mdarnton

https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/11/29/life-and-death-in-chicagos-most-dangerous-bike-lane/

Daniel4

“Cycling is totally safe, it’s cars that make cycling unsafe,” he said.

I was thinking the same thing as I was reading the article up to this quote.

Sure the bike lane can be improved with solid barriers but I boils down to driver behaviour and serious police enforcement.

I've mentioned more than once in these threads that the only way a motorist involved in a collision will be charged if any of the following:
1) it is a hit-and-run;
2) Dui;
3) suspended licence;
4) already wanted by the police;
5) if the victim was in a car

When we discuss road safety, most articles and some people in these discussion forums think drivers are another force of nature in which we have to accommodate or adapt to, like gravity. But drivers are people who have conscientiously taken and passed driver education classes, written and road safety tests. And we know that their behaviour can change with road designs and stricter enforcement and evidence from other countries and other cities in North America.

FBinNY 

Near me is the oldest parkway in the USA. It's twisty and has narrow lanes. I drive it all the time, and friends comment because "it's such a dangerous road". My standard answer is that I don't consider the road dangerous, it's just laying still doing it's thing. It's the people on it that are dangerous.

That lays out my general feelings about road infrastructure, and guides my attitude about bike lanes. Of course I agree that things can be done it improve infrastructure, but it's case by case, and IMO still misses the point.

NO improvement in physical infrastructure, or changes in laws will deliver the hoped for benefits in safety without a serious effort at education for all road users, along with a sea change from out "rights" based outlook. We all need to get along and acknowledge we're sharing a public resource and it's incumbent on ALL users to operate with courtesy and respect for the needs of their fellow road users.

Segregated bike lanes solve certain problems for cyclists, but create new ones for both bicyclists and pedestrians. They also create a false sense of security, shifting responsibility from operator to institution.

These days money is tight and governments are all running at deficits, so we need to spend very wisely. As a society, we can get vastly more bang for buck through a serious effort at education, and efforts to get voluntary compliance, than we can get through most infrastructure changes. Those efforts at changing attitudes should be carrot and stick, ie. better info about what's expected combined with some serious stick. For example, in cases of hit and run, the penalty for the driver should exceed the maximum for something like DWI, plus there should be criminal forteiture of the car if it's identified.

I wonder how many of those 50 collisions might have been avoided if both drivers and cyclists knew about the hazards of doorings, right hooks, braking distance, lane discipline, passing clearance, and so on. Then maybe some of the dough not spent to segregate cyclists could be used to eliminate road hazards like potholes.

Troul 

money has always been the problem that the gov points its finger at, & that is playing like a broken record.

increasing education directed towards driving will just soak up more resources & yield no improvement or make it worse. To change society as it is to be different in a better way will take the will on an individual level. Which is unlikely to ever happen. Every year society sets a new record low, & has demonstrated to me that it never has set a record positive high.

FBinNY 

Actually, you and I agree more than you think. The difference is in our respective worldviews

Your highly interested in changing things through political effort, and that's all good.

OTOH. I'm more pessimistic about political/government solutions. So, rather than wait for change, and wonder if that change will be positive, I prefer adapting to the here and now. That's in my control, and less likely to be frustrating or dissertation as pointing.

FBinNY 

Actually, you and I agree more than you think. The difference is in our respective worldviews

Your highly interested in changing things through political effort, and that's all good.

OTOH. I'm more pessimistic about political/government solutions. So, rather than wait for change, and wonder if that change will be positive, I prefer adapting to the here and now. That's in my control, and less likely to be frustrating or disappointing.

Troul 

i agree with both ways. The issues crop up when an "unauthorized" person takes matters into there own hands. There will always be that one person that wants to stir the pot & is just a bad person.

The government processes for these things need to improve the turn around time.

Pratt

FB-
Isn't that the one where a retired cop went off the road in his car and wasn't found for days?
I used to live in Westchester.

FBinNY 

I don't remember that case. But I was referencing the Bronx River Parkway. Since you lived here a while, I'm sure it's familiar, along with the three other century old parkways.

Pratt

Yeah,it was the Bronx River. It was probably very pretty, and a pleasant drive, at 35 mph, in light traffic, on a Sunday, when it was built.

jon c. 

If you look at the broader arc, human society has always advanced. I don't think that has really changed in recent decades, although it certainly feels that way at times,

urbanknight

I feel like even this one should be removed. I lost count of how many people I know who have gotten hit by an uninsured driver, sometimes with no (or suspended) license, and the cop just writes a report and sends everybody on their way. The most recent had the cop letting the uninsured and unlicensed driver leave driving his truck... leaving the other two drivers he plowed into to wait for a tow because their cars were disabled.

FBinNY 

I don’t know what state you're in, and what those laws are, but I doubt a cop would knowingly allow an unlicensed driver drive off. That would create serious legal liability for his employers, ie. the city, county or state. Knowingly allowing someone to drive illegally makes one, cop or citizen, guilty of aiding and abetting the violation.

Here in NYS, an uninsured or unregistered car or a non-legal driver, is a MUST TOW situation, whether the driver is arrested or not. The exception is if there's someone, ie. a passenger, who can legally drive the car away.

urbanknight

California, and yes my wife said her jaw dropped when the cop let the guy drive away. Liability for any further incidents was also on my mind. We had to use our uninsured motorist coverage, and even the insurance company seemed to imply it wasn't worth their while going after this guy for anything.

rydabent

Maybe the street engineers from Chicago, designing protected bike lanes should come to Lincoln Ne, and see how ours right thru the down town was done.

HillRider

I'm a bit late to this party but I just saw this thread. In the mid-00's I spent a lot of time in South Chicago on business. I didn't have a bike with me but did notice, and was appalled by, the bike lanes I saw. The layout was; a curb lane for car parking, then a bike lane and then the auto driving lane, only separated by painted white lines. That meant any car pulling into or out of a parking space immediately crossed the bike lane and any one getting into or out of a parked car opened the driver side doors right into the bike lane. Of course, all right turns from the auto lane also crossed the bike lane.

This seemed an absolutely perfect recipe for bike accidents and that layout could not have been made by anyone who ever rode a bike.

retswerb

Isn't this the description of most bike lanes in most places? This is definitely the bike lane norm in my neck of the woods, we don't have many that are protected.