Bicycle Safety

> It's illegal to ride on sidewalks here but it really is the best thing some of these people can/should do (at cruising speeds, anyway) Riding bikes on the sidewalk is known to be more dangerous than riding on the road: http://bicyclesafe.com/#crosswalk

>#2 The Door Prize: A driver opens his door right in front of you. If you have time to react to a car door suddenly opening in front of you, is it best to go around the door? Or should you brake and stop in a straight line, even if you might crash into the door and the person stepping out of the car? The same site contains a list of cyclist fatalities[0]. In over 95% of the car door collisions, the bicyclist was killed because they swerved or bounced in front of a following vehicle. They were not directly killed by crashing into the door. But, naturally, that list doesn't include all the times that a cyclist successfully swerved around the door and nothing happened. [0] https://bicyclesafe.com/doorprize.html

https://bicyclesafe.com/#wrongway I hate this term. The wrong way is simply the safest choice in blind hill situations with ignorant and distracted drivers.

non-leisure city biking is hard. the hardest things for me to learn was * if you are getting into a tight spot then own the lane. it is better for a car to see you and hit you then for it to not see you and hit you. * always have high intensity blinking lights ... (in some places it's illegal to ride at night without lights) more safety tips: https://bicyclesafe.com/

It's better if you read this https://bicyclesafe.com/#wrongway

Sidewalks are usually dangerous because they usually a lot of intersections with driveways and cross streets, and drivers aren't looking for fast-moving vehicles there. If it's a sidewalk along, say, fenced-in land with no driveways, risks are much lower. But cross intersections at pedestrian speed. This is a pretty decent website: http://bicyclesafe.com/#crosswalk

http://bicyclesafe.com/#righthook http://bicyclesafe.com/#dontPassOnTheRight the above article lists one mitigation for the right hook: "Ride to the left" and, similiarly "Don't pass on the right". Would this guidance (for bicyclists) be applicable in light of self-driving cars (in addition to human-driven cars)?

http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-… But more relevant to the Dutch situation: https://vvn.nl/dossier/fietshelm http://www.fietsersbond.nl/de-feiten/verkeer-en-veiligheid/fietshelmen… The main takeaway is that nobody in Netherland wants helmets to be mandatory. The positive effects of a helmet are insufficiently proven, and the negative effects of making helmets mandatory seem not worth the risk. Some organizations do recommend helmets for children between 10 and 14, which seems to be the group that's most likely to benefit from them.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but you are much safer riding with traffic than against it. Drivers are conditioned to look in the direction of traffic and they aren't going to expect someone coming the other way. This ends up causing a lot of accidents at intersections and parking lot entrances. In my area, [these accidents](http://bicyclesafe.com/#wrongway) are way to common. I almost hit a biker like this the other day because they were riding against traffic past my apartment entrance. [Here is a stack exchange question with some more stats on the topic](http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/9033/why-is-it-safer-to-bi…

I've been cycling in traffic for almost 3 years in a country with no bike lanes and pretty bad motorist behavior regarding cyclists. It was scary the first month, but then you get used to it and you learn a couple of rules that reduce your chances of getting into an accident significantly [1] Learning these rules really makes all the difference. Would you prefer to get into an accident and not get killed (thanks to a helmet), or to significantly reduce your chances of getting into an accidents altogether? A note on gear: get all the lights (front, back, laser lane) and reflectors (for individual spokes and tires too) that you can, set them up to blink, and use a bell and a mirror [1]: http://bicyclesafe.com/

I'm not going to say definitively whose "fault" it was, but the car behind you is not the biggest risk. The biggest risks are almost always in front of you-- cars pulling out of intersections, opening doors, and cars making sudden right-hand turns into your lane without seeing you. This has been my experience and the statistics bear this out (http://bicyclesafe.com/). If you're going to get hit from behind, it's probably because you swerved or a driver (going much faster than you) didn't see you and extra speed is not going to save you. Surviving the initial hit because you were riding fast doesn't mean much when your body slams into a guardrail or some other stationary object at 45 miles per hour.

My city is getting more of these and I always check before turning right. But last week I witnessed a car-bike collision that I'm unsure how to ever avoid: traffic in my lane was backed up to a standstill, but oncoming cars were flowing freely and one took a left into a restaurant parking entrance (between two stopped cars in my lane) just as a bike was passing the stopped cars in my lane on the right (NOT in a designated bike lane but even if it was, the left-turning car would have had no way of seeing the bike coming because all cars were stopped and blocking view.) Bike hit side of turning car at full speed. Neither saw each other coming. Bicyclist was seemingly ok and kept riding after 30 seconds. Do you just outlaw left turns in the presence of bike lanes? As I said in this case there was no bike lane and my understanding is that this is a known danger and the cyclist should not have been passing all the stopped cars on the right. See example #8 on this page: http://bicyclesafe.com/

scratch off point d. Helmets don't really do anything to protect you unless you practically fall off your bike standing still. I've seen brains on the street from at least two low-speed bike accidents where the cyclist was wearing a helmet. Also, it's not that all cyclists are disobeying the law. Those are just the ones you choose to see. Drivers and pedestrians alike just aren't looking. I always obey traffic laws on my bike. Edit: All these anecdotes are great and all, but it's not like we're going to be reading stories from all the people with brain injuries or who died. Cycling lanes and infrastructure do significantly more to make riding safer than helmets and helmet laws do. http://www.bicycling.com/sites/default/files/uploads/BI-June-13-Helmet… http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19036/feds-will-stop-hyping-e… http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html

I like this site on safe cycling: http://bicyclesafe.com/

There’s even an argument bike helmets make bike riding less safe (or at least don’t help at all): https://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html

More on counter-intuitive issues where an emphasis on helmets can lead to less safety: http://www.bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html "Summary: * Bicycle helmets may have some protective value, but not nearly as much as has been claimed, or most people seem to think. * Wearing a helmet does nothing to prevent you from being hit by a car. * Real bicycle safety involves learning how to ride properly. * Crash helmets could easily save more lives for motorists than bicyclists. * Helmet laws can result in the targeting of minorities, discourage cycling, make cycling more dangerous for those who remain [since more cyclists on the road increase driver-awareness of cyclists], and shift the blame in car-bike collisions to helmetless cyclists even if it was the motorist who was at fault."

There's apparently some controversy on the point. I don't personally have an opinion but this link has some discussion of the 85% stat among others. [EDIT: Oops. Link: http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html ] The effect of helmets on skier injuries is also ambiguous--presumably because the widespread use of helmets has at least correlated with more risky behaviors.