ehumburg

Hi! I am currently working on a project aiming to improve bike safety. I am currently focusing on food delivery bikers whether it's with DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber Eats, etc.. Those who have experience with this, could you tell me about frequent problems you have or your thoughts on what could be improved?

Thank you!

Mr. 66

In what regard? You mean a safer bike? Helmet laws and enforcement? Laws regulating the services? Protection from criminal elements? And why only food delivery, there are a lot of document curriers, do they not deserve the same as? Maybe they should all pack heat for safety's sake. Let's make a law that the dasher wears a flashing lights like first responders.

In my opinion, if one feels it is not safe to do the task they should do something they are more secure with.

Iride01 

My question might be is if people riding their bikes for commercial purposes of delivery should be using bike trails and paths that are intended to be recreational. Laws and local ordinances likely don't cover this stuff well. In some areas of my city, bike paths are where they'd obviously have to serve both. But the one long 11 mile path here was made with the intent of recreational use. Though now that some areas have grown along it where they weren't before, there might be some tendency for delivery people on bikes to use it. Though there are roads which I would ride that go the same places that can be gotten to by the trail.

Though so far, I'm not aware of anyone using bikes for delivery of anything here. Bikes here are entirely recreational or for us delusional cyclist that dream how great we'd have been if we'd been in the TdF during our "day" long ago.

PeteHski

Would commuting on a “recreational” bike path be okay? I can’t say I’ve ever seen a public bike path designated for any strict purpose beyond riding a bike.

Iride01 

I can't say either. Those are questions that don't have any one right answer. I wish local authorities would start addressing such so both the current users of one type and the future users of another type know what's expected.

Class 2 & 3 e-bikes might be the favored choice of delivery people where the service is growing. But admittedly just my speculation. MUP's usually say "NO MOTOR VEHICLES ALLOWED" But understandably most of us have come to terms with the basic idea that e-bikes should be allowed. But we likely only believe that for e-bikes that must be pedaled. And class 2 doesn't have to be pedaled. Class 3 has no speed restrictions but must be pedaled. I'm not big on speed restrictions, because I go fast to when I'm away from others. Our MUP has no speed limit. It just asks that you be considerate around others. TMK, our MUP doesn't distinguish between classes of e-bikes. Nor do I think it really addresses them in any way. So if that "No Motor Vehicle" is already being ignored, then what does that say for when autonomous delivery vehicles start to roam the area?

Perhaps I'm getting this thread off topic. The OP should stay active and steer the conversation in the direction of subjects they'd like it to see discussion about.

jack pot 

well you might be right but this is A&S and A&S is usually about fatalities, hospitalizations, road rages, and when to buy a new helmet so when an outlier is interested in grub hubbers biking choices there is apt to be a little confusion mixed in with limited interest

Road Fan

ehumbug, please talk about the various safety problems you see especially pertinent to food delivery riders (expanding it to all delivery riders might be good). Or what problems and on-road threats are expecially worrisome to professional riders of this sort. Are there any pertinent statistics? Have any of them been interviewed?

There are safety measures for on-bike use which he can buy, such as the Garmin radar and any competitors who may have emerged. There are many pre-collision detection devices on the road today which address detection of pedestrians and cyclists. But what are the dominant hazardous scenarios?

Are any eBikes building in such devices, based on GPS/navigation and digital communication with other on-road devices?

There is a patented safety concept where the pocket electronics (phones, whatever) carried by walkers and cyclists receive signals from other vehicles and road users indicating (anonymously) the location, direction of motion, and speed of motion. From this data the cyclist's pocket electronics (perhaps its clamped to the handlebars) could compute a likelihood of collision or close approach, and give the walker or cyclist a warning. The patent is called "MMCAS" and it's by a company called "Esperanto."

Full-disclosure, the principals are friends of mine, but my name is not on the patent nor am I formally associated with Esperanto. I have background, design experience, and standards-writing experience in such technologies, for automobiles and trucks.

But still, the question is what safety hazards are you most concerned about? It doesn't matter if your choice is driven by data (such as what we usually talk about) or opinion (My cousin delivers for Door-runners or whatever, and he's worried about such and such), but you just need to be more specific. If that requires more research, you have good reasons to do it. For automotive and heavy truck threats and hazards, you have the NHTSA databases and reports. For person to person crime in which couriers or deliverers are attacked, I presume you can research based on police records. A lot of people here are very motivated to understand how to address the hazards of cycling, and whatever might be done to improve it for "Bike Dashers" will enable improvements for casual, recreational, or commuting riders. You might find that with some specific motivation, the A&S might give you something really useful.

You might also find that European Union nations are ahead, but you can access information which would allow you to determine that.

Short of doing any of this, we're left with lights, reflectors, and visibility, and making sure the bike has all of its safety-critical functions (brakes, tires, steering, gear shifting) in proper working order at all times. And a strategy for dealing with mutual users of the street or sidewalk in the last 100 feet before the delivery person enters the destination building, and knows exactly where to go inside that building. People can get shot today for knocking on the wrong door - I would consider that a hazard!

Road Fan

Problem with this is the Door-Dasher needs to deliver lunches to a specific location, presumably parking the bike outside an apartment building, shopping mall, or office tower. MUPs might not be anywhere near that destination. Walking the food ½ mile to the front door of the office tower? Legal or not, the MUP just does not enable suitable access. The Dasher needs to use public roads and sidewalks.

Road Fan

So I am asking the Original Poster to think about or research what problems or risks are really key. ATMO there is nothing to focus on.

retswerb

No offense to your friends but I sure can't see this being effective unless adoption of it was mandated similarly to ADS-B and TCAS in aviation. Limited implementation would be of near-zero value.
Irrelevant here, but their site also has an awful lot of lorem ipsum.

Road Fan

Actually, automotive has CAS based on radar, lidar, or optical sensors which are very effective in traffic, and for several years have been built into real-world mass-produced consumer vehicles without any regulations or mandates such as the TCAS of the aircraft world. But these automotive sensors are single ended - one car paints the other with radar energy and measures signals wich passively bounce back. The illuminated vehicle does not have to perform any functions or have any characteristics except adequate radar cross section. In Mmcas the external vehicle device puts out energy and the possible victim vehicle or road user needs to receive the energy, and compute and perform appropriate actions. So more market penetration is needed for fleet effectiveness, as well as compatibility between the equipments of the two (or more) road users. involved in the interaction incident.

tungsten

I wanna' know what % of their collisions are at fault.

tungsten

Alan K

I think it is, at least in our city it is true. We do have to buy a yearly permit to use trails that are designed for recreational use, which includes people walking or running, bicycling and now using battery operated bicycles, as long as they do not exceed 20 miles/hr. Motorized vehicles (referring to motor cycles, scooters and cars etc.) are not allowed.
The yearly fee was to be paid for each bicycle, a sticker was required to be placed on the registered bike, which used to add up quickly for people like me with many bicycles. But now they go by the registered user, which makes more sense… on any given time, I’ll only be riding one bicycle.
There are a few bike trails that are designated to be free.
I have used portions of two trails for daily commuting for decades.

Alan K

In our downtown and immediately surrounding area, they have gone completely in the other direction - opposite to low tech, delivery on bicycles, they are using automated robots for food delivery. They seem to work quite reliably. They cannot go inside big building and take elevators etc but evidently, they are working on that.