single tip- don't cut off a big truck

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/the-one-tip-for-staying-safe-on-a-bike.php

Pretty shocking stat.

Trucks scare me.

I experienced "truck suck" a few years back, and it still makes me break out in a cold sweat.

That's where air currents try to pull your bicycle under the side of a big rig truck.

Spooky stuff.

Again, don't think a rig is like any other vehicle.

An uneven load can sway sideways past the white dividing lane.

Don't think that hugging the edge of highway asphalt is a good idea.

I swerve off into gravel every time I hear/see a big truck coming.

(I finally will use a mirror on a recumbent bicycle. No eye strain, no annoying vibrations and wild pivotting of rear field-of-view.)

In a bike lane, I try to centre myself off the curb now instead of the lane on this side of the curb cement. I occupy a whole lane with my big chopper handlebars. Plus when my folding baskets are deployed. I've had cars that are *just* in their lane nearly touch me...

D.

Congrats to Raj at WPIRG for her Record sound bite on ghost bikes and that dead cyclist.

bike lanes uptown- the good, the bad and the ugly

D: the picture order is the Ugly, the Bad and the Good.

OK, the first one is at Erb and Father David Bauer.
This intersection was already like this last year.
It remains unchanged.
The bike lane suddenly ends on FDB.
There are 2 lanes for cars spilling out onto Erb.
The lanes are very narrow.
The bike has nowhere to go, or to fit.
Very UGLY.

Bad: this is on Caroline Street, behind the uptown Waterloo mall.
Inexplicably there is additional on-street parking that suddenly appears mid-street.
As far as the eye can see, there are parking lots.
?!?
To a car driver's point of view, the cyclist who attempts to follow the bike lane to the left of this unnecessary parking will seem to suddenly swerve to cut off the car.
Nice way to go SPLAT.
I saw this a lot in Cambridge.
Fortunately, cyclists sensibly ride on the sidewalk in these stretches instead of risking death.
BAD.

GOOD! I cannot believe it. Something I ranted about last year was actually FIXED!
This change is at Caroline and William Street.
Last year it was identical to the UGLY intersection listed already.
This year, there is enough space for both the intersection and bike lane and cars!
Wow.

I've said it before. A bike lane that blinks out of existence at intersections- the critical juncture where 1/2 of bike accidents take place - is NOT a bike lane.
It's a waste of time, money, and pavement.
It's an afterthought.
Add more nice grass and trees instead.
OR: do it right.
How many bike lane maps are accurate?
If we discount any bike lanes that don't exist at intersections, and ignore any bike lane stretches that don't survive from one street intersection to the next, how many are there REALLY?

BTW, FDB remains uncleaned, uneven, puddly and otherwise excreble this year.
This is an example of do it right or don't do it.
They really shouldn't have bothered.
Most smart cyclists ride on the sidewalk anyway.
Like I said, built it right AND maintain it.
Or just don't.

D.

my jaunt to nearby Guelph

My car broke down there.
I biked there and around for a coupla days.

Impressions?
1) Kitchener's Victoria becomes Guelph's Woodlawn.
It is equally unfriendly. No sidewalk, no bike lane.
Even the grass is intersected by curbs.
At one point, the dirt path is inches away from a sharp slope.

Edinburgh, heading toward U o' Guelph, has signs forbidding biking on the sidewalk.
The street is OK.

By campus, a few blocks on Gordon have bike lanes.
However, it is not maintained.
There were TWO patches of broken glass.

Back to Woodlawn.
The huge sea of parking for cars at the Cineplex conspicuously lacked bike parking.

There ought to be a bylaw.
100 car spots? One for bikes.

OR we could boycott.
Try to take your bike to the movie.
Of course they won't let you.
That's the point.
Nowhere to lock it up.
Boycott.
Imagine our financial clout if we organized...
D>

how to die on a bicycle

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/how-to-get-killed-on-a-bike.php

The winner?

A car turning right when the cyclist oncoming has right of way.

BUT.
I cannot believe how BAD cyclists are!
I have only been driving a car, necessary for work, for a few months.
The number of times at night, on the sidewalk, with no lights, the wrong way, a cyclist tries to assert 'right of way' is incredible.
Apparently many cyclists *want* to die.

Cyclists contribute to their own demise about half of the time...

Hard to feel sorry for them.

Don't get me wrong - I strategically break driving rules when I think it increases my safety.
But if I'm on the sidewalk, I'm on the correct side.

