To snitch or not to snitch? When lives are at risk should that even be a question?
On the other hand it's good to see a #tory rag not attacking cyclists Daily Mail style. What with Katy Balls now writing for the Guardian are they are getting a bit vegany?
We published this in the Pushpins blog more than a year ago, but what urban planner and cyclist Keisha Mayuga said will always ring true: “We have to understand that the road is built for people to move, so we have to respect one another no matter what transport mode we choose.”
Well this led me down a rabbit hole.
Headline is older Aussie drivers don't trust ADAS and how to get them too.
By checking just the first few cited research papers where 'the clear safety benefits' have been shown, you find they DO NOT do that. Surprise, surprise.
They use a lot of "could", "can" and "should". Because they don't know. Because there is no proof.
And legislation is being written on the back of these. FFS.
'No Mow May' causes some concern over safety. We explain what it SHOULD be about. More councils need to read beyond the headline. My local one hasn't so is ballsing up the verges. Really wish people would actually read detail. Hey ho. Anyway, enough of my moaning, the show is packed with good stuff this week, do please go listen.
The NE leg of this intersection has a signalized #crosswalk w/ beg button. Town staff just converted it to rest-in-walk, which is lovely. But there's a permissive yellow that allows drivers from the arterial to turn left while the #walk sign is active.
We may have the option to* either*:
keep the rest-in-walk
or
eliminate the permissive yellow but lose the rest-in-walk
A new study found that 30% of people do not see cyclists as human, with those riding bicycles while wearing helmets or safety vests seen as less human than those without
Here's the RSA's recent report on serious injuries.
Two significant issues of note:
While fatalities have fallen steadily over the last 25 years, serious injuries have been rising year on year since 2012 (with a Covid-related blip in 2020)
While just 25% of fatalities take place on urban roads, over 50% of serious injuries happen on urban roads.
While the RSA talks about the issues of speeding and mobile phone use, which of course are factors that need to be addressed, it doesn't seem to recognise the impact that increasingly larger and heavier vehicles have on the severity of road traffic injuries.
Topic: Effectiveness of RRFBs at marked crosswalks.
Q: What about snow/ice conditions where it takes longer to stop? What does WSDOT have for that?
My A: WSDOT has state law that tells you to drive for conditions.
Room: Laughter.
Me [outside voice]: It may be a laugh to you, not to me when you're bearing down on me. I'm being a killjoy to ask you not to kill someone's joy. #SafetyOverSpeed#RoadSafety#WordsMatter#transportation#walking
(More in reply)
I really do try to believe that most* drivers aren't careless about the lives of others, but rather clueless. That's why I put together videos from my handlebar camera to show, from a bicyclist's perspective, what their driving looks and feels like.
The video here is a sample of dangerous--egregiously dangerous--overtakes by motorists over the course of a year.
Doing a thing later this month: "Uplanned #pandemic#planning: Lessons learned from rapid #COVID street transformations."
It's a mini-webinar (aka practice byte) on some stuff I've been working on through the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety. Registration is free, and it's only half an hour!
Trucks, SUVs, and tinted windows make life miserable. Today’s example: parking lots. Pulling out of your space you can’t see people walking because your vision is blocked by trucks and SUVs.
When I was young, most people drove smaller, lower cars with clear windows, so you could see through and by the cars around you and know where pedestrians were. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
In other news, my students routinely give me so much hope for the future of our profession. My attempt to capture some of their unfiltered comments in the wrap-up session of Complete, Safe, Equitable Streets last week:
“In 2020, TfL introduced a #20mph speed limit on all of its roads within central #London… [Since then] collisions involving vulnerable road users have decreased by 36% while collisions involving people walking have decreased by 63%” and speeds are down by 2-5MPH.