Bikes and the "illusion of safety"

US Transportation fatalities 2018

The "illusion of safety" phrase is Randal O'Toole's:

Traffic fatalities between 2007 and 2019 declined by 13 percent, but bicycle fatalities increased by 21 percent. In response, many cities have installed or are planning to install bike lanes, often by taking away lanes from automobiles. However, no one really knows whether such practices actually improve bicycle safety.

A 100-page report on bicycle safety released in 2019 by the National Transportation Safety Board was able to draw upon at least eight large databases on bicycle accidents. Yet it was unable to definitively show whether the safety measures being taken by many cities, including bike lanes, road diets, and complete streets, truly increase bicycle safety or merely create an illusion of safety.

The notion that the government can somehow make riding a bike safe is a persistent delusion that's encouraged by stories like this in the NY Times the other day:

Cycling activists in the fast-growing Las Vegas metropolitan area placed the first “ghost bike” at the scene of a fatal accident in 2016 to denounce and mourn the loss of one of their brethren....As a call to action, they have erected a half-dozen of these memorials — stripped-down working bicycles painted a ghostly shade of white — in the last four years.

The bikes were also a message to Nevada lawmakers: Do something about the carnage. “The response we got to the cyclist deaths was like what you get after a mass shooting,” said Pat Treichel, a founder of the group Ghost Bikes Las Vegas. “People offered thoughts and prayers. And then nothing happened..."

Five cyclists were killed on a rural stretch of highway just south of Las Vegas last month when the driver of a box truck struck a group of 14 bicyclists who were taking part in an annual 130-mile ride escorted by a safety vehicle with flashers.

The driver, Jordan Alexander Barson, 45, of nearby Kingman, Ariz., told investigators that he had fallen asleep at the wheel moments before the crash, on Dec. 10. He was found to have a high level of methamphetamine in his system and faces 12 felony charges, including driving under the influence and reckless driving.

Whether Barson actually fell asleep or was simply under the influence is beside the point, since there's nothing the authorities can do except punish him and hope it might deter similar future tragedies:

“There’s a much broader picture here,” said Justin Jones, a commissioner in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, and an avid cyclist who keeps a Ghost Bike in his office to stress bicycling safety. “It’s not just increasing penalties. Going to jail for longer periods for killing a cyclist isn’t necessarily going to help the next bicyclist on the road. But more education might.”

Yes, it might. And tougher legal penalties might also help. 

But government officials everywhere should also make this clear to cyclists and would-be cyclists: nothing they can do will really make riding a bike perfectly safe, particularly from this kind of accident.

Something similar happened here in San Francisco on New Year's eve:

According to San Francisco police, a gray Honda on Second Street went through a red light at Mission Street and and struck a gray Ford traveling on Mission toward Second, causing the Honda to strike two Elizabeth Platt, 60, and Hanako Abe, 27, who were in the crosswalk. 

The driver of the Honda, which had been reported stolen in Daly City on Dec. 29, abandoned the car and fled on foot. Officers tracked down and arrested 45-year-old Troy McAllister of San Francisco. Police said McAllister, already on parole for robbery, had committed a restaurant burglary in the 200 block of Ritch Street less than an hour before the collision. 

A search of the Honda turned up a handgun and extended magazine, as well as suspected methamphetamine, according to police, who said McAllister is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs.

Nothing the authorities can possibly do will deter people like McAllister and the Las Vegas driver. 

The Centers for Disease Control provides a warning that gets little publicity. 

And long-time cyclist and author Robert Hurst insists on realism in The Art of Cycling: "It's silly to overlook the dangers of cycling." Hurst points out that, yes, cycling accidents with cars can be fatal, but most cycling injury accidents are "solo falls" that don't involve motor vehicles.

Anti-car special interest groups, like Walk San Francisco, demagogue the issue and support City Hall's "improvements" to city streets under the Vision Zero slogan.

But the most irresponsible campaign by cycling supporters is the push to get children on bikes: Bikes and Children: Good intentions gone awry and Special interest groups, City Hall using pandemic to push anti-car agenda.