What Professor Phillips suggests at 5:40 is spot on. Here in Berlin, dedicated cycling traffic lights turn green before car traffic lights to prevent the right hook. Seems to do the trick.
This was a great video. It didn't present the rosy picture of some pro-bike videos that "biking is perfectly safe! Nothing could go wrong!" But it also told you how to lessen the risk.
Bravo for this video! Check out some of the cities that have really solved or mitigated this problem: Copenhagen, Davis, Minneapolis, Sacramento, etc. One even greater step than protected bike lanes is dedicated trails. Sacramento has miles of them and they are actually good for getting around.
You just have to observe how everybody else moves. Then you anticipate and adapt to dynamic movements of all traffic. Never expect them drive ideally. Always expect the worst and adjust. Always be alert. Then it'll become instinct. Kind of like swimming with a school of fish or flying with a flock of birds. Go with the flow, don't resist it. Also if you've driven a car, a motor bike, and a bike you'll be more considerate of others since you've tried different modes of transport. You'll have more awareness.
well I don't know how are the car drivers over there, but over where I am at... it does seem like a ton of car drivers are truly bad drivers, they do not give a damn and seem to act in a openly malicious way... I think that all communication channels should engage into educating the drivers, because as it stands only a very small fraction of car drivers drive responsibly... in fact I think that the governments in the entire planet need to pay for a permanent program, because as it stands a lot of motor vehicle drivers like to engage in the mode of a mindless entity... where it says, I am faster than you and if you are obstructing me, I may run you over or do some other nasty thing...
if Comm Ave tends to get new bike lanes ? how will larger vehicles think they can outsmart bike riders anyway? there's no way around it o k this is the year 2020 5 years later has the project for the bike lanes been taken care of ? or has it entirely failed?
Cycling in any city on the East Coast remains a challenge. Young people cycle more than older ones. But still, just one percent of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 ride their bikes to work. U.S. cycling also has a stubbornly persistent gender divide-with men more likely to ride their bikes to work than women (0.8 percent of men vs. 0.3 percent of women) due largely to the perception of safety many people have concerning bicycles. With less than 1% of Americans commuting about on a bicycle, it's no easy task to sell bicycle advocacy to our government. For this reason I support Critical Mass cycling events to demonstrate to the public the need for change in our society.
One thing that this video blatantly failed to point out is the there are also a lot of "new drivers" in the city in September as this is when the new Freshmen start. These new drivers may be unfamiliar with the streets and laws and actually be more likely to get into an accident.
Learn from the Netherlands or Copenhagen, that was quite hilarious to watch how the police officers handled that, indirectly putting the blame on the cyclist.
What you need is a new law which gives priority to cyclists and pedestrians above motorized traffic. In the Netherlands it works very well: when an accident happens between a cyclist/pedestrian and a motorized vehicle the latter is always to blame. And that's how helmets are not required.
I ride my bike everyday to work and I admittedly will run red lights. It’s simply because there are no cars coming from my left or right and I wanted to be ahead of the car that’s waiting at the red light. So by the time the light turns green, that car should see me in front and adjust to me.
You have to be one with the cars. You will know what I mean if you do so your self. Always keep your head on a swivel and don't let a close call scare you away. It may even become an addiction to ride in the city as fast as the cars. I defiantly get a rush riding down busy streets weaving in and out of lanes, dodging cars.
Who is this lady? Camm Ave is not safe? I cruised all over Boston in 1994 on my bike, right before my stint racing in Europe. I loved cycling in Boston. Adrenaline, speed, and hot dudes.
I don't like to make absolute statements, but you're absolutely right that some bike lanes are worse than nothing. Case in point is that door zone bike lane at 04:20. Door zone bike lanes literally lead cyclists into danger. The car door opens, you have basically zero reaction time, you are knocked into the travel lane, and potentially run over by traffic there. Bicyclists can die from this. Door zone bike lanes should have been stricken from the traffic engineering guidance a long time ago. It was a mistake to ever allow them.
