Why Is A Cyclist More 100 Times More Likely To Be Killed In Florida Than In New Hampshire?

Once again, Florida has more cycling fatalities per million residents than any other US state. The Sunshine State has 23.3 million residents, so its rate of 10.4 translates to 242 fatalities per year.

Florida's rate is 11 percent higher than that of second-deadliest Louisiana. New Mexico, South Carolina and Arizona round out the "top" five states for cycling rate fatalities.  At the other end of the table, the five "safest" states for cyclists-- Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, Rhode Island and New Hampshire--all have about the same rate (0.1 per million), or less than one percent of Florida's.

Do you notice some patterns?

The states with the lowest rates are in New England (Vermont, Rhode Island and New Hampshire) or are far-western (or northern) states (Wyoming and Alaska) where outdoor recreation is popular.  The deadliest states for cyclists are all car-centric and in the "Sunbelt."

To be fair, none of the "safest" states has a city comparable in size to, say, Miami, Phoenix or even New Orleans.  Then again, the New England states have small-to-medium-sized cities with significant populations of college students.  Those cities are also older cities , developed before the automobile.  

 So what, aside from geographical clustering and (to a lesser degree, demographics) do the least dangerous states have share?  And what traits do the most perilous states have in common?

From the website of Christopher G. Burns, Esq. 

According to an article in Legal Reader, the following are among the factors contribute to the relative calm or perilousness of cycling in a particular state:

--Infrastructure Deficiencies.  The authors of the article weren't talking about cycling infrastructure.  Rather, they refer to wide, high-speed roads that are common in the "deadly" states.  Perhaps more important, they also mention planning, in and out of urban areas, that is auto-centric. Thus--as I can attest from my experiences of cycling in Florida and South Carolina--it is all but impossible to go from one place to another without using a "stroad," which often have high-speed lanes connecting them to major highways.  Navigating one of those entry and exit points makes crossing Times Square seem like a stroll on a bridge over a theme-park "stream."

--Rural vs. Urban Risk Factors:  While urban areas account for 83 percent of total bike fatalities, rural areas actually have higher per-capita rates because of the factors I mentioned my previous paragraph.  One reason is that some large cities have at least a skeleton of bike infrastructure and--as I can attest from many years of cycling in New York--lower vehicle speeds make fatalities less likely:  A cyclist struck by a car traveling at 40 MPH (65 K/H) has an 85 percent chance of dying, but only 25 percent if the vehicle is going at 20 MPH (32.5 K/H). 

--Legal Frameworks:   States and other jurisdictions with lower fatality rates also tend to have laws that truly promote cycling safety, such as the Idaho Stop or its variants, and enforce other laws and policies such as those against distracted driving.  Also, some of the "safer" states have Vulnerable Road User laws, which impose stricter penalties for motorists who cause harm to cyclists and pedestrians.

In addition to better urban and suburban planning, bicycle infrastructure and better laws (and enforcement), the authors also call for, among other things, mandatory bicycle awareness education in drivers' licensing programs.  I think it's a good idea because one difference I notice between cycling in the US (even in "bicycle friendly" places) and Europe is that drivers are more conscious of, and courteous to, cyclists.  Some countries have the bicycle awareness training the authors call for, but even in the places that don't, motorists see us differently because many are also cyclists, or were in their recent pasts.

Moonlight Cruise

 Yesterday I combined a daytime ride with “taking care of business.” That meant crossing into Harlem and pedaling—sailing, really, with the wind at my back—down the Hudson River Greenway to the World Trade Center, where I boarded a PATH train to Journal Square, Jersey City.

As I rode the streets of the Bronx, Manhattan and Jersey City,I was surprised at how little traffic I saw. Could it be that the NYC Metro Area is experiencing an “August absence “ like that of Paris and other European cities?

Traffic was so light, in fact, that when I resumed my trip in Jersey City, I rolled down JFK Boulevard—a “stroad” I would not take under other circumstances—all the way to the Bayonne Bridge, where I crossed into Staten Island.

Ironically, I saw the densest crowds on the Ferry’s observation decks. Most of the people were, of course, tourists. But the few who seemed to have ridden the Ferry before couldn’t’ve been blamed for standing in the cool breeze.

