[SDCBC] What where they thinking?

[John Forester]

It is all very well to argue that we should base our safety programs on 
potential dangers. In a case such as the Apollo program, one has to do 
such analyses because there are very few chances for success. However, 
when discussing a highway safety program, one has a long experience of 
crashes on which to base one's program. I would suggest, though I 
haven't the source for all the data required, that a program of more 
right-turn-only lanes would produce a greater reduction in car-bike 
collisions than would spending an equal amount of money building Jersey 
barriers along roads with high-speed travel.

Big50_1 at yahoo.com wrote:
> I've been following this thread and several items came to mind: (a) 
> biking for exercise, (b) biking for transportation (safe) and (c) 
> biking for transportation (not-so-safe). (A) Biking for exercise: SR56 
> and San Luis Rey River Trail are two examples of continuous 
> bike-friendly roads that kinda' start nowhere and end nowhere but are 
> great in-between (by the way I'm working a training plan on SR56 to do 
> a metric century, I love that road!).  (B) Biking for transportation 
> (safe): examples are Pacific Beach and over-seas urban locations 
> (China, Philippines, etc.) where road congestion is high and car speed 
> is low.  Bikes and cars intermingle safely and bikes are used to get 
> around the local area with more efficiency than cars. Then there is 
> (C), biking for transportation (not-so-safe): this any place where the 
> car-bike speed differential is high.  Kinda' every place else.  You 
> can spin it any way you want but the fact is that unless there is a 
> physical barrier between high-speed cars and low-speed bikes, there is 
> potentially extreme danger to the bike rider.  Even with the best 
> bike-friendly road markings. Poorly laid-out road markings for bikers 
> may increase the danger but again, unless there is a physical barrier 
> between cars and bikes, there is always potential danger for the biker 
> that can never be removed.   Why the angst re road markings? Better 
> road-marking will (may?) lower the instance but NOT eliminate biker 
> damage from bike-car accidents.  Barriers, class 1 roadways and maybe 
> better technology (bike-avoidance radar in cars) would drastically 
> reduce biker fatalities/injury.  Just my $.02.
>
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-- 
John Forester, MS, PE
Bicycle Transportation Engineer
7585 Church St, Lemon Grove CA 91945
619-644-5481