussions, (c) telling someone to downvote is
itself trollish, because to rely solely on the downvote to express one's
opinion is to expect them to remain silent and accept the opinion of the
masses, and I suspect the parent is making a statement about the recent voting
by the masses on HN.

------
nazgulnarsil
I hate road bicyclists. Not the guy just trying to get somewhere on his bike,
the guys wearing special suits and riding in packs blocking traffic. get a
mountain bike or get a motorcycle you morons. I have to deal with these guys
every day and I am sick of them engaging in ridiculously unsafe behavior that
I will get fucking blamed for if I kill one of them.

~~~
jrockway
You do know that you sweat just as much on a mountain bike and therefore would
need to wear the same "special suits", right?

Anyway, my advice is to calm down a bit and drive slower. You'll make the
roads safer for everyone, "special suit" or not.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I think i hate the fact that everyone finds their behavior perfectly
acceptable more than I hate them. I don't know about where you live, but
around here they act like children. intentionally blocking cars, running full
speed through intersections causing cars to slam on the brakes, and worst of
all taking pride in all this by vilifying people who are just trying to get to
work with annoying slogans. I ride a motorcycle, I know exactly how annoying
people in cars can be, but If I did what they do i would deserve to get hit.

~~~
jrockway
Sounds to me like a guy on a bike hurt your feelings once, and now you
generalizing that one case to "all the time".

~~~
nazgulnarsil
no...I deal with this every day, as in I just dealt with this while riding
home not 10 minutes before I sat down to write this. traffic was once again
massively blocked, bikers were once again changing lanes randomly in front of
cars without signaling and riding through intersections in an unsafe manner.
maybe it's just my commute route, but it is fucking constant.

