Bicycle Safety: How to Not Get Hit by Cars
This page shows you real ways you can get hit and real ways to avoid them. This is a far cry from normal bicycle safety guides, which usually tell you little more than to wear your helmet and to follow the law. But consider this for a moment: Wearing a helmet will do absolutely nothing to prevent you from getting hit by a car. Sure, helmets might help you if you get hit, but your #1 goal should be to avoid getting hit in the first place. Plenty of cyclists are killed by cars even though they were wearing helmets.
Safe Routes
Safe Routes to School programs enable community leaders, schools and parents across the United States to improve safety and encourage more children to safely walk and bicycle to school. In the process, programs are working to reduce traffic congestion and improve health and the environment, making communities more livable for everyone.
BIKESAFE
The Bicycle Countermeasure Selection System (BIKESAFE) is intended to provide practitioners with the latest information available for improving the safety and mobility of those who bicycle. BIKESAFE is an expert system that allows the user to select appropriate counter-measures or treatments to address specific problems. BIKESAFE also includes a large number of case studies to illustrate treatments implemented in communities throughout the United States.
Lane Control
Check out this animation to see all the hazards a bicycle driver faces when trying to stay too far to the right in the right-hand lane.
Bicycling Info
Once you have an idea of where bicycle-related problems and issues exist in your community, you can begin to implement solutions that will make your streets safer, more accessible, and more inviting to bicyclists. Each community member or agency can take part in some or all of the activities described above to improve the bicycling environment. The more comprehensive the approach, the more likely you are to achieve long-lasting success.
Ohio City Bicycle Co-op Bicycle Safety Quiz
This quiz was developed by Jim Sheehan, Director of the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op in Cleveland where Sylvia bought her beloved Peugeot bicycle. It’s a quiz the store gives to everyone who buys a bike at the OCBC to test their riding skills. The OCBC also offers free safety classes. OCBC is a model of what bike stores should do. Members of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are planning on encouraging bike rental shops in SF to give renters a quiz and require them to wear helmets.
League of American Bicyclists
Find out when and where there is bike safety course near you taught by an instructor certified by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB). You can also find on the LAB website links to biking tips and a series of short videos on bike safety.
The Ultimate Bike Safety Guide
This is a great bike safety site, linking to numerous other websites w/ bike safety information. It has sections entitled: Bicycle Safety Resources and Educational Tools, Bicycling and The Law, Bike Safety For Kids and Bicycle Safety Advocacy Groups.
Crashes Drop By Almost Half When Bike Lanes Are Green
Crashes for all road users (drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists) on streets with green lanes drop on average by 40 percent, and sometimes as much as 50 percent, according to a memorandum from Deputy New York Mayor Howard Wolfson.
City, State Stats on Pedestrian/Bicycle Fatalities
This media fact sheet shows states and cities relative to each other in terms of pedestrian/bicycle traffic deaths.
Crash Medical Outcomes Data Project
Helmet use reduces traumatic brain injury (TBI) among young bicyclists. Studies have shown helmets to be 63-88% effective in preventing TBI. .
Kid’s Bicycle Safety Guide
It’s as easy as riding a bike! That’s an expression that has been used for decades, and it refers to the fact that once you learn how to ride a bike, it’s a skill that you will never forget. While riding a bike for the first time gives children a sense of excitement and adventure, to parents it can be a nervous experience. From the time that parents take off the training wheels, children are out of parents control and are subject to all the fun and dangers of biking in the outside world.
Kids Health Bike Safety
Bike riding is a lot of fun, but accidents happen. Every year, about 300,000 kids go to the emergency department because of bike injuries. Some of these injuries are so serious that children die, usually from head injuries.
Bike Kid’s Shop: A Kid’s Guide to Bicycle Safety
Riding a bike is a fun way to get exercise and to spend time with family and friends. Children tend to ride their bicycles a lot, particularly during the warmer months. It’s very important that all children are aware of different safety rules to ride by, so they can avoid injuries. By following some simple practices, you can have fun on your bike and still be safe.
A Guide for Parents on Bike Safety for Kids
This link has good information for parents to know about their kids’ safety needs. It has many useful links to other websites with kids’ bike safety information
Series of Articles Dealing With Bicycle Laws in Oregon
Several articles written by Ray Thomas of Swanson, Thomas, & Coon, Attorneys at Law.
The “Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Transportation Safety Act of 2007”
Among other safety features, it would Initiate rulemaking to consider issuing or amending Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to reduce a vehicle’s “blind zone,” by establishing requirements for different types of motor vehicles that could be met through the integration of additional mirrors, back-up cameras, sensors or other technologies.
Share The Road
The debate between cyclists and motorists over who owns the road has never been hotter. Now a prominent cycling activist is calling for a provincial policy she says would clear the air and clarify how to carve up the asphalt. Eleanor McMahon, founder of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, organized the first Ontario Bike Summit, to talk about how the province can make cycling safer and more accessible.
A Free-Wheeling City
For a bicyclist, Darwin Hindman is rather nattily attired, wearing a crisp tweed blazer and an orange silk tie as he pilots his ancient mountain bike through the center of Columbia, Missouri. Hindman, 76, (pictured) is this Midwestern town’s mayor and a survivor of both esophageal and prostate cancer. As he glides along, coattails flying, he is savoring the streets of Columbia, which he’s transforming into one of the nation’s premier cycling cities.
Do More Bicyclists Lead to More Injuries?
Recently, surgeons and emergency room physicians at the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center in Denver noticed a troubling trend. They seemed to be seeing cyclists with more serious injuries than in years past. Since many of the physicians at the hospital, a Level I trauma center serving the Denver metropolitan area, were themselves cyclists, they wondered if their sense of things was accurate.
Bikes and Cars: Can We Share the Road?
With more bikes on the road, drivers are frustrated — and cyclists are at risk. Now’s the time for changes.
Cleveland White Bike Initiative
The ClevelandBikes “White Bikes” initiative was part of a nationwide artistic approach to increasing pubic awareness of the important issue of road safety. The White Bikes project placed a dozen bikes or so around Cleveland to generate attention to the importance of bike safety. “No one should have to be hurt or, god forbid, killed to make people think about bike safety,” commented Cleveland installation leader Kevin Cronin, “Share the road, it’s the law.”
Bicycle Training in the Netherlands
Bicycle training in the NetherlandsBike safety begins young in the Netherlands where hundreds of thousands of kids ride to school each day.
Intersection Design the Dutch – Cycle Friendly – Way
This is the proper way to design an intersection that’s safe for pedestrians and cyclists, again the Dutch:.
Portland Startup Nutcase Helmets Finds its Niche: Headgear that Actually Looks Cools
Beyond Safety in Numbers: Why Bike Friendly Cities are Safer
This is an interesting study on why bike-friendly cities are safer for cyclists.
