Here’s a quick thought for Friday.

It’s not uncommon to hear those who don’t ride bicycles or those who are just starting out say they don’t feel comfortable in bike lanes. One often heard reason? It’s just paint separating you from the cars.

Ask them if they’ve drive on a two-way road? You know those yellow lines in the center? That’s paint. (Thank you, Edward Hines.)

Cars crossing the centerline and hitting others is common crash type, especially with drunk or distracted drivers.

Bicyclists getting hit from behind is not very common. Most car-bike crashes occur at intersections, and usually in crosswalks.

Perceptions create reality

One interesting feature of roads with bike lanes is cyclists perceive them to be safer, so more cyclists ride. When more cyclists ride, everyone is safer due to the safety in numbers hypothesis.

When you have more people on bikes and you have roads with bike markings and signs, drivers’ expectation of seeing cyclists increases — and they adapt their driving habits. Safety increases.

Benefits to others

There is a Detroit resident in Southwest Detroit campaigning against bike lanes there. Her issues have gone so far as City Council where yesterday it was on the agenda for the Neighborhood and Community Services Standing Committee.

In response, the City Planning Commission reviewed the bike lane issues and wrote a report for the committee. The report noted that bike lanes “help develop more travel choices in Detroit, enhance travel safety, and improve the city’s quality of life.”

We agree.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are many benefit to bike lanes and most have nothing to do with bicycling. This paper from the Oregon DOT documents them.

Yes, even motorists benefit — something that’s always worth mentioning when making your bike lane sales pitch in the Motor City.

Besides, it’s just paint.

Many of the bike lanes installed or currently being installed in the city of Detroit are the result of local community development organizations (CDO). These CDOs have found private funding to match MDOT transportation enhancement grants.

More recently, the city of Detroit has been championing bike lane projects funded through MDOT safety grants. These grants are available for roads having high levels of crashes, something Detroit has plenty of.

For 2011, the city received funding for a mile of West Vernor (Lansing Road to Waterman) in Southwest Detroit. That project will be completed this year and it includes a couple miles of bike lanes.

Detroit has gotten more ambitious for 2012. The city received six MDOT safety grants for these four road corridors:

• Central Ave. from West Vernor to McGraw
• East 7 Mile from the I-75 Service Drive to Gratiot
• West Chicago from Spinozza to just west Monica
• Dix from Waterman to Woodmere

The city has said they will put bike lanes on these road corridors wherever it is possible. For example, parts of Central are too narrow for bike lanes, so other options will be considered.

Overall, the city engineers recognize that adding bike lanes as well as other Complete Street designs improve overall safety for all road users.

The U.S. DOT’s BIKESAFE web site agrees:

Bike lanes have been found to provide more consistent separation between bicyclists and passing motorists than shared travel lanes. The presence of the bike lane stripe has also been shown from research to result in fewer erratic motor vehicle driver maneuvers, more predictable bicyclist riding behavior, and enhanced comfort levels for both motorists and bicyclists. The extra space created for bicyclists is also a benefit on congested roadways where bicyclists may be able to pass motor vehicles on the right.

Safety in Numbers

In addition, studies show bike lanes encourage more people to ride. One survey of Detroit residents found that:

• Majority of respondents felt uncomfortable riding a bike on a major road without bike lanes and through areas with numerous vacant buildings.
• 37% of respondents would be comfortable bicycling on a major roadway if a bike lane was present.

And, the more bicyclists on the road, the safer it is for everyone.

“It’s a positive effect but some people are surprised that injury rates don’t go up at the same rate of increases in cycling,” says Sydney University’s Dr Chris Rissel, co-author of a 2008 research report on cycling.

“It appears that motorists adjust their behaviour in the presence of increasing numbers of people bicycling because they expect or experience more people cycling. Also, rising cycling rates mean motorists are more likely to be cyclists, and therefore be more conscious of, and sympathetic towards, cyclists.”

Leading the region

So while some road agencies in Metro Detroit are just starting to discuss bike lanes, the city is pursing safety funding and putting paint on the road. Though the City may not have a Complete Streets ordinance or resolution (yet!), it is beginning to implement Complete Street designs.

We just sent the following letter to Congressman Gary Peters asking his support for continued bike and pedestrian funding and HR 1780 — the federal Complete Streets bill.

