Quote:
Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo
This was on the morning news yesterday in Vancouver, thought it was very, very interesting.
Link to metronews.ca article
Essentially, cyclists have been found to have the right of way in 93% of car-bike collisions.
"More than half of cyclist collisions involve cars. Cars driving through two-way stops on local streets, doorings – sometimes dubbed the “door prize,” when a driver opens a car door into the path of an unsuspecting cyclist – and vehicles making left turns resulted in the largest proportion of collisions"
I'm not on any particular side of this debate, but the stats are pretty interesting (maybe even a little damning), and make me think that reasonable measures to separate these vehicles are a good idea. A dedicated cycling corridor with access to shared side roads/routes sounds like a good path.
On a more personal note - the running of signs on side streets and the inattention/unawareness while making left hand turns are exactly the reason I stopped riding a motorcycle in the city. To many close calls.... |
Numbers are a funny thing, there are probably allot of factors that contribute to that 93%, it's possible the laws are too skewed in the cyclists direction, or the volume of cars makes them more likely to cause an accident. But I would suggest the Average car is about 20x the size of the average bike therefore 20x easier to see and anticipate.
I'm not saying it is OK to be unaware of your surroundings when cycling or driving, but you are probably 20x more likely to be unaware of a bicycle than you are to be unaware of a car. Which is likely what causes most of these accidents.
Either that or people who drive cars are just ignorant A-holes who enjoy running yuppie cyclists down Grand theft Auto Style.