Category: Biking Elsewhere

From: Andy Clarke
See if this helps any:
A few bike lane studies:
Continue reading “Safety of Bicycle Facilities”

The mission of
Keep Kids Alive Drive 25® is to end all deaths and injuries caused by speeding
on all roadways. Our target is zero deaths, zero injuries. To
do less is to accept and tolerate deaths and injuries to loved ones;
daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles,
grandparents, and friends.

To accomplish our mission we work to educate and actively engage
citizens throughout the United States in a common commitment to
create safer streets in neighborhoods, and beyond, for the benefit
of all. This includes pedestrians, cyclists, children-at-play,
motorists and their passengers. We work with and through
neighborhood groups, law enforcement, public health agencies,
schools, city/county/state government, public works, businesses,
safety organizations, and any and all civic organizations committed
to creating safe roadways.

The campaign
goal is to unite neighborhoods and communities throughout the U.S.
with a consistent message about safe driving.
Keep Kids Alive Drive 25®
reminds each of us to check our speed and slow down as needed. Since
we as drivers cause the problem of speeding in residential
neighborhoods, and beyond, we must be actively engaged and committed
to being the solution as well.  Keep Kids
Alive Drive 25® is a friendly reminder to slow down in a fast-paced world,
as well as an invitation to take personal
responsibility for our driving behavior.

For
communities, it is imperative to send the message that, “Speeding
will not be tolerated in our town!”  Keep
Kids Alive Drive 25®
works to
support this message by educating and engaging drivers, pedestrians,
cyclists, residents, parents, schools, businesses, law enforcement,
public works, and many others in making safer streets a reality.
This is why we exist.

DID YOU KNOW?

• 
  41,059 people
  – daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends –
  died on
  America’s roadways in 2007.
  That’s an average of over 112 deaths per day
  each and every day of the year. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) – 2008)

• 4,327 pedestrians died while
  walking in neighborhoods or crossing streets in 2005. 500
  of these deaths were children under 14 years-old. (NHTSA 2008)

• 2,490,000 people were injured in
  motor vehicle incidents in 2007 (NHTSA 2008)

• The death rate on residential
  streets is over twice that of highways -measured per miles driven
  (NHTSA – 2005)

• Speeding
  Triples the Odds of Crashing (AAA
  Foundation for Traffic Safety – 2006)

• A
  pedestrian hit in a 30 mph speed zone is 3 times more
  likely to die than one hit in a 25 mph zone. (General
  Estimates Database of Police Reported Accidents – 1999)

Continue reading “KEEP KIDS ALIVE DRIVE 25”

POLICY STATEMENT
The Built Environment: Designing Communities to Promote Physical Activity in Children
Committee on Environmental Health
An estimated 32% of American children are overweight, and physical inactivity contributes to this high prevalence of overweight. This policy statement highlights how the built environment of a community affects children’s opportunities for physical activity. Neighborhoods and communities can provide opportunities for recreational physical activity with parks and open spaces, and policies must support this capacity. Children can engage in physical activity as a part of their daily lives, such as on their travel to school. Factors such as school location have played a significant role in the decreased rates of walking to school, and changes in policy may help to increase the number of children who are able to walk to school. Environment modification that addresses risks associated with automobile traffic is likely to be conducive to more walking and biking among children. Actions that reduce parental perception and fear of crime may promote outdoor physical activity. Policies that promote more active lifestyles among children and adolescents will enable them to achieve the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity. By working with community partners, pediatricians can participate in establishing communities designed for activity and health.
Continue reading “Doctors prescribe smarter growth”

NYC – The race to replace Robert Morgenthau, who has served as Manhattan’s District Attorney since 1975, heated up yesterday at a candidate’s debate sponsored by Transportation Alternatives and the Criminal Justice Society of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Those seeking to replace the nearly nonagenarian Morganthau talked about an issue close to our hearts and minds: traffic justice. Cyrus Vance, Richard Aborn and a representative of Leslie Crocker Snyder discussed their views on vehicular crimes and the role of the District Attorney’s office in protecting New Yorkers from reckless and dangerous drivers.
Some of the topics discussed included: the creation of a specific Bureau Chief for vehicular crimes; an approach to traffic justice that reflects its substantial impact on the safety and well being of New Yorkers; a nip-it-in-the-bud approach to lawless behavior such as the offense of reckless driving, which often precedes more dangerous behaviors; and a shift away from fixed, rigid notions of what constitutes an actionable case, often manifested in potential criminally negligent homicide cases.
We were very impressed with what each candidate had to say and believe that new blood will bring great changes to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. We wish each candidate the best of luck and are thrilled that these issues are finding a place in mainstream dialogues. Only time will tell if that can bring safer streets to the millions of people who travel through Manhattan each year.
Continue reading “D.A. Debate – traffic justice”

New data now reveals that there are 185,000 daily cyclists in New York City, an increase of more than one third from just four years ago. This staggering surge is not only a testament to the infrastructure improvements that have been implemented in the last couple of years, but also a contributing factor to the increased safety of cyclists throughout the city.

