The video mentions she was on a bike and shows a mangled bicycle. Also the line markings on the street indicate there is a bike lane to the left of a right turn lane. Definitely very bad.
Not to be insensitive to the death. But, that bike lane design is just horrible. Are human drivers really known for respecting the "do not cross solid white line" rules? 9/10 drivers that realize at the last moment they need to turn right are going to quickly cross over this bike lane probably without much time to check their blind spot. If I was cycling on this path, I'd want to use the sidewalk and be extra cautious of peds, I don't trust drivers human or not.
However, I do need to mention that when you choose to bike on the sidewalk, you're creating the same type of problem that cars that ignore traffic rules create for bikes. There's a reason why biking on the sidewalk is illegal in most places, and why bike lanes/roads exist.
Yes, but the reason why biking on the sidewalk is illegal in most places is mostly unrelated to safety.
The only bicycle riders willing to get organized and lobby the legislators are the very most serious ones. These are the people who want to race along at 50 MPH.
The resulting laws force pitifully slow riders to be out in the street. Even if you can only manage 5 MPH, you have to be in the street.
Lots of us are too arthritic, too fat, too weak, too inflexible, too limited by lung capacity, too limited by heart capacity, and too limited by cheap steel mountain bikes from Walmart.
>you're creating the same type of problem that cars that ignore traffic rules create for bikes
Which are what? Such a broad statement doesn't seem accurate and the sidewalk shown in the map looks low traffic with excellent sight lines, as long as you're not cycling head down at high speed the danger to pedestrians doesn't seem comparable to danger posed by car driver's ignoring traffic rules.
The problem is that something is somewhere and/or does something unexpected. The bicyclist doesn't expect the car to drive in the bike lane. The car driver turning across the sidewalk doesn't expect the bicyclist to be riding across the driveway on a bicycle. If you're not expecting it you're not going to look for it.
Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk isn't illegal most places because it's dangerous for the pedestrians, it's illegal because it's dangerous for the bicyclist.
I understand and personally am very cautious around driveways especially if they don't have perfectly clear sight lines.
I just find it odd when cyclists out of principal decry riding on the sidewalk when the danger of riding with traffic is well known and America has an abundance of long empty sidewalks in suburbia and around office parks.
Riding on the sidewalk is dangerous despite the sidewalks being usually empty. There's another factor: when sidewalks become intersections. Very few drivers check for cyclists on the sidewalk before going through an intersection. From what I understand this is shown quite clearly in the crash statistics.
Many dedicated cycletracks have similar problems. Here in Austin there are several that I refuse to use because drivers far too frequently turn into my path without looking. I ride in the lane so that I can be seen. It's counterintuitive to most drivers, but visibility is often the deciding factor in bike safety. This would be more obvious to drivers if they spent more time cycling. If a cyclist is stuck using a path with poor visibility, I find paying attention to the cars and using light touches of an air horn when approaching an intersection to help. But I still prefer being visible to that.
More generally, intersections are relatively more dangerous (crashes per person mile or something like that) than straight segments of road for any mode of transportation using the road.
The problem is that pedestrians on a sidewalk do not follow traffic rules. They don't signal turns or stopping in advance. They choose random sides of the sidewalk to walk on. They don't have mirrors to see approaching cyclists behind them.
Vehicles, on the other hand, do follow traffic rules with regards to lane usage, signaling, and checking what's behind them. Even if they don't, they're still more predictable compared to pedestrians.
> you're creating the same type of problem that cars that ignore traffic rules create for bikes
Agree. I'd do it anyways because sidewalks are 99.999% empty where I live. I could ride for 20 miles and not see a person on the sidewalk. So biking on sidewalks is safe as long as you pay attention to what's ahead. No idea if that's the case in this AZ location.
You still have to cross at intersections and driveways. I've been hit multiple times (at low speed) by motor vehicles crossing the sidewalk at a driveway. I don't ride on sidewalks anymore.
