Archive for the 'Every Bicyclist Counts' Category

If you want to confront the issue of bicycle safety, Florida, unfortunately, is the right place to go.

The Sunshine State has had 534 cyclist fatalities between 2006 and 2010, and since 1998, Hillsborough County has averaged 8 bike-related deaths every year.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced USDOT would host two Bike Safety Summits at our 2013 National Bike Summit in March. He hosted the first of those bike safety summits in Tampa, Fla., last week. The summit connected engineers, safety experts and law enforcement from state and local levels to find ways to improve cycling safety.

But that wasn’t all. The call for better biking came from beyond the traditional fold, too. It was so great to hear Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn — not someone who would identify as an avid cyclist — say the revitalization power of bikes is evident, and active mobility is essential to creating quality of life.

Bicycle Friendly Communities come in all shapes and sizes – there are currently 242 BFCs in 47 states. These cities show that through bicycling, communities can become destinations for people who want to work, live and retire. Having grown up in Florida myself, I never considered riding a bike for transportation until I moved to Washington, D.C. It was exciting to be surrounded by so many bike enthusiasts whose goal for the state is the same as the League’s – get more people on bikes.

While there were many suggestions on how to get more people riding, one thing was common in every discussion – education. Everyone agreed that it’s not just the people who are riding that need it: motorists need education on how to share the road and law enforcement need to know how to implement bike laws. Here at the League, we’re taking a comprehensive approach to get everyone involved.

We help cyclists become confident and safe on the roads through our education program. We’re working with city officials — and law enforcement — to improve conditions for bicyclists and make sure our rights are respected. And, yes, the National Bike Summit plays a role, too. Just a day after Secretary LaHood announced the Bike Safety Summits, AAA presented its new PSA, highlighting the need for all road users to safely share the road.

As for me, it made me even MORE excited about our new library of free education videos that we’ll be debuting during National Bike Month. Stay tuned!

(Photo: LaHood speaks with Buckhorn at the Florida Safety Summit).

Alissa Simcox
League Director of Education

Simcox joined the League in July 2011. For the 5 years prior, she worked with the Congressional Youth Leadership Council and the National Association of Home Builders. She holds a BA in Education and Recreation and Leisure Administration from Florida State University.

We have been gratified by the reception of our new website, Every Bicyclist Counts. The site is a memorial to cyclists who have been killed in the saddle. It is also a data-gathering tool that will help us learn more about the nature of fatal crashes — and hopefully prevent them. The project is meant to demonstrate the need for better reporting on these tragedies. We have already seen a lot of interest in this project from League members and cyclists in response to our latest appeal. If you would like to contribute, please donate here.

On Monday, we provided an early look at our very preliminary data. We are just beginning to track fatal crashes, but we are already re-examining some of our assumptions, based on the first 150 records.

We haven’t yet reported on all of the data we are collecting. Today, we want to share a little bit more about the information we’re collecting to give you  a sense of what is to come.

Currently, we are collecting information in the following categories:

• Date of incident
• Age of cyclist
• Gender of cyclist
• Obituary
• Location (street, city, state, closest intersection)
• Driver age
• Crash time
• Photo
• Land Use
• Road Type
• Where on Road the Collision Occurred
• Collision Type
• Vehicle Type
• Driver at Crash Time
• Cyclist at Crash Time
• Wearing helmet
• Sources
• Legal Status

The purpose of these particular questions is to build upon the data captured by the federal Fatalities Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and add richness and detail that can’t be found there. This allows us to check our data against the official federal database, while gaining a more complete picture of why these deaths occurred. What type of collision was it? What were the contributing factors? What were the features of the road? Was the driver distracted? If so, by what?

Members of the public are invited to email Elizabeth Kiker at Elizabeth[at]bikeleague.org to notify us of cyclist fatalities as they occur or to add details about existing profiles. We want the most complete and up-to-date information possible.

We initially entered the deaths that we knew about in 2011. Please note that, going forward, we will only be able to track events that take place in 2012 and later. While we want to honor every cyclist, we are constrained in our ability to record past events. If we have missed any cyclists who were killed since January 1, 2012, please do let us know.

This practical constraint also explains why we are limiting the project to fatalities. We know that examining all crashes would be very instructive. Unfortunately, capturing those data would be a mammoth task, fraught with logistical complexity.

Thanks to the member contributions we’ve received so far, we’ve already added a new feature to Every Bicyclist Counts – a map. This custom, Google-powered map shows where the fatal crashes are occurring. Click here to see the map.

Thank you for your support for this project.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

Earlier this year, the League of American Bicyclists quietly launched a new website called Every Bicyclist Counts. The site tracks bicyclist fatalities, and, it does this for several reasons.

First, it serves as a memorial for fallen cyclists. Every bicyclist matters and we want to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives bicycling, while also providing a place for grieving friends and family to pay tribute in the comments, if they wish.

Second, we recognize that we all have a lot to learn about the circumstances of fatal crashes. To improve safety on our roads, we need to better understand what leads to fatal crashes and other bicyclist deaths (they’re not all crashes).

Third, we want to try to improve the response to, coverage of, and follow-up to every one of these fatal crashes. We believe that if we can hold a spotlight to the police, justice system, and media response to these incidents, we may be able to improve the quality of such responses over time.

This month, we sent out an appeal to League members describing Every Bicyclist Counts and asking for support for this important memorial, data-gathering, and awareness-raising tool. We immediately heard from members who were appreciative of the project – and eager to find out more about what we’ve learned so far.

In recognition of the interest in new data on bicycling fatalities, we decided to share some of what we know up to this point. However, please treat these data as highly preliminary. Imagine a big “Draft – Data not final” watermark on the page behind all that follows.

Why Every Bicyclist Counts

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Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.