Today I took a spill on my bike.
It’s been years since I had a crash, and in a sense I guess I was ‘overdue.’ That didn’t make it any more fun or any less scary, though.
Everything turned out fine; my bike and I both got away with nothing worse than a few cuts and scrapes. Still, if I hadn’t been on a deserted side street, things could have turned out a lot worse.
The occasional spill is a fact of life if you bicycle regularly, though you can minimize the chances by learning how to handle your bike better and by bicycling carefully. Likewise, everyone, even the most attentive and responsible cyclist (or driver), makes the occasional mistake.
An invisible patch of oil catches you on a turn…a pedestrian steps into your path, distracting you from the red light ahead…your foot slips off the pedal…your headlight batteries die on a dark, rainy night…it can happen to the best of us.
The problem, of course, is that we’ve designed our streets and our transportation system in a way that means a mistake or a spot of bad luck can well have deadly consequences. In my case, if I’d had a fast-moving car behind me…well, I’d rather not dwell on what might have been.
Can it be different? Do we have to settle for hazardous streets? Or can we create streets that forgive mistakes?
If you’d asked me that a year ago, I would have said no. But last year, in the Netherlands, I came to believe that it is possible. In Amsterdam they’ve reduced their traffic deaths and injuries by 40% since 2000. How did they do it? Every street is built to be safe for every user, and the most significant step is slowing cars down. A bike-car crash at 15 MPH is much more likely to end well than one at 45 MPH.
They call this approach “sustainable safety,” and no road facility is built that doesn’t increase safety for everyone.
We have the tools and the knowledge needed to make “sustainably safe” streets here and now — now all we need is the will.
Did you actually dump on the Streetcar tracks or do you just like the sign?
I’ve crashed on those and other tracks numerous times, but this was on a “regular” street (I was just looking for a graphic that expressed ‘bike crash’ without being gory or scary).
I do hear from a cyclist every couple of weeks or so who has crashed on the downtown streetcar tracks. One of our volunteer receptionists even broke her elbow on them. They’re definitely seen by the cycling community as a major hazard for bikes.
What do you think? What could we do to make streetcar and bikes work together better?
I think our experience in the Netherlands was that bikes and streetcar tracks could mingle quite safely. There were two distinct differences that I noted however:
1) Streetcars tend to be center-running in Amsterdam, but perhaps more importantly, the tracks don’t pinch up against curbs, forcing cyclists into a ‘funnel’ that traps them.
2) Skinny tires were not in evidence in Amsterdam.
Clearly we can do better here on #1, and we’ve made some progress on our platform design in South Waterfront and the Eastside represents and opportunity to do even better. But we can’t ever completely remove conflicts and I think skinny-tired folks are always going to need to exercise caution. I wonder if the tire-width is part of the safety equation in the Netherlands.
I think tire size is a major factor. My tires are wide, and I seem to be able to navigate the rails a lot better, expecially in the rain. I deliberately chose a “utility bicycle” for urban commuting so as to lessen hazards such as this one.