Collisions rates decline with increases in the numbers of people walking or bicycling.
P.L.
Jacobsen states that “collisions rates decline with increases in the
numbers of people walking or bicycling”. It is unlikely that the people walking
and bicycling become more cautious if their numbers are larger, therefore the
behavior of motorists controls the likelihood of collisions with people walking
and bicycling.
So what are administrations doing to involve more and more people to
cycle and walk? There’s a worldwide debate around this topic, so in this
article we just want to encourage some careful considerations. We are not going
through international law descriptions, but we want to provide you just some approaches
about safety while cycling.
More and more administrations are moving towards
bike lanes, taking away some parking spots. An interesting initiative comes
from the SFMA (San Francisco Metropolitan Authority), which approved a project
for new sidewalks and bike lanes in Oak Street (one of the biggest road in SF):
the project consists in 3 travel lanes, 1 parking (8ft), 2 sidewalks (10ft
width each), one green bike lane (7,5 ft) and 1 buffer (5ft) to protect
cyclists from traffic.
One of the most common debate is on roundabouts: long
story short, they are safer than junctions because they reduce the points of
conflict between motor vehicles and pedestrians/cyclists. Accepted this, the
debate becomes interesting when talking about type of roundabouts.
An early attempt to deal with the “cycle lane
issue” was to mark preferential lanes for cyclists. With cycle lanes,
bicyclists do not merge into the flow of motor traffic and, inside a
roundabout, they travel around the outer side. The coloured road surface
indicates that exiting vehicles are required to give way to bicyclists. This is
what many administrations are implementing, as a first step towards safety for
cyclists and pedestrians. However studies from the US and North Europe found
this approach to be hazardous to cyclists.
Here’s two different “new approaches”.
In the US the “Design Guidance for Roundabouts”
recommends to end cycle lane before the
entrances, so cyclists merge into the stream of motor traffic. The special
features of modern roundabouts, including splitter or diverter islands and a
limited diameter of the circular path, decrease the speed of motor traffic and
so it reduces the risk of collisions for motorists as well as cyclists below
that of conventional junctions.
The Dutch CROW guidelines, following the 'Sustainable
Safety' approach, take a much different tack to deal with cyclists and
roundabouts. Instead of merging the cyclists with motor traffic, in providing
predictable behaviour to road users, the guidelines recommend cyclists be given
separate bicycle tracks on roundabouts.
As you may know, there’s no right answer, and
each administration is free to try different safety regulations for cyclists
and pedestrians: the truly positive aspect of this debate is that something is
moving forward and accidents and injuries are decreasing year after year.