The fatality numbers for Oakland County, which Peters represents a portion of, are quite compelling. There have been reductions in road fatalities among motor vehicle operators, but far less so for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For that reason, 29% of all road fatalities in Oakland County in 2010 are now pedestrians and bicyclists. This is an increase from 25% in 2009. The national average? Only 14% in 2009.

And for 2010 Oakland County’s bike and pedestrian fatality percentage is higher than Wayne and Macomb County’s.

Clearly something needs to be done to reduce bicycle and pedestrian deaths in Oakland County. Building Complete Streets needs to be a priority.

[Data sources: Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration]

Here is our letter to Congressman Peters:

(more…)

We produced a report showing bicycle crashes from 2004 through 2009  in Michigan and the degree of injury for each cyclist. We ran the report for cyclists with and without helmets.

For the majority of crashes it is not known whether the cyclist was wearing a helmet. We dropped those numbers. And in some cases, the police report said the cyclist was wearing a safety belt. We ignored those as well.

Only 40% of the police crash reports properly reported whether the cyclist was wearing a helmet or not. That shouldn’t be acceptable. Do we need an improved police reporting form or more training? We’re not sure.

But among those crashes that were properly reported, about 17% said the bicyclist was wearing a helmet in the crash.

Michigan Bicycle Crashes, 2004 – 2009

Now, let’s look at just the adult cyclists 18 and older. Helmets were worn in about 23% of the crashes.

Michigan Bicycle Crashes, 2004 – 2009, Adults only

One conclusion to make is that there isn’t much difference in injury severity between those wearing a helmet and those that are not. There’s a slightly higher fatality rather for non-helment wearers but helmeted cyclists do suffer from higher injury rates.

However, there’s not enough information to say these differences are due to helmet use.  Experience, risk taking, riding styles, rural vs. urban roads and more all play a role in the types of crashes that occur. A study would need to remove those factors to really determine the affect helmets have on injury severity.

On Wednesday at 54-year old male cyclist was hit and killed by a motorist when she drove off the road in Michigan’s “safest city”, Sterling Heights.

Fox 2 News reports:

Police say Julia Werth was traveling eastbound on 18 Mile between Mound and Ryan when she dropped something in her car. When she went to pick it up, she allegedly veered off the road and struck a 54-year-old man, who happened to be riding his bike on the gravel shoulder just a few feet ahead.

FOX 2 has learned Werth, the woman accused in this fatal accident, is 20 years old. We found out she has twelve points on her driving record for two alcohol violations, two speeding tickets and a car accident.

It is not clear if Werth will face any criminal charges.

The Macomb Daily is reporting that charges have not been filed as of today.

No, 18 Mile is not a Complete Street though facilities such as bike lanes don’t prevent bad drivers from killing others. In this case, the victim was apparently riding on the gravel shoulder. Complete Streets can make bicyclists more visible to drivers, but whether that would have helped in this case is merely speculation

One frustrating sideline to this story? Sterling Heights Police Lt. Dale Dwojakowski told the  the Detroit Free Press:

“A bicycle can ride on the roadway and they do have all the rights a car would have,” he said. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t on the roadway, he was on a gravel shoulder. And even more unfortunate, there was a brand new sidewalk just installed about 15 feet from where he was riding.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the Lieutenant’s intent but it sounds like he would like to see cyclists on sidewalks. Fox 2 News echoed his comment as well.

At least they didn’t say it was “even more unfortunate” that he couldn’t afford a car.

The bottom line focus needs to be on the driver, who had a very poor driving record at a young age and apparently hadn’t learned from prior mistakes.

There is a Prosecute Julia Werth page on Facebook that has now grown to 203 people. UPDATE 12/6/2010: Facebook removed the original page. The replacement page is Justice for Jim Sawicki.

And if you have any tips regarding this crash, please call the Sterling Heights police at (586) 446-2892.

This is not the first bicyclist to be killed in Sterling Heights this year. This summer two motorists hit and killed a cyclist. The first motorist fled the crash scene.

In 2009 a cyclist was killed in Sterling Heights , as were two more in 2006.

From 2004 through 2009, there Sterling Heights averaged 0.40 bicyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents. These 2010 deaths will raise that rate significantly, making it much more than double the entire state of Michigan’s rate of 0.23 bicyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents. (The city of Detroit rate is 0.27.)

Clearly Sterling Heights isn’t Michigan’s safest city for bicycling — and that is most unfortunate.