This sounds like a speed issue. If you’re doing 20 mph on the sidewalk then yes you weren’t in view when the driver started backing out of their driveway.
I don’t fully think I’m a bike I get right of way. If I see a car reversing ahead I move into the street then prepare to full stop but proceed with caution and watch the cars acceleration to see if they see me. If I get the hint they don’t. I stop. It’s scratch on the bumper for them and life for me I am more than glad to yield.
Cyclists here (in Seattle) have a healthy habit of calling out "to your left" when approaching from behind. Things like this need to become more widespread.
I do that regularly on my commute on a mixed-use trail. Half the time the pedestrian looks to their left and their feet follow. The other half have headphones on so they don't hear me anyway.
Personally as a I cyclist, I don't intend just yet to give up cycling on roads (which are for multi-transport users). After getting munged on a separator, I also don't think they are the be and end all.
There aren't a lot of options when you need to have cars turning on roads with bike lanes. At some point the car lane and the bike lane have to cross paths unless you're going to build a fully grade-separated bike lane.
I suppose you could have a wall that separates the bike lane from the road except for a short area where cars can cross over, so that at least there's only a small space where the bikes & cars can interact, but that introduces a bunch of new problems (cars that can't see bikes behind the wall when they go to cross over, cars that run into the wall, probably even more swerving to get into the lane because your choices are do it RIGHT NOW or you're stuck/hit a wall).
> There aren't a lot of options when you need to have cars turning on roads with bike lanes. At some point the car lane and the bike lane have to cross paths unless you're going to build a fully grade-separated bike lane.
The problem is that the lane markings encourage vehicles to make turns from the non-rightmost or non-leftmost lane. One should not be crossing another lane when making a turn at an intersection. One should merge into the rightmost or left most lane in order to make the corresponding turn.
I think it'd be safer to keep the bikes in the far right even if they go straight. Yes, it means they have to pay attention to cars turning right. They might even need to stop until it's safe. This is a place where "bikes/peds having right of way" doesn't really make sense.
Users to the right have the right of way over users further towards the center of the street. Thus, pedestrians crossing in the crosswalk have priority over bicycles and cars turning right, and bicycles going straight have priority over cars turning right.
I guess in a perfect world having right of way means you can cross the street without looking left or right. I’m more willing to yield as a bike/ped because my risk is higher and I know people are distracted idiots.
Absolutely worth accepting the reality of drivers on phones' as a threat to safety. I'm just trying to explain the rules of the road from which intersection design can be derived.
There are ways to design an intersection so that those rules are followed naturally, and there are ways to miss it. C.f. right turn lanes.
I would greatly appreciate a barrier of some kind between me and car drivers looking at the cells.
Or just do what Germany has sensibly done and split sidewalks between pedestrians and cyclists (though, cycling enthusiasts are unlikely to enjoy the experience as much)
I'm much more a fan of the design that places a buffer (either sidewalk or shrubs) between the CARS and any other type of vehicles. Sidewalks are tolerable as they are often raised above street grade and a vehicle usually has to be actively controlled to overtake such a raised divider.
Encouraging bikes and other personal mobility devices to use the sidewalk pushes the danger to pedastrians. I'd argue there really shouldn't be right turn lanes except in really select circumstances. Cities that have a lot of bikes like Copenhagen don't really have that many turns lanes. And when they do the mixing area from protected lane to unprotected bike lane is pretty clear.
Anec-dataly, I agree. We live at the edge of a residential area where there is a long stretch of road with bike lanes and turns into the residential area every block. Not only do people regularly drive in the bike lanes, the people who do so are typically the most aggressive and inattentive drivers who are trying to angrily speed around the lines of cars who are driving the speed limit and respecting the stop signs. I'm not aware of any recent accidents, but only because cyclists seem to just completely avoid the entire stretch of road.
Those sort of bike lanes teach cyclists that they should under take slower moving traffic - the problem is the majority of deaths in London are due to vehicles turning into undertaking cyclists.
