My city is super progressive and bike friendly, but even then it's effectively suicide to try and use certain bike lanes and everyone just has this communal knowledge.
a) capture routes of bike trips taken while using nav apps b) send camera-laden cars around, the same way these maps were originally built, and this time, measure bike trips c) ask bicyclists
If everyone really has this communal knowledge, as you say, then it can be gathered.
Still fails to capture individual preferences which are often complete opposites, sometimes even for the same person on different occasions.
When I'm riding fast I greatly prefer proximity to cars over proximity to pedestrians or slow cyclists, it's much safer because even the worst drivers are more predictable than average pedestrians, and the speed difference between fast cycling and urban driving is quite small anyways. In terms of injuries it doesn't matter much who takes you down. When I'm riding slow those preferences (and the safety considerations they are based on) are completely inverted.
The first time I rode my bike down there I terrified. You don't have much time to react, the hill creates a blind spot at the point where you have to cross traffic and because the road is used by people trying to beat traffic during rush hour, drivers speed constantly and don't really pay attention. Just on foot i've almost been hit by cars a few times at the top of the hill. Definitely not my favourite route.
As a lifelong city biker, I am curious what exactly you are talking about. Certainly, there are some roads where you're more likely to be hooked by someone turning on right (Market St in SF comes to mind), but not a "no go zone"?
Far more people have died from the right hook, it's biking's "most feared crash." You have to constantly watch out for oblivious drivers.
What really pisses me off about this is that the only time people discuss the safety of cyclists is in the wake of a fatal crash. If you dare to suggest that cyclists often have choices that can prevent the crash, you get called out for victim blaming.
It's bullshit to shut down discussion of things people can do to protect themselves because of some misguided respect for the dead. For goodness' sake talk about it so people on the streets are armed with the knowledge that will save their lives so we aren't having the same discussion again and again and again.
It doesn't matter what the law says, it doesn't matter who had the right to occupy that bit of the road, it matters that cyclists keep dying because they're the more vulnerable road user.
It's naive to think that we're going to train every driver to do the safe thing. It's far more realistic to educate the people with the most to lose (i.e. the cyclists) to do the safe thing regardless of whether the drivers around them are aware of them or not.
I'm not so sure. I think there are definitely things to do that can make you avoid the vast majority of these incidents (don't bike to the right of a car when an intersection is coming up if you can avoid, obviously look at the car's turn signals before passing them on the right, pass on the left when you think someone will turn right, etc.), but there are plenty of instances where it is not avoidable and even experienced cyclists can get right-hooked (like biking on a bike lane on a heavily trafficked road with many side streets to turn off of).
> It's naive to think that we're going to train every driver to do the safe thing.
I think it's not an either-or. I don't think that we have to throw in the towel on every effort to change behavior - people have been convinced to stop littering to a massive extent, checking your right mirror seems minor in comparison.
With the caveat that my experience is not your experience, I respectfully submit that the bike lane is poorly designed in this case and that it shouldn't be used to travel straight through the intersection in this case. I signal a lane-change to the left before the intersection and go straight through in the regular traffic lane, moving right ASAP after the intersection to not obstruct traffic.
My riding is mostly dense urban where traffic is moving slowly enough to do this if I put some hustle into it.
> I think it's not an either-or. I don't think that we have to throw in the towel on every effort to change behavior.
I am absolutely in agreement that it's not either-or, but if cyclists are doing something that's (almost) always safe, they're a lot less likely to be killed by the untrained drivers, of which there will be many for the foreseeable future.
What I do doesn't work for cyclists puttering along at 10mph (or grinding up a hill); the speed difference is too great to safely merge left. Training the drivers greatly increases the safety level for such cyclists on roads with cycle lanes between the regular lanes and the curb.
That said, I think that we can't just place the onus on bikers to both ignore the drawn on bike lane lines and also to bike considerably faster than they are comfortable without trying to also change driver behavior. I think this mostly agrees with your last point.
(I've ridden about 800 miles by bicycle so far this year, and >4000 total since I started using a GPS. No right hooks or right-hook close calls.)
