The problem with the statement is that he doesn’t hold drivers accountable for their actions in killing people while they brought out all the guns to bring the one cyclist who killed someone to justice. It is most definitely not the same standard.

I’m disappointed that you didn’t put my name on the ballot. under some kind of “worst statement” category. I would win in a landslide.

You aren’t a city official, so you don’t really matter.

Context is everything. This comment, dumb as it is at face value, is particularly galling when we’re talking about no-auto-crime-is-too-heinous Gascon. Well, take heart San Franciscans, at least we’re not quite at the point yet where pedestrians are held to the same “standard” …… http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/us/in-a-car-culture-clash-its-los-angeles-police-vs-pedestrians.html?smid=pl-share

I was hoping to parody the Anatole France quote, but it doesn’t really work: “The D.A., in his majestic equality, forbids the cars as well as the bikes to speed over bridges, to crash in the streets, and to kill peds.”

The reason it doesn’t work is that, for the most part, cars are free to do all of this with impunity.

More of a placebo, really

Suspicious lack of specifics about the UC study in your comment. “Out of context”? In fact the study resets the entire context of cycling and safety in San Francisco, since it shows that, incredibly, City Hall has been relying entirely on accident reports by the SFPD and not counting thousands of cycling accidents at SF General, the city’s primary trauma center.

And, just as important, the most under-reported are “cyclist-only” accidents that have nothing to do with “infrastructure.” This study is why the MTA still hasn’t released its long-overdue annual Collision Report. How to handle the radical undercount of cycling accidents and still push people—including children—to ride bikes in SF?

Nice try but clearly you haven’t read the study, which makes your attempted flim-flam “pathetic.”

“Of all bicycle-related injuries at SFGH, 41.5% were CO injuries and 58.5% were AVB injuries.”

“Costs for care were significantly higher for AVB injuries and increased dramatically over time; total cost for CO and AVB injuries were $12.6 and $17.8 million.”

CO = cyclist only, AVB = auto-versus-bicycle

Taken from the study you linked. Here’s the link for people who don’t want to click on this moron’s blog, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23032807

So from this study you learn that cycling in San Francisco is a dangerous activity, more dangerous than the “industry standard” methodology of using police reports would lead us to believe; SFPD underreports bike accidents; and City Hall relies on flawed SFPD data rather than forcing SFPD to improve their reporting or doing their own research.

And seeing all that, you conclude that no-one should cycle because “it’s dangerous.” A more nuanced conclusion might be that because cycling is currently dangerous we should invest more in cycling infrastructure to make it safer, and force SFPD and City Hall to take cycling accidents more seriously.

It’s analogous to sex education. Sex can be dangerous, so do we tell people “Abstinence only!”, or accept that they’re probably going to do it anyway and work to make it safer for them when they do so?

Regarding “cyclist-only” accidents- how are these defined in the study? Without knowing this, it’s impossible to know whether better infrastructure could have prevented them or not. My guess is that many of these are preventable “cyclist-only” accidents such as being thrown off by Muni tracks or potholes, or being forced to swerve onto the sidewalk and into a parking meter to avoid a suddenly appearing car. Those sort of things could be prevented by better road layouts, road maintenance, and also better cyclist education.

None of the conclusions of this study suggest that the problem of reducing the dangers of cycling is so insurmountable as to warrant an “abstinence-only” cycling policy. And even if they did, prohibition has not exactly been a success in the past, has it?

How many of these accidents are mountain bikers in GGP or the BMXers on the Embarcadero? We don’t know. Are those types of accidents considered biking in SF?

“1,252 cycling accidents between 2000 and 2009 were not counted in the city’s annual Collision Report”
Thats 140 per year. It’s hard to consider that number to be cause for alarm especially with no context. How many people per year slam their finger closing a car door or have their foot run over in a parking lot? Those accidents could result in a broken bone and trip to the ER. Should those be classified single car accidents and be included in this study? By applying the same logic you seem to be using to say bike accidents are being underreported and it’s a problem they should be included.

I’m having a hard time understanding why you think this study is some sort of outrage or smoking gun like you seem to be. I just don’t see it. But for the sake of argument lets say something needs to be done to reduce those 140 accidents per year. What do you propose? What kind of safety improvements should be made? Or do you think bikes should be banned? You’re so quick to jump on anything that fits your bike are dangerous narrative, but you seem to never offer any ideas for solutions.

The UC study found that 55% of the cycling accidents treated at SFGH were not matched by police reports, which means that 1,377 cycling accidents over a ten-year period were not counted by the MTA in its annual Collision Report. That’s an average of 138 a year. Add that number to the 630 cycling injury accidents reported in 2011 (page 22), and you have a total of 768 accidents, which would be a 22% gain and/or undercount. Seems significant to me.

But the city’s failure in counting cycling accidents raises questions about their other numbers in the report, since their counting system has been shown to be defective.

Rob,

Your argument seems to be that because a lot of bicycle injuries are solo falls, infrastructure is not at fault. But then, the rate of injuries in countries with good bicycle infrastructure are much lower, solo falls or not, so something has to give.

Infrastructure ABSOLUTELY has a lot to do with solo falls as well:

1. Train tracks with wide gaps and lack of proper markings. Competition with cars driving fast forces riders to merge through tracks in a fast and unsafe manner.
2. Riding in gutter is more dangerous due to uneven/slanted surface, debris
3. Riding next to parked cars (due to pressure from motorists) could result in hitting a mirror. It is also unclear if impact with open doors is counted as solo falls or not.
4. Some riders are forced to ride on the sidewalk due to fear of collision with cars, but sidewalk riding is more dangerous in other aspects, due to uneven pavement and obstacles.
5. Many riders choose to ride too fast in order to keep pace with automobiles in order to avoid harassment.
6. Many of riders ride light racing bicycles in strained positions in order to attain higher speed (to avoid harassment), but those bicycles are harder to control.
7. Single-phase left turns are dangerous since the person needs to extend their left hand to signal, thus reduce control of their bicycle. It is doubly dangerous if they also have to cross tracks at the same time. Implementation of a two-phase left turn would reduce this hazard.
8. Motorists don’t realize the consequences of their actions lead hazards for bicyclists. A swerve in front of a bicycle even without the bicycle and car colliding can result in the bicyclist losing control.
9. Traffic lights timed for cars mean that bicyclists race to get through them or risk stopping at every corner.
10. San Francisco is a hilly city and hills make bicycles more difficult to control. That’s why you shouldn’t try to direct bicyclists to ride on hills, which you’ve personally been doing when opposing the Fell/Oak project. Lack of infrastructure on the flat streets increases the volume of bicyclists trying for the hills.
11. Lack of infrastructure leads to fewer people bicycling, which leads to the sense of being alone. When there are no bicyclists around cyclists tend to make more unsafe maneuvers because there is no example and no peer pressure. Just like cars drive more slowly in a nice neighborhood with trees, bicycles ride more slowly when there is a relaxed vibe.
12. Conversely, narrow bicycle lanes cause those who need to pass to go too fast, and into traffic, which then brings up some other issues already mentioned.

The real question is how many bicycle solo falls are on a separated cycle track, like the panhandle. No report has looked specifically at solo injuries in cycletracks, but reports have shown an across the board reduction in injuries. Thus, you cannot make the conclusion you make.