Re: [H+T--Friends] bike injuries

Hi Rajiv, the question is a good one. I don't have any statistics on a rise in risk-taking behavior by bicyclists. However, there is lots of anecdotal evidence, especially from pedestrians in crosswalks and on walking/running/bicycling paths. Some risk-taking behavior by young adult male bicyclists may be fueled by arrogance and a "we own the road" mentality. Peds are expected to get out of the way. On the other hand, the probability of actual injuries from car collisions may be offset by an increase in the use of reflective clothing and winky-blinky lights by bicyclists. At TRB this week, I heard an interesting story from Portland, Oregon, the bicycle capital of the US, about bicyclists who almost ran down an African-American woman getting off a bus stopped in a bus lane. Instead of taking greater care, the bicyclists mounted resentment against the provision of a bus lane. Marc ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rajiv Bhatia" <Rajiv.Bhatia(a)sfdph.org> To: mbrenman001(a)comcast.net Cc: "Rochelle Dicker" <DickerR(a)sfghsurg.ucsf.edu>du>, edc(a)berwyned.com, "TRB Health and Transportation" <h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net>et>, meganwier(a)gmail.com Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 9:30:52 AM Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] bike injuries marc, are you suggesting that the bicyclists have been increasing risk-taking behavior over the past several years? From: mbrenman001(a)comcast.net To: TRB Health and Transportation <h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net>et>, Rajiv.Bhatia(a)sfdph.org, edc(a)berwyned.com Cc: meganwier(a)gmail.com, Rochelle Dicker <DickerR(a)sfghsurg.ucsf.edu> Date: 01/18/2013 09:02 AM Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] bike injuries I would submit that another likely cause for a rise in bike injuries is lack of attention to and compliance with rules of the road by bicyclists. Who among has not noticed bicyclists running red lights, not stopping for stop lights, weaving through traffic, not using hand signals, etc? Marc Brenman From: "Rajiv Bhatia" <Rajiv.Bhatia(a)sfdph.org> To: "TRB Health and Transportation" <h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net> Cc: meganwier(a)gmail.com, "Rochelle Dicker" <DickerR(a)sfghsurg.ucsf.edu> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 8:42:20 AM Subject: [H+T--Friends] bike injuries Ed: In SF, we have also observed a very high proportion of bike injuries going unreported. Rochelle Dicker, cc'd above and head of the SFGHMC trauma unit, has done some thinking and analysis on this issue using hospital records. As you know, SF has had a fairly agressive bike infrastructure program with strong political support. Bicycling behavior has increased substantially over the past decade as evidenced by serial bike counts. Unfortunately, reported bike collision injury frequency almost doubled over the past 5 or 6 years despite the investments in bike facilities. Potential culprits here could be the co-location of bike facilities on arterials, newer riders, and the lack of reduction in vehicle traffic. The confluence of new infrastructure, growth in riders, growth in injuries suggest that SF may be a good place to study the safety effects of new bike infrastructure in an existing urban context. Locally, we are also very interested in redesigning our traffic injury surveillence system to integrate hospital, police, and ambulence records and add public health / environmental surveillence components. There are some good models in other countries. We have political committment and data sharing agreements but lack $$ -- I am told that local transportation $$ coming to cities cannot be used for such purposes. rb Rajiv Bhatia, MD, MPH Director, Environmental Health, Department of Public Health 1390 Market Street, Suite 822 San Francisco, CA 94102 (e) rajiv.bhatia(a)sfdph.org (t) 415 2523931 (w) www.sfenvironmentalhealth.org; www.sfphes.org From: Ed Christopher <edc(a)berwyned.com> To: TRB Health and Transportation <h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net> Date: 01/17/2013 02:11 PM Subject: [H+T--Friends] A Data Question Sent by: h+t--friends-bounces(a)chrispy.net It was nice to see everyone at TRB. While there I was in a discussion about the probably that bike crashes that result in injuries might be under represented in our crash data. Especially when you consider that a high percentage of the crashes do not involve a motor vehicle and never make it to police records. If i were trying to get a handle on this at a regional or state level are there any "non-traditional" sources of data like hospital records that can be used. Anyone doing any work in this area? This is becoming ever so important as we see more and mode shifting going on. _______________________________________________ H+T--Friends mailing list H+T--Friends(a)ryoko.chrispy.net http://ryoko.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/h+t--friends _______________________________________________ H+T--Friends mailing list H+T--Friends(a)ryoko.chrispy.net http://ryoko.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/h+t--friends