That’s what River Laker, better known as the British expatriate on a quixotic quest to live without a car, and a group of his friends set out to show Friday afternoon. He and two others built metal frames around their bikes so they would cover the area of an average sedan and rode a roughly 15-minute, seven-mile circuit downtown.
"We only take up a tiny part of the space cars do, so if more people were on bikes, there would be more space on the road," Laker said. "It demonstrates the close to ridiculous amount of space we take up transporting what is usually just one person in a car.
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Continue reading “This just in: A bicycle uses less space than any car on the road.”
Arrest Made in Hit-and-Run of Bicyclist and Young Son on Valencia Street
Andrew Bennett and his 4-year-old son, Robby.
San Francisco police have confirmed to Streetsblog that a 16-year-old Santa Rosa girl has been arrested in the hit-and-run crash that left a bicyclist and his young son injured on Valencia Street early last month. SFPD Lt. Douglas Groshong said he could not release any more details but believes there is strong evidence to prosecute the case. The girl was booked into juvenile hall this morning on a felony hit-and-run charge.
Andrew Bennett and his 4-year-old son Robby were thrown from their bike July 1st when a vehicle allegedly driven by the girl was traveling westbound on 18th Street and Valencia and ran a red light. Bennett said he heard from some witnesses that the girl was talking on a cell phone.
The 42-year-old suffered a broken back, deep bone bruises on his leg, and his son, whose helmet was cracked in half, received some “pretty nasty abrasions” but wasn’t seriously hurt.
Streetsblog San Francisco’s initial post on the crash quickly became our most-read story and readers from around the world left comments expressing outrage and wishing Bennett a speedy recovery. Other media and bloggers followed with stories, and with some political pressure from City Hall and the SFBC, the SFPD made the case a priority and issued a rare press release asking for help, the first time the SFPD has issued a press release on a crash involving a bicyclist in recent memory.
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When the police can stop you and your bike
There is some interest in the community on what rights do cyclists have so this may be of interest:
Following is a decision from the Florida 2d District Court of Appeal, which is the Tampa area. The short version is that a juvenile was stopped by the police while riding on a bike path. The appellate court decided that the officer lacked sufficient suspicion that the kid had committed a crime, and the trial court should have suppressed the marijuana they found:
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Twenty is plenty
A pedestrian hit by a car at 40 mph has a 95% chance of being killed, at 30 mph this becomes 50% and at 20 mph it becomes 5%.
Dr. Stephen J. Watkins, National Health Service, Stockport, UK
Speed contributes to causing accidents and it also increases their severity.
A pedestrian hit by a car at 40 mph has a 95% chance of being killed, at 30 mph this becomes 50% and at 20 mph it becomes 5%.
Most child pedestrian road deaths would be averted if people drove at 20mph in side streets. As few places are more than a mile from a main road, few journeys involve more than two miles on side roads (a mile at each end). The difference between driving two miles at 20mph and at 40mph is 3 minutes.
We are killing our children to save less than three minutes on our journeys.
In residential side roads 20 is plenty.
To enforce this policy we need
• A 20mph speed limit in residential side streets
• A recognition that motorists are solely responsible for the injuries that occur in accidents in residential side streets to the extent that they exceed those that might have been expected at 20mph. The concept of contributory negligence by pedestrians should apply only to injuries that would have been likely to have occurred anyway at 20mph. Any excess over that should be the motorist’s fault.
• Ideally we need to reshape streets so that they are used primarily for community use and the vehicle is a guest.
Continue reading “Twenty is plenty”
Portland’s Bicycle Brilliance
And I’ll think to myself: What does Portland know that Vancouver hasn’t yet quite learned?
Why is it that, while a city like Portland has bridges backlogged with bike traffic-jams, Vancouver remains choked in car traffic, and I, nearly alone on my bike route to work? A mere 2,700 cyclists trickle into Vancouver’s downtown every day, while over 9,000 daily cross over Portland’s bridges.
[Interesting stuff about Portland’s bike history.]
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McCain, Coburn say U.S. spends too much on bike paths, other non-highway projects
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He pointed out that in the same GAO study, it was found the the government spent less on bike and pedestrian projects in the past 18 years than the $7 billion Congress approved last week to keep the highway trust fund alive through August.
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Inventor’s Bike Folds Into Its Own Wheel
Bike Accidents Decline As Ridership Rises
More bicycles on the road means more chances for drivers yakking on cell phones or gorging on McFood to hit one, right? Wrong.
According to a study by researchers at the University of New South Wales, the number of collisions decreases as the number of bicycles in traffic increases. It sounds like a paradox, they say, but motorists are more likely to drive carefully and respectfully when there are more cyclists on the road.
“It’s a virtuous cycle,” says Dr Julie Hatfield. “The likelihood that an individual cyclist will be struck by a motorist falls with increasing rate of bicycling in a community. And the safer cycling is perceived to be, the more people are prepared to cycle.”
The researchers say studies in several countries have shown the incidence of motorists colliding with cyclists or pedestrians actually declines as more people ride or walk. The reason, they say, is simple — the more cyclists motorists see, the more aware they are of cyclists in general and more safely they drive. Rising cycling rates mean motorists are more likely to be cyclists, and therefore be more conscious of, and sympathetic towards, cyclists.
The findings run counter to conventional thinking, which holds that more cyclists means more chances for collisions.
While the numbers do increase in absolute terms, a city that doubles its cycling numbers can expect a one-third drop in the per-cyclist frequency of a crash.
When that news gets out, it could create a long-term cyclist friendly cycle: If people perceive biking to be safe, more of them will do it.
More cyclists means better motorist behavior and greater likelihood of communities passing bike friendly laws, further proving H.G. Wells was right when he said cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.
Photo by Flickr user swankalot.
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Bikes ride here
OK, I just really like the picture:
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Your tax dollars at work to sell more cars
"The House has voted to rush an additional $2 billion into the popular but financially strapped "cash for clunkers" car purchase program."
So we have to ask why not a "Cash for beater bike" program? The car industry is not the only industry hurt by the recession and if you want to talk about reducing our dependence on oil and curb global warming nothing works like the bicycle. Riding a bike 1.5 times a week or for 2.5 months out of the year would be the equivalent of trading in a 18mpg clunker for a 22mpg new car. Now if car qualifies for a $3,500 check from Uncle Sam shouldn’t a bike used for similar reductions also qualify for a $3,500 check? (Eying the top end bikes at my LBS.) Heck, even a $350 check would help get people to buy a bike and would help ten times the number of people in reducing dependence on oil and curb global warming. Think about this; ten people riding a bike (instead of a car) for just one week out of the whole year is equivalent of one person buying a more fuel efficient vehicle.
Part 2 of this commentary is if the Highway Trust Fund is financially strapped because of a 4.4% decrease in gas tax revenues how is a 20% reduction in the purchase of gas going to help? We need to put an end to the non driving public directly subsidizing the driving public.
Continue reading “Your tax dollars at work to sell more cars”