It’s a well established fact that for bikers there is safety in numbers. With more cyclists out and about, more drivers are accustomed to sharing the road. In fact, cycling in New York City is safer now than it has been at any time in recent memory, so spread the word and hit the streets.
Continue reading “Safety in Numbers”

Continue reading “Stop, walk car”

[Note info on our adult classes can be found here: https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=2008041713505581]
…
I was 16, a senior at a public high school in Manhattan, and I had never learned to ride a bike. So my friend and classmate Josh had walked with me to Riverside Park, taking along a bicycle from his family’s apartment on the Upper West Side. We adjusted the seat low, so my feet could easily touch the ground, and Josh tried to explain the key concept behind bike riding: namely, balance. (Training wheels were not an option, at my advanced age.) I got on, and started to pedal.
It did not go well.
I could not manage to travel four to six feet before the bike — and I — swerved wildly off course. My attempts to compensate for the bike’s tilt in one direction by leaning in the other ended with my falling, repeatedly. Josh gamely tried to hold onto the back of the seat and run behind me, but it did not help. Our bike-riding lesson ended in failure when I fell onto (or was it over?) a park bench, scraped my arm and damaged the bike’s front rim.
As New York City goes through something of a bicycling renaissance — with the construction of new bike routes, improved bike parking, and even the closing of parts of Broadway to vehicular traffic — one issue has received little attention: there are some New Yorkers — and I’m not talking about 5-year-olds — who do not know how to ride. Until I was 18, I was one of them.
My embarrassment was heightened by the fact that I was part of a tiny minority. The National Survey of Bicyclist and Pedestrian Attitudes and Behavior [pdf], released last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that only 3 percent of adults surveyed said that not knowing how to ride was the primary reason they did not. Lack of access was the most common reason cited — by 28 percent — when respondents were asked why they have not been on a bike in the last 30 days or never ride during the summer.
The League of American Bicyclists, a national advocacy group based in Washington, has been “getting more calls from the lost generation of 30- to 50-year-old adults who were less likely than their parents to ride,” according to Meghan Cahill, a spokeswoman for the organization.
Ms. Cahill said that “balance and fear of ridicule are the two biggest factors to overcome” in learning how to ride.
There have been anecdotal reports that demand for adult bike lessons is rising.
Continue reading “For Adult Learners, Bike Riding Isn’t as Easy as It Looks”

[Baltimore Spokes: I’m posting this article to point out that tractor-trailer drivers in Maryland are not admonished to check mirrors or even look for cyclists when executing a right turn but simply cyclists are hazards and to tap the horn at them. Worst yet the State’s Director of Bicycle and Pedestrian accesses thinks what we have is fine.]

The debate on bicycle safety, mired in conflicting beliefs and a dearth of conclusive studies, stretches back decades with few firm conclusions.

On August 7, 2007, John Myslin, 25, a high school teacher at Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, California, was crushed by a tractor-trailer making a right turn into his path. The driver of the truck had stopped at a red light on Mission Street where it intersects Bay Street on the city’s west side. From the curb lane, vehicles can either turn right onto Bay or continue straight on Mission. The truck’s right-turn signal was blinking at this point, police said. Myslin then rode his blue mountain bike along the right side of the semi. As the light turned green, he tried to pass in front of the truck as the driver began a right turn onto Mission Street, witnesses told police. He didn’t make it.
Continue reading “Cyclists Find No Safety in Numbers”

The Canadian Embassy Officer’s Club is hosting an online silent auction,
starting June 4th, to benefit “The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation
https://www.nyof.org/ . NYOF is a U.S. based
nonprofit organization devoted to bringing hope to the most destitute
children in the beautiful but impoverished Himalayan country of Nepal. They
hope to raise $10,000 which would rescue 100 girls from indentured
servitude, let them come home to live with their family, pay their school
expenses for a year, and provide their family with a baby goat or piglet,
for only $100.

They have now several items related to cycling, including the grand prize on
an 18 nights trip to Vietnam and Laos, donated by Far and Away, a value of
$2295. Also a spot on “The Grand Tour in the Lower St. Lawrence region in
the province of Quebec” a value of $925. Bobby of the Great Peanut Tour is
donating 2 registrations as well, and Mountains of Misery one registration
for 2010. Also a registration for Bike VA 2010. They also have registrations
to various club centuries, RABA, PPTC, Oxon Hill, Marin Bike Club, New York
Great Escape and a Trek Jet 21 donated by Spokes and Cascade in Seattle has
donated 2 passports to 10 of their events. A 2 Dimensional Bike Fitting
donated by Contes of Arlington and a bike tune up donated by Papillon. Terry
Bicycle said they would donate saddles, and they expect more stuff in the
coming days.

Continue reading “Bicycle Items Featured in auction”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Bicycles with JD suspension forks

Hazard: The recalled bicycle’s fork can lose alignment causing the front wheel to turn unexpectedly. This can cause the rider to lose control of the bicycle and crash.

Incidents/Injuries: None reported.

Description: The recall involves model year 2008 Cannondale Adventure 2, Adventure 3, Adventure 2 Feminine and Adventure 3 Feminine bicycles. The model name is printed on the bicycle’s frame. The bicycles have a suspension fork with the words “cannondale AT35 adventure trail” printed on them. Bicycles equipped with the Rock Shox i-ride fork are not included in the recall.
Continue reading “Cannondale Recalls JD Forks”