Tell me, where else can you go on a moonlight cruise for free?

And my “moonlight cruise” continued on La-Vande, my King of Mercia, up through Manhattan where, I believe, I could’ve navigated by the August blue moon even if all of the neon and street lights—and all of the headlamps on cars, trucks and buses—had gone dark. 

I saw only one other cyclist and one runner as I wound my way up Central Park to Adam Clayton Boulevard *, where people seemed to enjoy the night as much as I did.

*—You can tell someone is native to the neighborhood if they call it “7th Avenue,” just as no New Yorker refers to 6th Avenue as “Avenue of the Americas,” its official name since 1945.

No Room To Maneuver

 In several of this blog’s posts, I have shown how poorly-designed, -built and -maintained bike lanes subject cyclists to more danger than they’d face on a street without a bike lane.

Yesterday, Joe Linton wrote about such a lane on Streetsblog LA.  Actually, he focused his attention on one segment of it: a stretch of DeSoto Avenue near Pierce College.

There, DeSoto is 80 feet (24.4 meters) wide, with seven lanes devoted to motor traffic.  It’s rimmed by a bike lane that, for most of its length is four or five feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) wide, in keeping with current standards.  But at the intersection with El Rancho Road, in the community of Woodland Hills, it tapers to three feet (less than a meter), including the gutter.

In other bike lanes—including the four- and five foot sections of DeSoto—the gutter is included in the path’s width, not because cyclists are expected to ride in it, but to allow room for passing or other maneuvers, particularly when the lane runs next to a line of parked cars.  A three-foot width effectively eliminates any room to steer out of danger or to pass.

But, as Linton recounts, even the wider parts of the path aren’t adequate or safe for cyclists on DeSoto, which seems to fit the definition of a “stroad” and practically guarantees that motorists will exceed the speed limit—and, I imagine, use the bike lane for passing.

How Many "Drips" Will It Take To Wash Away A Stroad?

Charles Marohn's book is called The Confessions of a Recovering Engineer.  In it, the former road designer and transportation planner describes how conventional American traffic engineering makes people and communities less safe, destroys the fabric of communities, bankrupts towns and cities and exacerbates the very problems--like congestion--engineers like himself were trying to solve.

His greatest disdain is for what he calls "stroads."  I mentioned them in an August post. Think of them as Franken-lanes:  They are supposed to be streets in cities and towns but in reality are highways with multiple lanes of high-speed traffic.  (Even if the speed limit is more like that of an urban or residential street--say, 30 mph (50 kph), drivers are often sprinting at twice that between lights.) They are usually lined with big-box stores and other businesses that provide a steady stream of cars and trucks pulling in and out of the lanes.

Examples of "stroads" in my area are the Hempstead Turnpike, which I wrote about in an earlier post, West Street (a.k.a. Route 9A) in Manhattan and, even closer to home, Northern and Queens Boulevards.  A particularly egregious example of a "stroad" is US 19 on Florida's Gulf Coast.  

In some places, particularly in the southern and western US states, cyclists use "stroads" because there are few or no alternative routes.  Even if a cyclist is not riding along the route itself, he or she probably will need to cross it because, as Mahron points out, they often divide downtown areas, leaving, say, a store somebody frequents on one side and a doctor or other service provider on the other.  Or said cyclist might live on one side of the stroad and want to go to a park or movie theatre--or need to get to school or work--on the other side.

Michael Weilert discovered this danger the hard way.  He was crossing, with his bicycle, one such stroad--Pacific Avenue (a.k.a. State Route 7) in Tacoma, Washington--when he was struck and killed in a crosswalk.  Last week, a hundred people gathered for a silent ride at the site where Michael's life ended after only 13 years.

Photo by Carla Gramlich for Strong Towns

While such tragedies motivate the families, friends and immediate communities of victims, they don't lead to fundamental change because of what Marohn calls the "drip, drip, drip" effect.  When hundreds of people are killed, say, in a plane crash or building collapse, it gets the attention of planners, policy-makers and, sometimes, politicians.  On the other hand, incidents like the one that claimed young Michael Weilert usually claim one, or a few victims, so they receive less notice.

How many more "drips" will it take before those in authority see a tidal wave?