Showing posts with label fatal crashes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fatal crashes. Show all posts

06 March 2024

Why Are More Cyclists Dying On NYC Streets?

The New York City Department of Transportation has reported that 2023 was the deadliest year for cyclists since 1999.  A total of 30 people lost their lives on two wheels. That represents a more than 50 percent increase from the fatality rate of the previous year, or the year before it.


Cyclist deaths in New York City

(Purple bar-traaditional bicycles.  Pink bar--eBikes)

(Source:  New York City Department of Transportaion)

The number of cyclists who were killed while riding traditional non-motorized bikes (7) actually declined from any of the previous 15 years. So, the vast majority of the city's cycling fatalities were on eBikes.  Moreover, those 23 deaths in eBike crashes is more than double the number of any other year for which records have been kept.

That number is, in part, a reflection of the degree to which eBikes have, as some cyclists and pedestrians say, "taken over."  Indeed, no eBike casualties are recorded before 2014 because, before that time, there weren't significant numbers of motorized bikes on this city's streets. 

(That era--the early to mid 2010's--was also, interestingly, when the popularity of motorcycles was at its lowest ebb in at least half a century.)  

But one theme has remained constant in the past quarter-century.  About half of all bicycle and eBike deaths are a result of crashes with trucks.  A major reason for that, I believe, is that truck drivers simply don't see cyclists.  Also, delivery trucks often pull into bike lanes or the rightmost traffic lane, which is used by cyclists when a separate bike lane isn't present. Some drivers, I imagine, don't know how else to make deliveries.  Plus, there is simply more traffic of all kinds on this city's streets, in part because of ride-share services that began to proliferate at around the same time as eBikes.

21 April 2021

Debris Causes Fatal Bike Crash

One of the least-acknowledged hazards to cyclists is debris.

Once, I flatted when I ran over a metal strip used to bind bundles of lumber or bricks together for shipping to construction sites.  Work crews were leaving them on sidewalks and in streets until the city cracked down on them.  My tire was punctured near Tompkins Square Park; I fixed it in part because I wasn't takin' no stinkin' subway home when I could pedal.  Also, I might've been too poor to take the train!

I can joke about it now, but I'd heard of cyclists who suffered more serious accidents, resulting in serious injuries, as a result of running over those straps.  I've also heard of riders who crashed as a result of other kinds of debris or from sharp bumps that result from cement dripping from trucks and drying.  

As a result of my experiences, and of the stories I've heard, I occasionally clean up the section of bike lane that runs by my apartment, and pick up potentially-hazardous objects I find.  I like to think I'm helping to make conditions safer, and to prevent an accident.


Bill Woodard, about to embark on his last bike ride, 13 April 2021.  

Like the one that befell Bill Woodard in St. George, Utah.  Shortly before 11 am last Tuesday, responders were dispatched to Woodard, who lay on the side of Route 7.  He'd been riding with longtime friend and riding partner Gordon MacFarlane when he rode over a piece of metal that lodged into the spokes of his front wheel.  

The object that caused the crash.

Apparently, MacFarlane didn't hear it and assumed his friend was rolling behind him until a vehicle pulled up alongside him. Its driver yelled to him that a cyclist was lying on the side of the road.  He turned around and headed back to find ambulance crew members performing CPR on Woodard.

They--and MacFarlane--at first assumed that Woodard, who was 75 years old, suffered a heart attack or other medical issue.  But, it seems that anything they'd done would've been to no avail:  His neck was broken and he incurred serious head trauma.  Since Woodard never regained consciousness after falling, he couldn't tell anyone what happened, and the cause of his accident wasn't surmised until the object that lodged in his spokes was found.  



Kevin Kitchen, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation, confirmed that debris is a "serious problem" in area roads and "much of the debris" the maintenance force finds "appears to have come from loads consisting of construction materials."





There is another little-acknowledged problem--much of the debris that is hazardous to cyclists, and to the general public, is a result of construction, especially in places like southern Utah that are experiencing construction booms.