Cycling, traffic safety, traffic justice, and legal topics; energy, transit and transportion economics
4/23/2019 ~ 8:30PM Pedestrian walking along an unmarked crosswalk struck in center of road by a driver who was swerving around other traffic who had stopped in compliance with the law; to allow the pedestrian to cross in the unmarked crosswalk at the intersection of 59th Avenue and McLellan Road. Continue reading “Police: Pedestrian in crosswalk killed by suspected distracted driver in Glendale”
The media is flooded with reporting like this: Scooter crashes in the Valley are causing serious injuries to riders and their wallets. they all follow the same pattern of “reporting”, they mention a few anecdotes, and a not-useful collection of statistics. Continue reading “Are Scooters Dangerous?”
9/23/2016 just before 6AM. Victim: male in his 40s,
A cyclist collided with a cement truck 24th Street at the Loop 202 in central Phoenix. No details were released at this time
Continue reading “Bicyclist killed 24th St at 202 in central Phx crash”
A low speed fender-bender makes national news? Continue reading “Low speed, no injury collision is headline news”
“THE DEADLY TOLL OF POLICE CHASES” shrieks the above-the-fold front page headline 7/31/2015 of the Arizona Republic. The companion article on the front page of the AZ Rep’s parent USA Today reads “High-speed police chase have killed thousands“. (those were the headlines in the print edition, the online ones are somewhat different). Continue reading “The deadly toll of police chases?”
Oh yeah, this one:
A woman accused of driving her SUV about 90 mph before colliding with a car stopped at a red light in east Mesa, killing both occupants, was arrested on Monday. Mesa police booked Ingrid I. Morataya, 35, on suspicion of manslaughter and other charges after she was discharged from a Valley hospital…. The driver and the passenger in the car struck by Morataya’s Toyota FJ Cruiser — Guadalupe Madril, 37, and Jason Aguilera, 33 — died instantly of massive injuries from the violent collision, according to court records… azcentral.com Continue reading “Woman with DUI history arrested in Mesa fatal collision”
[1/15/2014: azcentral.com Man in Scottsdale pedicab crash sentenced to 4 years in prison; Joseph Paul Spano pleaded guilty to two counts aggravated assault plus one endangerment ]
Two passengers of a pedicab were very seriously injured when they were struck by an suspected drunk driver in an early morning hours crash near downtown Scottsdale 1/4/2013. The pedicab’s driver was also injured. The crash occurred as the pedicab was traveling north on Scottsdale Road near Rose Lane.
Seriously injured Cody A. Clark and Michael D. Tysver were both Kansas state fans in town for the Fiesta Bowl. The automobile driver “Phoenix resident Joseph Paul Spano, 27, was driving the sedan that collided with the pedicab and was arrested on suspicion of DUI, endangerment and aggravated assault”. Aggravated assault, §13-1204, can be a fairly serious charge; depending on a variety of factors. Continue reading “Driver Sentenced: Serious Injuries in Scottsdale Pedicab Crash”
Short answer: As with all modes of transportation, it entails some danger.
Longer answer: yes, similar to the risk of motoring — perhaps twice as risky. but how to measure? (per mile, per trip?). Bike-MV collisions are currently running 2% of all in AZ. Bicycling represents perhaps 1%, i.e. twice the risk.
For the moment, this is going to be a catch-all for links and related info on the topic. Links:
Continue reading “Is Bicycling Safe? Is Bicycling Dangerous?”
This is a freebie paper published under various names: The Scottsdale Times, The Ahwatukee Times, etc…
I was generally not terribly unhappy (see my general complaints about media bias ) with how it turned out. I was pleased that the reporter, Christina Fuoco-Karasinski, was willing to spend some time researching information I sent her prior to a phone interview, which itself lasted perhaps 15 minutes. The parts I spoke with the reporter about came out pretty well:
According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, there were 1,914 accidents in Arizona last year involving automobiles and bicycles. A total of 25 bicyclists were killed by motorists in 2009, and 19 were killed in 2010. For comparison, a total of 762 motorists were killed [*] on Arizona roads during 2010, a fact Ed Beighe, of azbikelaw.org, a bicyclist activist website, says should be noted. “So while we’d all like to see bicycling be safer, bicycling represents a small part of an overall large problem,” Beighe says.
The number of injuries to bicyclists number in the thousands, however. There were 1,648 reported injuries to bicyclists in 2009 and another 1,583 in 2010.
“Most bicyclist-motor vehicle collisions occur when one or the other is making a turn movement [this probably would have been better stated as “turning and crossing” movements] — and not overtaking,” says Beighe, who stresses that he is not a lawyer. “But the relatively few overtaking collisions (bicycle struck from behind by a passing motorist) that do occur tend to be more serious than average.”
He says the 3-foot passing law is helpful in raising awareness among motorists. It shows drivers what to expect when overtaking and what they should see. However, Beighe says, the law itself is difficult to enforce and, in fact, “very, very few” citations have been issued outside of a collision, where it is often irrefutable that the motorist encroached upon the 3-foot right-of-way.