If it's a bike lane, it is not undertaking. It is a lane. You wouldn't blindly turn across another lane of traffic, why do you do it when it's a bike lane?
And the majority of deaths in London is due to turning transporters/trucks. They are purposely built such that the operator sits very high above and can't even see a bike or pedestrian unless it's many meters away, only by looking into one of 10 mirrors (but of course they don't). On a work site nobody moves these things unless there is an outside instructor, but on public streets we've decided to just blame whoever died. Or, if that fails, blame the infrastructure, even though we oppose any other kind of infrastructure.
What the problem is that those sort of cycle lanes conditions cyclists that its always right to undertake in any circumstances - its got to the point now in London that cyclists feel entitled to undertake at speed in stopped traffic.
That's logically impossible. Under/Over taking doesn't mean moving faster than neighboring traffic, it means "merging into slower moving traffic". If the cyclist isn't moving into the car lane, they aren't undertaking.
I don't think that's insensitive to the death. It's properly placing (partial) blame on the cause of the accident.
A better design for that intersection would be to keep the bike lane against the sidewalk and the turn lane inside of that, so that they don't cross, and have a "no turn on red" sign, so that the paths of bicyclists and people turning in cars never cross as long as everyone obeys the stoplight and sign.
Do you have a statistically large enough sample to conclude that they're worse at driving that you are? Most cases of driver inattention don't escalate to a collision, so trying to infer inattention rates from collision rates is pretty noisy.
And even assuming this was simply a case of a bad driver, what policy approach would you suggest to protect the general public against such drivers? Accepting that drivers are fallible and designing our road systems to be robust against that seems a more effective approach than berating those drivers who are particularly unlucky in the consequences of their failures of attentiveness.
From a the perspective of policies such as designing an intersection, placing blame (even if that blame is justified) is utterly pointless. Systems should be designed for the users you have, not for the users you want, especially since in this case it's literally a matter of life and death.
Sure, drivers should check before crossing a lane, but some percentage don't, so it makes sense to minimize lane crosses.
> (It's hard to see a bike at speed going straight when a car is turning right.)
This is addressed by having a "no turn on red" sign as I suggested: you don't have to see the bicyclist at all because the bicyclist shouldn't be in the intersection at all when you're turning with a green turn arrow.
The bike isn't going at speed when the light is red (at least, if they're following the law). This is when the green turn arrow should be lit: when bikes aren't moving.
That kind of design only makes right hook collisions more likely. Pushing cyclists closer to the curb, to the periphery of a driver's view, makes them less visible and more likely to be unseen before a turn is made.
...which isn't relevant because bikes shouldn't be in the intersection at all while the turn is being made. The bicyclist going straight has a red light when the turn lane has a green arrow, the turn lane has a red light when the bicyclist going straight has a green.
Perhaps I should have said "wait for turn indicator" instead of "no turn on red", that's a bit clearer.
AZ driving rules language on solid white lines is the same as FL (where I live). They use the words "should not cross", so it's not technically an infraction for a driver to cross a solid white line. I was in an accident once due to someone crossing a solid white while at a light and cutting me off so I'm familiar with the RAW on those lines.
That looks completely identical to all bike lanes I've seen in suburban areas. I think bike lanes are just inherently dangerous. Would be interesting to see what a well-designed suburban bike lane looks like.
Unfortunately, this is a design that is pretty common in many of Tempe's major intersections. I pass through a similiar intersection biking home from ASU and have had multiple close calls with human drivers.
Anecdata: The times I have interacted with one of Uber's autonomous vehicles at this intersection, they tend to hit the brakes pretty hard as they are about to enter the turn lane and I am around 10ft behind them. All of my interactions with them, however, have been during the day, and it was unclear if it was the human driver in control.
The car turn-lane is to the right of it, so at least it's maintained as part of the road. Bike lanes that are truly a shoulder with bike symbols painted on are often unmaintained, and full of pot-holes, debris, and such.