A driver who faces a typical hazard begins to react in .7 seconds.
Unexpected? 1.1 seconds.
That can often be the difference between sharply braking and an actual accident.

Of course, the Euro-effect suggests that simply having MORE cyclists would result in safer cyclists.
Car drivers get used to looking for them.

Want that to happen?
Stop building more traffic lanes and new highways every time traffic gets congested. Paired with carrots, this stick will deter drivers who have alternatives.
K-W, of course, is building an incredibly expensive new highway system instead.
Using cyclist and pedestrian tax-base to subsidize those who can afford to own cards.
Regressive fiscal policy.
Congrats, K-W.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/velib-bike-sharing-thieves-vandals.php

80% of the bikes are missing or damaged.
They cost $3500 apiece, resulting in a brisk black market.

3000 were stolen the first year.

The idea of a distinctive appearance did not seem to reduce theft.
The bike are either stripped for parts locally, or exported intact.

http://redjar.org/jared/projects/communitybike/summary/
Nice summary of community bicycle projects.

D: I am unfamiliar with it, but I have heard of a European antitheft mechanism.
I think it locks the front tired in position.

http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20080910095417936
D: a campus that has GPS-equipped 'bait bikes'.

D: I thought an RFID tag could also do so.
Even just equipping major intersections in big cities would eventually flag down many stolen bikes.
I've seen RFIDs claiming a useful 40' range.

http://www2.giant-bicycles.com/en-us/bikes/model/city.storm/3884/36268/
D: an almost perfect city bicycle.
And only $1500!
The frame is aluminum.
I guess that makes the weight tolerable.

As I get older, I like a nice sensible modernized Dutch cruiser more and more.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/dutch-to-new-york-ride-our-bikes-please/
D: here is a modest $800 Batavus Dutch cruiser.

can cyclists ignore stop signs>?

http://news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/579164

hit and run hurts five ottawa cyclists

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090719/cyclists_minivan_090719/20090719?hub=TopStories&s_name=

Ottawa police say they have made an arrest after a minivan struck and seriously injured five cyclists. At least two of the cyclists are listed in critical condition.

D: by leaving the scene instead of staying, calling 9-1-1 and rendering aid, this driver likely killed or aggravated injuries.

Bicycle helmets are only rated for 20kph impacts.

This seems a good argument for lower speed limits in town.
Of course, if the roads "feel" as if they are safe when faster, cars will still drive faster.
Making roads that are safe but don't feel safe slows drivers down.

Kinetic injury increases as the square of speed.
An impact at 40kph is MUCH safer than at 50kph.

(Wiki)
Essential physics
The kinetic energy involved in a motor vehicle collision is proportional to the square of the speed at impact. The probability of a fatality is, for typical collision speeds, empirically correlated to the fourth power of the speed difference (depending on the type of collision, not necessarily the same as travel speed) at impact,[5] rising much faster than kinetic energy.

A report from the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation includes in its summary the finding that the incidence of crashes depends more on variations in speed between vehicles than on absolute speed, and that the likelihood of a crash happening is significantly higher if vehicles are traveling at speeds slower or faster than the mean speed of traffic

D: too slow is as dangerous as too fast.
I drive on the highway up north some weekends to work in construction.
I don't want speeding tickets to drive up my insurance, or make me lose my license. So I stay only 10 kph above the speed limit.
Very few drivers are happy with this speed.
I'm sure going slower would cause road rage incidents.
Where these people are going in such a hurry is beyond me.
I just leave on time.

My co-renter said he hitches a ride with an older lady sometimes.
She drives the speed limit, right on the dot - in the passing lane.
Meaning people pass unexpected on the right.
SHE is every bit as dangerous as some yahoo weaving in and out of traffic at 20-30kph over the speed limit.

On the highway, there is a bewildering subset of the speeder/passer type.
They'll ride behind me within a second of travel distance for many minutes.
Irate drivers behind them then need to pass multiple vehicles to pass.
Oddly, such a driver will skip many fine opportunities to pass, only to pass finally in less than ideal conditions as their patience runs out.
An odd and dangerous combination of speeding and timidity.

Creating three seconds of reaction time also drives folks bonkers.
These people will travel within 1-2 seconds of the next car.
Leaving almost no time to react in an emergency.

In poor conditions, such as poor visibility or road surface, this combination causes accidents.
I occasionally read of huge multi-vehicle pile-ups on highways during severe fog.

Relating to the story, who will ever know if another second of reaction time would have averted this tragedy?