In many cases, when a bicyclist is struck and either injured or killed, no citation is issued for not allowing for three feet of clearance, says Sterling Baer, co-founder of Not One More Cyclist and himself an avid cyclist. The reason is that the cause of the accident often becomes a criminal act rendering the 3-foot citation irrelevant, as it takes a backseat to more serious felony charges.
“It actually hides or sort of skews the real statistics that show many of these kinds of events are happening,” Baer says.
berth rights: State law affords bicyclists a 3-foot right of way. Just try telling them it’s unsafe.
* The 762 figure is mis-stated. There were a total of 762 persons killed in fatal traffic collisions. Since 19 pedalcyclists and 155 pedestrians were included within that total, that leaves 588 motorists killed. See adot-2010-crash-facts for references.
There’s a wonderful book written by author and former journalist David Ropeik that explains risk perception (and MIS-perception) in elemental terms; How Risky is it, Really?.
His explanations go all the way down to the biological and evolutionary level — think adrenalin, amygdala, and the fight/flight response — and it’s all very fascinating. Everyone should read it.
More to the point here, his “confessions” as a former journalist i think go a long way to explain the persistent problems with media stories regarding risk (p. 165):
Before I go on, mea culpa. I was a daily television reporter for 25 years, and most of the things that journalist do that make the world sound like a riskier place than it is, I did…. I regularly played up the dramatic aspects of my stories, emphasizing the negative or the frightening or the controversial, and deemphasizing (or omitting altogether) the aspects that would balance things out of put them in perspective… I never lied… But I did what most journalists do: I made choice that would make my stories more newsworthy, more dramatic , and more likely to attract attention. And that left my views with a distorted and more alarmning view of the world than was actually the case.
In chapter 2, Bounded Rationality, he explains several shortcuts we (everyone) use to determine whether something is safe vs. risky. Among them is how any particular issue is “framed”; this is critical in any sort of news story. Consider the following two statements:
Statement 1; actual quote from an AZ Rep news story on the BSAP:
Last year, 19 bicyclists died and more than 1,500 were injured, according to new Arizona Department of Transportation statistics
Statement 2; re-framed in terms of overall traffic safety
During the study period, bicyclists accounted for only 1.5% of all traffic collisions, and less than 3% of traffic fatalities, according to Arizona Department of Transportation statistics. This indicates that bicycling is a small part of a very large problem
Which sounds scarier to bicyclists? Which reinforces notions of danger? Is 1,500 injuries (or 19 fatalities) a lot, or a little?
These factors fuel what Ropeik terms the Risk-perception Gap; which leads to poor decisions being made both by individuals and by society.
Along the same idea, is so-and-so’s book Free Range Kids, which I am now reading (Jan 2012)
ADOT’s Bicycle Safety Action Plan Study ( the study’s home-page link is now dead ) is a multi-phase plan to assess and improve bicycle traffic safety, with emphasis on Arizona state highways. In urban areas that often means the interchanges. Here are direct download links to final reports:
During the five-year study period “There were a total of 9,867 bicycle crashes statewide in Arizona… crashes that occurred on state highways were extracted from the statewide data set. There were 1,089 bicycle-motor vehicle crashes reported on state highways between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2008” from this a focus area was determined, within the focus area there were 746 bicycle crashes. PBCat was used to crash-type all 746 of these collisions.
Thus this data set accounts for a small minority of bike-MV crashes, around 11%. But Working Paper 1, table 15 offers a useful comparison between the studied data and all statewide data. For example, we see the same suspiciously-high percentage (24 to 25%) of “other” fault ascribed to bicyclists as with other studies. As I’ve written before, the “other” fault is generally the result of a poor/improper crash investigations that tends to wrongly faults cyclists who are doing nothing illegal (see Understanding Collision Summaries) — this is statistical proof of poor-quality investigations are a statewide problem for bicyclists. This is a shortcoming of the crash reports, and not the BSAP; in Working Paper 1, figure 20, something they call “primary contributing factor” by crash group is assigned overwhelmingly to motorists (67%), and only 24% to bicyclists.
There was a lengthy, front page A1, Arizona Republic article by Sean Holstege on Sept 17, 2011 which perhaps was intended to be about the plan but did wander, understandably, to general topics. For example they make great hay out of the per capital fatality stats, without any discussion of how to interpret them — e.g. how weather probably affects them, with Arizona being more of a year-round cycling state; or a higher per capita usage, e.g. Arizona has significantly higher (than US) percentage of commuters (according to census figures, see Working Paper 1, Table 1 — Arizona is 0.9% versus 0.5% nationwide).
The story, as many “bicycle safety” stories do, lacks context of traffic in general. So, for example, there was a chart of the number of bike-MV collisions (about 2,000/year total). There is no mention of the fact that that represents only a tiny fraction of all MV collisions ( which ran well over 100,000/year over the study period). And though it mentions the number of fatalites, say 25 in 2008 — it never mentioned the total number of traffic fatalities (it runs around, and lately something under, 1,000 per year).
