-> According to an article in the Feb. 22nd issue of Kansas Cycling News, "The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota recently released a report, Understanding Bicyclist-Motorist Crashes [https://bit.ly/Y1oqYp] that offers ‘A Comprehensive Look at Crash Data From 2000-2010 and Recommendations for Improved Bicyclist Safety.’ As you might expect, there is a lot of data to digest, but a few points jumped out: ‘Approximately one out of five crashes are hit-and-runs. Bicyclists sustained an injury in 87.0 percent of crashes. It is estimated that motorists sustained an injury in no crashes. Forty-one percent of crashes occur at intersections and another 40 percent occur within 50 feet of intersections. There is a clear correlation between the number of bicyclists and the crash rate. As the number of bicyclists has increased over the past decade, the crash rate has decreased. On streets and corridors with higher volumes of bicycle traffic, the crash rate tends to be lower than on streets with lower volumes of bicycle traffic. It appears that bicyclists and motorists are equally contributing to the causes of crashes."
"Most crashes are occurring at intersections along major arterials. Motorists are not seeing or yielding to bicyclists. Bicyclists are not riding in a predictable manner. Some of this is familiar stuff, if you’ve been paying attention. The ‘Safety in Numbers’ phenomenon — the more bicyclists there are, the safer each of them is — has been widely reported around the nation. A study in California, for instance, concluded that ‘a motorist is less likely to collide with a person walking and bicycling when there are more people walking or bicycling’ [Safety in numbers: more walkers and bicyclists, safer walking and bicycling: https://1.usa.gov/15PwBvh ]…"
Source: https://bit.ly/YhMabE
Title: "Stunning Numbers from Minnesota"
Author: Randy Rasa
from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
Biking in Baltimore