Unfortunately, I think both Mionske and Held are correct. For more info on the "Safety In Numbers" research that Robbie mentions and Tom Held alludes to, see http://www.tsc.berkeley.edu/newsletter/Spring04/syntax.html On the other hand, while Held references the high numbers of bicyclists in Portland as leading to reduced conflicts, Mionske refers to the Summer of Rage that included "three road-rage incidents in Portland, Oregon over the space of a week-and-a-half". How to reconcile these conflicting statements? I think there are two different phenomena going on. The safety in numbers research deals with traffic crashes while Mionske is talking about interpersonal interactions. I agree with the safety in numbers literature. As there are more people walking and bicycling, motorists become more accustomed to interacting with pedestrians and bicyclists, expect to to see us on a regular basis and respond more appropriately to us. We will have reductions in crashes, or rather in crash rates. On the other hand, as more people start using bicycles for transportation there will be more scofflaw bicyclists as Mionske notes, (I would prefer to refer to these people as scofflaws riding bicycles since they are probably scofflaws in general, not just scofflaws when bicycling) and this is going to lead to more interpersonal conflict situations involving bicyclists, even between bicyclists, including road rage. Locally, for example, as use of Madison's paths has gone up, I began receiving a lot of complaints from pedestrians about bicyclist behavior towards them. Crashes between bicyclists and pedestrians on the paths are rare, but interpersonal conflicts are high. Arthur Arthur Ross, Pedestrian-Bicycle Coordinator City of Madison Traffic Engineering Division 215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Suite 100 PO Box 2986 Madison, WI 53701-2986 608/266-6225
________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robbie Webber Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 1:34 PM To: BikiesSubmissions Subject: [Bikies] More writing on "bike rage" incident >From Bob Mionske in VeloNews: http://velonews.com/article/85828/legally-speaking-with-bob-mionske---ca n-t-we-all-just-get And a response to Bob's article by Tom Held in the Milw Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/lifestyle/35966269.html I do tend to agree with Held's contention that as bicyclists become more common on the street, drivers actually tend to behave better. Bicyclists are not seen as "the other" if your neighbor, boss, girlfriend, or poker buddy also uses a bike to get around. And yes, there is research to back this up. As the number of transportation bicyclists grows in a city (or pedestrians), the number of crashes and injuries grows, but at a substantially smaller rate, so the average safety for each bicyclist (or pedestrian) is higher. Robbie
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