So here are some hard numbers, over the five year period 2004 – 2008 there were 681,466 MV crashes, of which 9,730 were bike-MV — a little less than 1.5% (taken from the historical overview in the 2009 Bicyclist Fatality study, which were gleaned from AZ Crash Facts — note that the numbers a slightly different in the BSAP, but I don’t know why). The number of fatalities is 4,943 total, 132 bicyclist; or 2.67% — so bicyclist fatalities were somewhat over-represented but not dramatically so.
Note that the ADOT plan by design is aimed at the small percentage of bike-MV crashes that occur on the state highway system. “The majority of bicycle crashes in Arizona (approximately 90 percent) occur on local, city, and county roadways outside of ADOT jurisdiction”
Also, by the way, the article inaccurately stated that the BSAP recommends a mandatory taillight law. That was in an earlier draft but was since removed — I don’t believe there is adequate evidence to support the additional burden on cyclists. The article does correctly mention that the BSAP recommends state-level sidewalk law clarifications, which seem like a worthy endeavor, given the huge proportion of sidewalk-related collisions, along with the current legal murky morass that currently exists when cyclists who cycle on the sidewalk subsequently collide with vehicles in crosswalks and driveways.
The raw data from the 746 crashes studied can be viewed and mapped at this google fusion table. I also read the data into a mysql database, bsap, password access available upon request using a scheme analogous to asdm and presently only available on mysql.azbikelaw.org, and not on the godaddy server.
The crashes studied were full-blown pbcat 2.0 with crash types, groups, cyclist’s direction; that’s the good news. The bad news is it’s not clear how that relates to bicyclist crashes in general.
Fatal vs. non-fatal: The dataset mentioned above, the 746 crashes includes only 4 fatalities and is data only from the focus area. The BSAP report has several charts and graphs that refer to 24 fatalities. The distinction is that the total 24 is over the entire SHS (state highway system); whereas the 4 is only the focus area. I don’t have the raw pbcat data for the 24 (or rather , the other 20).
Here is a bunch of data extracted via query from ASDM data — currently covering years 2009-2014. In other words, it is an attempt to automate the types of data presented in the BSAP but applied to all Arizona bike-MV crashes, not just state highway system.
Many of the motorist drive out’s (from stop signs, or performing a right-turn on red) involve counter-flow sidewalk cyclists. Out of the 746 crashes studied here are the top 5:
Table 5 – Top 5 Crash Types Percentage of SHS Focus Area Crashes Crash Type Description 103 13.8% Bicyclist Ride Through ‐ Signalized Intersection 83 11.1% Motorist Drive Out ‐ Sign‐Controlled Intersection 76 10.1% Motorist Drive Out ‐ Right‐Turn‐on‐Red 71 9.51% Motorist Drive Out ‐ Commercial Driveway / Alley 61 8.17% Motorist Drive Out ‐ Signalized Intersection 746 Total SHS Motor Vehicle‐Bicycle Crashes
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Also interesting title of this PBIC presentation How to Create a Bicycle Safety Action Plan: Planning for Safety. It’s from the toole design people so, as expected, is filled with nacto and facilities stuff.
With gas prices the way they are, stories about cycling in mainstream press abound. As I have pointed out before (see Media Bias) these stories for mass consumption generally paint a one-sided cycling-is-dangerous story. Despite my high hopes for the journalistic balance of the Wall Street Journal (news that is. I don’t expect balance in the editorial content), Rhonda Rundle’s story from August 1, 2008 fell into the same familiar pattern. The title, Risking Life and Limb, Riding a Bike to Work in L.A., should have been a give away Continue reading “Yet another cycling is dangerous story”
Grist magazine article Oct 9, 2007. Safe Streets: not pedaling can kill you
Bicycling Magazine Jan/Feb 2008 issue: Broken by David Darlington, see link at entry Media Bias
Stories in the media tend to exaggerate the dangerousness of cycling. There is also a general undertone that motorists who hurt/kill cyclists tend to “get away with it”. Both these concepts have a certain element of truth, of course, but ignore the context of traffic generally. Traffic fatalities are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States — regardless of cyclist fatalities. By far the largest number of fatalities are motor-vehicle drivers and occupants. There is far more motor-vehicle traffic so this is to be expected. With regard to “getting away with it”: most negligent motorists (excepting DUI) get away with it, without regard to what it is they killed; be it a another driver, another occupant, motorcyclist, pedestrian or cyclist. Continue reading “Media Bias”
This is the sort of story that runs from time to time. Not front page news, by any stretch — it was buried in the B section. Motorists killing motorists. So much negligence, so little responsibility — maybe a few traffic tickets.
This is juxtaposed over the nationwide media din of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Indeed, the front page today still is crammed with ever more stories of the aftermath. One of today’s lead stories was that the death toll, currently 5 confirmed and 8 still missing, seems miraculously low. Over 42,000 dead in traffic crashes last year — 0 of which were from bridge collapses.
Continue reading “11 people die in Valley traffic crashes over 5-day period”