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Jumping Red Lights

02.06.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 9 Comments

So, I’m on a longer-than-usual weekend ride, and I come to a “T” intersection.  I’m going to turn left, off a narrow two-lane road onto a busy, four-lane arterial.  But I’ve got a red light.

I stop, and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Geez, this is a long light!  Maybe I can goose it up a bit.  I walk the bike over to the stop light, and push the button to display the “Walk” signal.  And wait.  And wait.  And wait.

Finally, the cross traffic gets a red light.  But my light doesn’t turn green.  The traffic moving from my right to my left has a left turn arrow, but no one is turning left.  So everyone is stopped at the intersection.

I’ve got two cars waiting behind me.  They’re both going to turn left with me.  I want to get out in front of them.  Oh, the hell with it.

I push out into the intersection and make my left turn.  I’m a good fifty yards down the road before the light where I was waiting turns green.  By the time those cars catch me, I’m safely in the right lane, and signaling a right turn for the next corner.

About an hour later, much the same thing.  Another “T” intersection.  I’m planning another left turn, and once again the light isn’t changing.  So once again, I pull out into the intersection, complete my turn, and I’m well down the road before any cars can catch up to me.

Proponents of vehicular cycling urge cyclists to ride as they would if they were behind the wheel of a car.  That means I’d have to stay in my place until the light goes green.

But from a personal safety standpoint, it made more sense to me to get a jump on the cars.  And both times, it worked just the way I had hoped.  I put distance between myself and them, and I think the drivers behind me might have appreciated that I wasn’t in their way, either.

And notice, I did not jump ahead at a red light where I was traveling in the same direction as the rest of the cars.  I would never do that.  I made these moves only at “T” intersections.

Was I wrong?

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Categories // Safety Tags // red light, vehicular cycling

Causes of Bike Crashes

11.18.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

I recently came across data from two different sources that sheds some light on the causes of bicycle crashes.  The first is a report from the Twin Cities Bike Club of Minnesota.  The second is a report prepared by the city of Fort Collins, Colorado.  While the two sets of data covered different time periods and were compiled in different ways, they are interesting to look at.

The Twin Cities Bike Club has a Safety Committee that compiles records of all of its members’ bike crashes throughout the year.  The most recent data is from 2009.  In all, 34 crashes were reported,  and they fell into three categories:

Falling from a bike, 23; bike-bike collisions, 5; and bike-car collisions, 6.

The falls ran the gamut of causes, from silly to unfortunate.  My favorite: “Rider was drinking from camelback with one hand and braking with the other while negotiating a curve, went down.”  Other falls happened because of trouble with pedals and cleats, skidding on wet pavement, going off a paved bike trail, and handlebar grips coming loose.

Falls aren’t a laughing matter, though.  Falls can hurt.

In Fort Collins, the city’s report didn’t count falls from bikes.  It focused solely on car-bike crashes, with an eye to making the city’s streets safer for commuters.  It covers police reports filed between Jan. 1, 2007-June 30, 2009.  In all, 354 bike-car crashes were studied.  The conclusion:  Both motorists and cyclists share the blame.

The biggest cause of bike-car crashes may be considered somewhat of a surprise: Bikes traveling against traffic and ending up in a broadside collision with a car.  These kinds of crashes accounted for more than half of the fatal or severe injury crashes, and 60 percent of all crashes, in the report.  A broadside is a crash when a bike hits a car on a perpendicular road.

A broadside crash in the making.

Those of us who ride regularly might be surprised to learn that most of the broadsides happened when the bike was riding against traffic.  Part of the reason might be that Fort Collins, a city of about 140,000 people, is home to Colorado State University, which enrolls 26,300 students.  Many of these students commute to campus by bike.  The city’s bike coordinator says the crash data shows that university students could benefit from bicycle education efforts.

Other car-bike crashes included the overtaking, or “right hook” crash, where a car passes a bike, then turns right.  Those were 13 percent of the crashes.  Sideswipes, where bikes and cars were going in either the same or opposite directions, accounted for seven percent.

The Twin Cities crash data is less clear about the causes of bike-car crashes.  Only one seemed to fit the “right hook” description, and none apparently were broadsides.  Inattention by cyclists was the evident cause of some crashes: A rider was hit in a right turn lane, and another rider crashed into the back of a school bus when the bus suddenly stopped for railroad tracks.

So, what do we learn from these very different reports?  Both bikers and motorists have lots of room for improvement.  Clearly, if you ride predictably and obey the rules of the road, your chances of tangling with a car diminish.  But you must be alert and attentive all the while you are on your bike.  It’s not just the cars that can knock you down.  It’s yourself, too.

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Categories // crash, Safety Tags // crash

Driving Near Bikes

10.24.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

I don’t know what it is about cars when they’re around bikes, but drivers seem to behave irrationally.  And it’s even worse when the weather is bad.  My wife and I had that experience on yesterday morning’s ride.

It looked like it might rain, so we opted to just head over to the Veloway and do a few laps.  I was planning to meet up with a friend, John T, so Pat started her lap before me. John T and I got caught in the rain on our third lap, and we took cover under a shelter at the Veloway entrance.  I figured Pat would have finished her one lap and headed home, so should be safe and dry by that time.

When the rain eased up, I said my goodbyes to John T and headed home myself.  On the way, the road leads up to a large supermarket.  I was in the marked bike lane, following another biker.  Two cars pulled even with us.  It was obvious they were going to turn into the supermarket parking lot.  When the first one turned his wheels, the biker ahead of me pulled into the lot — doing a slick emergency right turn.

Instead of waiting for me to pass him so he could turn into the lot also, the second car turned right in front of me.  Now I had to do the emergency right turn.

On a dry day, cars always wait for cyclists to pass before turning into the lot.  They might be impatient about it, but they’re good about waiting the three or four seconds it takes us to pass them.  In the rain, you’d think they would be more careful, knowing that the wet conditions could cause trouble for bikes, and even cars, if they don’t watch out.

When I got home, I told Pat about being cut off.  “That’s funny,” she said.  “That happened to me, too.”

She was getting into a left-turn lane behind two cars at a stoplight.  She heard a third car, but instead of settling in behind Pat, the third car squeezed around her, then cut in front of her in the turn lane.

Geez Louise, wait a cotton-pickin’ second, will ya?  For it’s just a matter of a few seconds we’re talking about here — how long it would take me to pass a car before it turns into the parking lot.  How long it would take Pat to complete her left turn from the turn lane, and then allow the driver behind her to pass.  Three seconds?  Maybe five?  Not a major chunk of your day, pal.

The League of Illinois Bicyclists decided to tackle the problem head-on.  They made a video aimed at drivers — telling them what to watch for when driving near bikes.  Good stuff.

I only hope it gets some distribution so more than bicycle league members will see it.

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Categories // Safety Tags // cars, rain, Safety

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