This is both terrifying and normal. The bike lanes in my area are frequently used as turn lanes... by vehicles that don't fit in them - despite being clearly marked as bike lanes.
In fact, it's all bike lanes in California, unless they are marked otherwise. Drivers are required to move into the rightmost lane in the last 200 feet before turning right, including merging into a bike lane.
There are exceptions, but only if there is signage or road markings. For example, if there are two or more lanes marked for right turns, then obviously you can turn from any such lane.
(A little-known fact about that: most California drivers are aware that you're allowed to turn right on a red light after making a full stop, unless there's a "no right turn on red" sign - but few seem to know that this rule applies to all the lanes marked for right turns, not just the rightmost lane.)
Most bike lane markings change from a solid white line to a dotted line about 200 feet from a corner, to give drivers a hint to merge into the bike lane before turning. But even if the line doesn't turn dotted, drivers are still required to merge into the bike lane unless there is a specific indication otherwise.
However, the majority of drivers seem to be unaware of this rule and turn right from the auto traffic lane, creating the risk of a "right hook" collision, which the law is intended to avoid. I've actually had other drivers honk at me when they were waiting in a line of cars to make an illegal right turn from the auto lane while I made a legal and proper turn from the bike lane.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has an excellent info page about this:
Laws on this do vary in other states. But at least in California, if you see a driver merging into the bike lane before turning right, it's not because they are a terrible driver, it's because they are following the law and (hopefully) increasing safety for bicyclists.
That actually makes sense since it encourages all vehicles to use the right most lane to turn right, rather than crossing in front of a straight through lane when making a right turn.
I think you've missed the point. I'm talking about merging into the bike line prior to the turn.
If you still don't see the difference, here's one way you can tell. If you are stopped, waiting at the intersection, if you've merged, then you'll be occupying the bike line while you're waiting.
Where I live the law explicitly requires cars to take the bike lane before turning in this situation. It's probably better to separate the blind spot for bicycles check from the look for pedestrians and turn check.
I mean, I've seen the pictures... Just not in the wild. One of those things that seems like a nice idea, but good luck ever getting anyone to pay for such en mass. Have you seen any of these around Tampa Bay? I've never seen anything except the unprotected margins, excepting trails which are not sharing infrastructure with roads.
When someone actually takes the little money to build one, there is an army of people essentially saying they'd rather have 5 more parking spots than safe infrastructure. Then when somebody is hit, like here, the same people argue you can't blame the driver because look how bad the infrastructure is. You can see it in this very thread with people arguing bikes should fuck off to the sidewalk.
Yeah, they do the similar stupid "bike lane" crap here in Indiana as well.
Yeah, like a line is going to protect me from run amok car drivers who are too buy on their cell phones. Or it's going to stop the bus drivers from using them as pickup/dropoff areas, cutting bicyclists off.
Long story short, I bike on the sidewalks. I can be a responsible biker on sidewalks while heeding to pedestrians. My life is more important than to be biking on a vehicle road.
How about a "sharrow", where cyclists drive right-of-center, in hopes of avoiding the "parked car door lane", and encouraging drivers to cross the double-yellow to overtake.
The video says bicyclist and shows a bicycle, while the written article says pedestrian and said the car hit "a woman walking"... I'm confused as to why there is a contradiction, but considering the video shot of the bicycle I assume you're correct
This design seems pretty common in the US. Some bike lanes on major streets in LA are like this, except there they also have to contend with buses pulling into stops. Biking on those streets would be terrifying, but I saw people doing it.
Yes, I bike almost daily on Venice Blvd in LA, and every intersection I encounter is setup like the one discussed here, along with buses weaving in and out. A vicious battle flared up last year when the city replaced a lane of traffic on Venice with protected bike lanes (some discussion here https://la.curbed.com/2017/10/25/16528864/road-diets-los-ang...). There seems to be a marked increase in the hostility between cyclists and drivers now.
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,...