living with cars on the road

[spokewench]

I read that after years of slow steady decline, the number of motorcycles fatalities has been suddenly rising dramatically due to increased car-motorcycle collisions. Could this be related to car cell phone use, I wonder?
Even here in NY state where it is ILLEGAL to use a hand held cell phone while driving- about every 10th car I see go by me has the driver holding a cell phone to their head and talking away....I don't think anyone is enforcing the law at all.

It is my personal opinion that whether it is cell phones or other things that cause people to be inattentive to their driving obligations, this is a huge and major cause of increased collisions.

However, I think that the fact that more people are starting to drive motorcycles again due to the increased in gas prices, could have somethign to do with the increased in collision/fatalities with motorcycles as well.

[mimitabby]

It is my personal opinion that whether it is cell phones or other things that cause people to be inattentive to their driving obligations, this is a huge and major cause of increased collisions.

However, I think that the fact that more people are starting to drive motorcycles again due to the increased in gas prices, could have somethign to do with the increased in collision/fatalities with motorcycles as well.

In regards to motorcycles, right now they are the large purchase of choice
for men seeking their second childhood. The age of riders in fatality accidents has climbed because of this new population of harley riding middle aged guys who are actually just learning to ride these very heavy beasts. There was a write up in the paper about a year ago about this.

[Grog]

In regards to motorcycles, right now they are the large purchase of choice
for men seeking their second childhood. The age of riders in fatality accidents has climbed because of this new population of harley riding middle aged guys who are actually just learning to ride these very heavy beasts. There was a write up in the paper about a year ago about this.

Two older men I heard of bought these huge motorcycles and called themselves the
Hell'Zheimers.

One of them broke his ankle early after his new purchase when he dropped the "beast" on himself.

Not sure about the stats, but your perspective makes a lot of sense!!

[xeney]

I think the point about the type of bike you ride and how you are dressed is a good one. I have never experienced overtly rude behavior from a driver when I'm on my clunky pink bike, dressed for work, although people still do stupid things. Instead I get a lot of waves and good mornings. When I'm on my road bike I only get that from other cyclists.

(Drivers are even friendlier when I don't wear a helmet, but I decided that friendliness was not a good tradeoff for safety.)

[Eden]

Weirdly enough around here it is the opposite of what Grog and Xeney have experienced. When I go out in my team kit I usually get better treatment by cars than when I take the big old Marin out in my street clothes.

[missymaya]

Yeah, I see a lot of those "hardcore bikers" (motorcycles) with ginormous bikes. Two weeks ago, a woman dropped her bike at a one-way stop T-section. Cars just kept goin by, not caring and she couldnt pick the bike up. My bf and I helped her move it to the side of the road and it took all 3 of us to get it up and the lady and I arent small. One of the first things she said was that it was her first time on a bike. She was wearing a helmet and she wasnt hurt, but still, she couldnt pick up the bike and it was her first time riding. What if this were in a major intersection! Not cool. Way to contribute to traffic problems

[Deborajen]

I get treated better when I'm on my commuter wearing street clothes than when I'm in my cycling clothes and on my road bike. I stick more to the less-traveled neighborhood streets on the commute, though, vs. the county roads with more car traffic (but wider lanes and shoulders) for the longer rides. Maybe that's part of it.

Last week, our city's Metropolitan Planning Organization had a public meeting to discuss future plans for the biking/jogging/walking path system. I went to that meeting and they had a presentation with statistics from a Federal government study about cycling safety. They did stress that a cyclist is 1.8 times more likely to be struck by a car when riding on a bike path vs. riding on the road. The most common location for the crashes is where the paths intersect with driveways (ie., business entrances).

So one of the proposed solutions for the bike path system is "road diet" (ie., restripe 2 or 3 of the 8 or 9 main east-west roads so that instead of four car lanes with no median, there will be two car lanes with a turn lane in the middle plus a bike lane on the far right in each direction). I'm all for a good bike system but YEEESH! Sharing the road with car traffic squeezed down to one lane each direction - no passing, etc. - to make room for BIKES??? Boy, if drivers didn't hate us already!

Deb