Now the study is complete.
A few weeks ago, long-time LA bike advocate Dennis Hindman wrote a detailed analysis of the city’s bike-involved collisions, based on partial data for the year 2013.
Now he has finished his analysis of every bike collision listed in the state’s SWITRS traffic collision database last year.
The results are eye opening, and should give insight on how safety efforts should be directed for the greatest impact.
Or better yet, no impact between cyclists and motor vehicles.
But let’s be clear about one thing.
As impressive as Hindman’s study is, it shouldn’t be up to a single person, or organization, to analyze how collisions occur on our streets.
It should be the responsibility of our city government. Because if they don’t know how these collisions happen, they have no idea how to prevent them.
And traffic safety shouldn’t be left to guesswork.
……..
I have finally completed a list of all the types of 2,421 bicycle involved collisions that were reported by the LAPD in 2013. This was mainly done by just manually counting them. All of these collisions involved injuries.
There were 2,597 pedestrian involved collisions with motor vehicles and 2,277 for bicyclists (some of the reported 2,421 bicycle collisions for the year did not involve motor vehicles). Eighty of those pedestrian involved collisions were fatalities and fifteen were fatalities for bicyclists. There was one bicyclist collision with a train that was fatal. That brings the total reported collision fatalities for bicyclists reported by the LAPD at 16 for 2013.
Bicyclists riding the wrong way are 569 of the collisions. Drivers turning right were involved in 239 (42%) of these collisions. I did not count all the different ways the collisions occurred in this case since the bicyclists were not traveling in the correct direction. Its rather obvious from the raw data that the main danger when riding the wrong way is motor vehicles turning right.
A bicyclist will sometimes ride through a crosswalk in the opposite direction of motor vehicle traffic. From what I have observed, a motorist turning right will frequently just look to their left to see if a motor vehicle is coming and not to their right before proceeding.
Subtracting the wrong way riders from the total leaves 1,852 bicycle involved collisions.
From experience I know that the vast majority of bicyclists are riding between the parked motor vehicles and the front right quarter panel of moving vehicles. Few are riding directly in front of moving motor vehicles in the middle of the moving lane. Since that’s where most of the bicyclists are riding, then it would make sense that most of the collisions would involve cyclists riding in that position on the road. That does not necessarily mean that it is much more dangerous to be riding this way.
The following information does not include the raw collision data of wrong way bicycle riders.
According to some bicycle riders, the danger of being right hooked by drivers is greatly increased when you ride between the parked vehicles and moving vehicles because drivers are much less likely to see you there compared to riding directly in front of them in the middle of the motor vehicle lane. I counted almost as many collisions for bicyclists with motor vehicles turning left (326), as there were for motor vehicles turning right (337). It would appear that drivers tend to not see the bicyclist when turning in either direction before colliding with them.
Parked cars are also sighted as a major hazard by those advocating riding in the middle of motor vehicle lanes. I counted 155 collisions involving bicyclists and parked motor vehicles. I don’t know how many of these involved doors swinging open in front of the bicyclists.
If that sounds particularly hazardous, there were also 55 bicycle collisions with motor vehicles stopped, 125 sideswipes, 16 collisions involving drivers backing up, 7 drivers slowing and the bicyclist hitting them, 6 improper passes by drivers, 5 drivers parking, 17 unsafe driving speed, 72 rear end collisions, 23 lane changes by drivers and 20 lane changes by a bicyclist. That’s 346 collisions. Well over double the amount of bicycle collisions involving parked motor vehicles.
Another argument against riding to the right of moving vehicles and next to parked vehicles is the danger from cars exiting driveways. There were 78 bicycle involved collisions with motor vehicles entering traffic. I presume those to have mainly occurred due to vehicles pulling away from the curb, exiting driveways and freeway off-ramps. Adding this to the parked vehicle collisions still doesn’t come close to the amount of other types of collisions I mentioned above.
There were also 20 head-on collisions where the direction of travel was either E/W or N/S and 367 collisions where both driver and bicyclist were heading straight (typically intersections) but in different directions (not head-on).
Drivers making a U-turn collided with bicyclists 12 times and 3 U-turns by bicyclists involved a collision with a motor vehicle.
Four collisions involved bicycles passing motorists and 6 were unsafe turns by bicyclists.
Bicyclists entering traffic involved 104 collisions.
Right turns by bicyclists were 25 of the collisions and left turns 47.
LAPD reported 29 pedestrian collisions with bicycles. No pedestrian was killed.
Bicyclists hitting an unknown object, slipping and falling or hitting a pothole involved 39 injury reported collisions.
Bicyclist involved in a collision with another bicyclist was reported 7 times.
There were 12 collisions where the primary factor was unknown.
There was one case where a bicyclist hit the driver and the driver (88 years old) was the only one with an injury and also one collision where the passenger of the vehicle was the only one who had an injury when it involved a bicycle rider.
Lastly, a bicyclist injury occurred from colliding with an animal.
My total count is larger than the 2,421 bicycle involved collisions due to counting such things as entering traffic, turning by bicycles and motorists separately for each collision. Each collision could involve a turn by both bicycle and motorist or entering traffic and a turn.
The variety of types of collisions reinforces to me that the Dutch safety principle of separation by mass, speed and direction when possible is the way to go to improve safety. Bicycle riders should not be mixed with motor vehicles that have a much greater mass and are going at a much greater average speed than the bicyclist.
Having more than one motor vehicle lane in each direction on a street increases the likelihood of a higher motorist speed, increases the chance of lane change and also increases the possibility that the driver will get distracted by all of the different actions going on around them. That’s why the Dutch national Crow manual for bicycle infrastructure advises to have a cycle track or bike path built if there is more than one motor vehicle lane in each direction on a street.
Here’s a list of the 16 reported bicycle collision fatalities by the LAPD in 2013 and the primary factors for the collisions:
- 1-bicyclist unsafe speed
- 1-driver unsafe speed. Both driver and bicyclist headed west. Hit and run driver.
- 1-train
- 2-parked vehicle
- 1-driver alcohol/drugs. Both driver and bicyclists headed east. Three bicyclists involved.
- 1-driver alcohol/drugs. Both driver and bicyclist headed east.
- 1-driver headed east/bicyclist headed north.
- 1-stop sign/signal. Driver moving south/bicyclist headed west. Hit and run driver.
- 1-stop sign/signal. Driver headed west/bicyclist headed south. Hit and run driver.
- 1-stop sign/signal. Driver headed south/bicyclist headed west.
- 1-stop sign/signal. Driver headed north/bicyclist headed west.
- 1-stop sign/signal. Driver headed south. Direction of travel for bicyclist not indicated. Bicyclist 90 years old. Hit and run driver.
- 1-unknown primary collision factor. Both driver and bicyclist making left turn.
- 1-right turn driver/bicyclist entering traffic.
- 1-right turn driver/bicyclist proceeding straight.
This shows some of the wide variables in collisions. A bicyclist cannot avoid all of these situations. A barrier between the bicyclist and driver would decrease the potential for drivers and bicyclist to hit each other when changing lanes, rear-end collisions or merging. Removing the parked vehicles from arterial streets or a buffer between the bicyclist and parked vehicles would reduce some of the conflicts. Different signal phases for bicyclists/pedestrians and drivers at the intersections would decrease the potential conflicts further.
……..
Thanks to Dennis Hindman for caring enough about your safety and mine to assume this responsibility himself.