In a busy intersection where one also has to attend to pedestrians, other cars, etc., moving in different directions, trying to track what's going on behind you can be almost impossible (and thus quite dangerous for all).
My "solution" to this problem is to carefully but fully occupy the bike lane before making such a turn. Yeah, it's illegal, and draws lots of swearing (and worse) from bicyclists. But there's just no other good way to keep everyone safe.
EDIT: Okay, it's a surface-grade light rail train. In the cases I'm familiar with, there's always a red light forbidding crossing through the path of such a train. So, you're not yielding to the train, you're obeying a signal that's in front of you.
As a cyclist (about 15,000 total miles, half touring, half commuting split between Boston and Cleveland), my solution to the problem is to not design the infrastructure in ways that sets cyclists up for the crash.
It is absolutely woefully bad design that cycle lanes on the right continue all the way to the intersection. A solution that works for experienced cyclists to to end the bike lane some distance before the intersection. This forces a merge in a zone where there's no risk of a right hook. I float this with the full understanding that it only works for cyclists who are capable of making the merge at around 20mph/30kmph. And/or where the topography is favorable.
No, you don't have to be able to sustain that speed, but being able to do it in short bursts greatly expands your choices when riding in urban traffic.
My experience has been that nobody minds much at that speed, especially if you merge back into the "bike lane" while you're still in the intersection but after you're past the lanes people would be turning right into. Turning traffic has to slow anyway to make the turn, after all.
This is a specific case of a general rule I try to apply when riding: Make people choose to hit you; don't let them do it accidentally.
I would add that this is really only a valid strategy in urban traffic where even the major arterials only flow under 30mph because the density of turns and stop lights prevents higher speeds. Major arteries in the suburbs or around malls are a nightmare for riding because traffic generally flows a lot faster. Some of the most hair-raising riding I've done was near a mall while bike touring. It was basically unavoidable, and also absolutely miserable.
Unless the road has sufficient room for a bike lane of a minimum width of 5 feet, then you end up with a lot of close passes from cars in the right lane and also end up riding in the door zone of parked cars to your right.
In those cases, it makes more sense to just ride in the center of the right-most lane available for traffic and get more room from cars passing you. This would work for streets that have multiple lanes for same direction traffic.
> Major arteries in the suburbs or around malls are a nightmare for riding because traffic generally flows a lot faster. Some of the most hair-raising riding I've done was near a mall while bike touring. It was basically unavoidable, and also absolutely miserable.
It really depends on how much traffic is present. I've ridden on roads in the center of the right lane with speed limits ranging from 35 to 45 mph without much of an issue. Drivers almost always change lanes to pass me or slow down behind me before passing.
Thank you for clarifying. Yes, cyclists riding in a regular traffic lane should absolutely take the center of the lane for all of the reasons you've listed. Again, make people choose to hit you; don't let them do it by accident.
In California, that's not illegal, it's the law. It's on the driver's test. Kind of counterintuitive at first, but seems much safer and also more consistent with the way turns are handled with any normal lane.
This is true. The closest thing thing to this is checking for pedestrians, but even the fastest pedestrians aren't moving more than 7 to 8 mph and will almost always check for vehicles prior to entering an intersection. A cyclist could be moving anywhere from 10 to 20 mph and could be quite far from the intersection and still end up in a crash with a turning vehicle.
> My "solution" to this problem is to carefully but fully occupy the bike lane before making such a turn. Yeah, it's illegal
In most states in the US, it's not illegal. The law states that right turns must be made as close as practicable to the right hand edge or curb.
Which state/country are you in? This is actually required in California, and I'm always annoyed at the majority of drivers who simply DO NOT come and occupy the bike lane intentionally, making it confusing for me (as a bicyclist) whether they are going to wait for me or not. (coupled with how a lot of drivers just don't use turn signals accurately).
Funnily enough, that's exactly what you're supposed to do and is required by law in every state i've lived in.
Boston (and the surrounding communities) are doing an increasingly large amount of the former. I no longer live there and never used them much, but I'd be keen to hear about the hazards of that design.
Unprotected bike lanes on these roads exist but over the past decade I've personally watched two people die on bikes from right turns and heard of dozens of collisions.