How does your community compare with others with respect to pedestrian and bicycle crashes in 2008?

Here are the Oakland County communities with the most crashes according to the Office of Highway Safety and Planning, Michigan State Police:

Vehicle-Pedestrian Crashes

1. Pontiac 24, 2 fatal
2. Southfield 28, 2 fatal
3. Royal Oak 17, 1 fatal
4. Waterford 11, 1 fatal
5. Oak Park 10

Others: Ferndale had 7 with 1 fatal and Birmingham had 6.

Vehicle-Bicycle Crashes

1. Royal Oak 27, 1 fatal
2. Farmington Hills 17
3. Pontiac 16
4. Southfield 16
5. Troy 16
6. Madison Heights 15
7. Waterford 15
8. Ferndale 12
9. Hazel Park 12
10. Rochester Hills 12

Others: Birmingham had 5, Oxford had 1 fatal

Royal Oak is tops for combined crashes just as they were in 2007. It’s expected that their upcoming non-motorized planning can address this dubious distinction.

If you spend much time perusing the available safety publications for Michigan, it becomes fairly evident that not much serious effort is put into bicycle and pedestrian analysis.

SEMCOG

One example is SEMCOG’s Crash Facts report where more analysis and pages are devoted to vehicle-deer crashes than either pedestrian crashes or bicycle crashes. This is despite the fact that deer caused just one driver fatality in 2007. There were 65 pedestrian fatalities and 7 bicyclist fatalities in 2007.

For 2008, SEMCOG issued a cheery press release because overall fatalities and crashes were down.

“We are extremely happy to report this continuing decline in traffic crashes in Southeast Michigan,” notes SEMCOG Executive Director Paul Tait.

SEMCOG failed to note that both bicycle and pedestrian fatalities were up. In fact, 18% of all fatalities were pedestrians and bicyclists in 2007. In 2008 that pecentage jumped to 24%.

It seems the “analysis” is simply plugging this year’s numbers into the same old template.

A worthwhile analysis would look at trends within the region and where within the roadway these crashes are occuring.

Do we really need SEMCOG telling us that “bicycle crashes were more common in warmer months…likely due to the difficulties of bicycling in snowy or icy conditions?” They’ve been recycling this same text since 2002.

MDOT

To their credit, MDOT has supported some pedestrian safety studies within the city of Detroit. The city of Detroit’s Traffic Engineering department is has applied for safety funding to make improvements that should reduced pedestrian crashes.

GTSAC

Also, the Governor’s Traffic Safety Advisory Council includes some good analysis within the Michigan Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Action Plan.

OHSP

One interesting analysis from the Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) compares 2007 bicycle crash injury severity for helmeted and non-helmeted riders. We’ve rebuilt their data table as follows:

(Note that it is unreported whether helmets were worn in a little over half of the crashes.)

Among bicyclists wearing helmets in crashes, a significantly higher percentage suffered serious injury or death when compared those without helmets. One would expect the helmeted riders would have a reduced percentage of serious injury or death.

Can this be explained by risk compensation or demographics?

Nonetheless, the OSHP apparently didn’t do much analysis since they’ve cut-and-pasted a quote that’s unsupported by their own data: “Making the use of helmets the single most effective countermeasure available to reduce head injuries and fatalities resulting from bicycle crashes.”

And just to be sure that 2007 wasn’t simply a unique year, we looked at this data back to 2004. For every year, bicyclists wearing helmets in crashes suffered an equal or greater percentage of serious injury or death.

For what it’s worth, there is not a trend towards increased helmet use among those involved in reported bicyclist accidents within Michigan.

Click on Detroit is reporting that a doctor after working a 24 hour shift, got into her car, and hit an experienced cyclist on Hines Drive.

Police said the female driver crashed head on into a 60-year-old man riding his bicycle with a group of friends. The impact left a large dent in the hood of the car. The cyclist was seriously hurt and is being treated at University of Michigan Hospital.

As of Friday night, no decision had been made whether or not the driver would be charged.

Click on Detroit also has video coverage of the crash.

It would be interesting to hear the eyewitness accounts from the others cycling in the group.

Apparently only Click on Detroit has covered this story so far.

Last month, New York City released a huge manual on how to design their city streets and sidewalks.

It’s purpose is to “serve as a comprehensive resource for promoting higher quality street designs and more efficient project implementation.”

And by the looks of it, this manual is a great resource for promoting better bicycle facilities and policies.

Street Design Policy

Included in the manual is a street design policy which lists the overall goals. The first four goals include references to bicycling, which is very impressive. New York City is clearly aiming to be much more bicycle-friendly.

“Design for Safety: Prioritize safety for all street users, particularly more vulnerable groups (children, the elderly, those with disabilities) and more vulnerable modes (walking, bicycling).”

“Design for Access and Mobility: Prioritize walking, bicycling, and transit by providing safe, accessible, convenient, and comfortable facilities for these modes, particularly on designated routes and at critical network connections.”

“Design for Context: Design local streets to be green, traffic calmed environments that encourage walking, bicycling, and recreational activities.”

“Design for Livability: Design streets to encourage physical activity for all ages and populations by making walking, bicycling, and transit attractive and convenient.”

Road Geometry

Chapter 2 of the manual covers road geometry and gives many great examples of bike lanes and paths.

One particular bike lane design is shown in the above photo. The design provides additional painted buffering between the vehicular travel lane and the bike lane. Though the buffering wouldn’t stop a car from encroaching in the bike lane, they increase the perceived safety for cyclists.

Buffered bike lanes seem like a great option for city of Detroit roads since they are often overbuilt and have the spare width needed for this implementation.

For more non-motorized transportation advocacy information from New York City, visit Streetsblog.

Link: New York City Street Design Manual

Last month while biking, I stopped at a red light on Catalpa at Woodward. I was not in the right lane since I was not turning. I was continuing westbound on Catalpa.

This is legal under state law 257.660a (d):

A person operating a bicycle upon a highway or street at less than the existing speed of traffic shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except as follows:

(d) When operating a bicycle in a lane in which the traffic is turning right but the individual intends to go straight through the intersection.

This apparently upset the solitary driver behind me. After the light turned green and I proceeded across Woodward, he rode up next to me, rolled down his window, and yelled profanities and threatened to “have me arrested.”

I just dropped back a little, got his license plate number, and followed him in case he was going to the police station. (He didn’t.) Had he threatened to hit me, I would have reported him for aggressive driving.

It’s situations like this that make me keep a cell phone handy on all my rides.

Still, the problem is unless a police officer witnesses it, it’s often a case of he said, she said.

So,?I wish I had a video camera always running to capture this unacceptable social behavior. Not only could it help with potential police enforcement, but publically posted such videos might bring public shame to those who deserve it.

One bicyclists is video recording such incidents. Jeff’s Bike Blog documents bad drivers and is apparently active in reporting them to the police. He even shows how he configures the cameras on his bike.

Have you shot video of aggressive drivers on your bike rides? What has been your experience reporting aggressive drivers to the police? Have they taken any actions?