Re: BCGP and Bike Lanes

[Robert Wisdom]

On Tuesday, July 23, 2002, at 01:47 PM, Peter Rosenfeld wrote:

>> On Tuesday, July 23, 2002, at 09:33 AM, Peter Rosenfeld wrote:
>>
>>> Where I draw the lines are facilities that increase or reinforce
>>> excessively dangerous activities. Due to the high potential of
>>> dooring in city areas, I feel that door zone bike lanes fit into
>>> this category. In such a case, I would call the facility an "attractive
>>> nuisance" in the legal sense. I also feel there are ethical issues
>>> in knowingly designing a facility that gives a false sense of security.
>>
>>      Let's put it into numbers. How many dooring deaths, linked to use of
>> bike lanes, do you consider excessive? I think the benefits of bike lanes
>> would be worth 10 deaths per state per year. So 500 deaths per year; less
>> than one in a million. Can you make the case that there are anywhere near
>> that many dooring deaths linked to bike lanes?
>>
>>      Robert

        You didn't quote the whole post. I said:

(Now is probably a good time to not [note] I speak only for myself here :-
)

> Why would you think bike lanes are worth 500 excess deaths a year?
> Do you really mean this?

        Oh... I seemed to have offended again. No I didn't really mean this. 
About once a year I think I am totally clear about being facetious, and the 
point gets missed. Maybe I should have said 5,000 so people would have been 
sure. I apologize.

        What I was trying to get you to do is put a number on what you think 
"excessively dangerous activities" are. The point I was trying to make is 
that I suspect (but don't know) that the number of dooring deaths linked to 
bike lanes is "Very low down in the noise."

        Again, let me say:

1) I was being facetious.
2) I do NOT "have an official capacity with BCGP or any other planning 
organization"
3) I thank youo for giving some hard number (below) to an argument that up 
I found lacking them. I'm glad of the result even if i am ashamed of the 
way i got it.

        Robert Wisdom (It is a name, not a lifestyle. Clearly)

>  Are you ready to go public with this statement? Do you
> have an official capacity with BCGP or any other planning organization?
>
> Dooring deaths are hard to estimate due to the rarity of all bike deaths.
>  The
> example you gave of 500 excess deaths a year would be increasing the 
> number of
> deaths from around 800 to 1300, a 63% increase. If you think the political 
> aims
> of lanes are worth such a large number of deaths, I have nothing to say to 
> you
> and recommend that all planning organizations disassociate themselves from 
> you.
>
> Serious accidents are much more common. Recent studies indicate that in 
> urban
> areas with parallel parking, dooring injuries account for a significant 
> fraction
> of all car/bike collisions. In Santa Barbara such bike lanes seem to be
> associated with an increase of doorings from 7.4% of all car/bike 
> collisions to
> 16%. Other studies have indicated that dooring deaths are just as serious 
> as
> other car/bike collisions. So we are talking about a very significant 
> number of
> serious injuries.
>
> However, because nationally most bicyclists are not exposed to situations 
> that
> can result in dooring, they are not a common accident, accounting for 
> about 0.8%
> of all car/bike accidents.
>
> So for death numbers: Nationally, assuming doorings cause deaths in 
> proportion
> to their injury rate ( which seems reasonable given the injury severity) 
> you
> would expect dooring to result in less than 1 percent of deaths, on the 
> order of
> 8 deaths. Very low down in the noise.  In places like Santa Barbara, 
> Boston, and
> Philadelphia, maybe 7 to 16% of deaths. Since a place like Philadelphia 
> has,
> what, maybe 6 or 7  bike deaths a year, this would translate into one extra
> death every 1 to 2 years if I worked the numbers correctly.
>
> -Peter Rosenfeld
>
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