Bicycle fatalities up 15%, here's why

[BobO]

Originally Posted by sailorboy

2) use the brightest, most obnoxious front and rear blinky lights on your bike regardless of time of day. It's the best $40 you'll ever spend imho.

I almost got hit head on by a phone using driver two hours ago. He was looking down at his phone while he turned left across three lanes of 55 mph traffic and came straight at me in the perpendicular left turn lane. I was in my full size car with the daytime running lights and horn blaring. Somehow I doubt a bike with blinkies will matter much. Honestly, I'm not one for violence, but I'm beginning to believe that things won't change until a few vigilantes start acting out. The stats are flawed, it's getting ****ing ridiculous. I have on average three close calls a week in the car, strangely enough there are fewer on the bike.

[ceolwulf]

Here's something else I believe to be a contributing factor - road design. Roads are made to be as efficient as possible. This means completely straight and flat wherever possible, wide lanes, and if you absolutely have to have a curve it's made with as large a radius as feasible. The result is two things - 1. driving is tremendously boring, leading people to stop paying attention and 2. even if you stop paying attention for quite a long time you're very likely to still be on the road, so the brain learns that this is "okay", and the cycle continues.