Sunday, November 7, 2010
Council demands bike accident stats
NEW YORK (CBS 2) – After the Department of Transportation called CBS 2’s Bike Bedlam reports false, they reneged on its claim and admitted that there was a lack of bike safety data in New York City.
Now, the New York City Council is taking steps to document accidents involving bicycles, CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reports.
The Councils’ Transportation Committee is now considering a bill that requires the DOT and the NYPD to collect data on bikes hitting people and other bikes.
“We cannot assess traffic safety without knowing how many accidents are caused by bicycles and where,” committee chair Jimmy Vacca said. “It’s an important part of our attempt to improve pedestrian safety in the city.”
Critics said the city should have started collecting bike safety data before spending millions on all the new bike lanes.
“This has been done in an abrupt and high-handed manner and again the public is paying through the nose for it,” bike safety advocate Jack Brown said.
On Thursday, Council members slammed the transportation agency, pushing for better safety data.
“We’re happy to keep working with the Council on all the legislation they’ve raised,” DOT member David Woloch said.
Woloch admitted bike safety needs a lot more attention but refused to endorse a specific bill.
Sponsors hope to bring the bill before the full Council by early next year.
18 comments:
I drive my car up and down 1st and 2nd Avenues in Manhattan all the time. For all the repainting of the streets and screwing around with the parking, these bike lanes thereon are hardly being used. I also live near the Woodside "share the space" bike lanes ("Best Route East"), again extremely infrequent use of these. But if they make someone feel good, what the hell.
more bikes, fewer cars, please.
Saw two bike riders get hit by cars at the foot of the Pulaski in Queens and both were at fault and both walked away as the drivers were pleading with them to get help for them. They knew they were at fault and just ignored every common sense.
This intersection is now a nightmare because of the vast amount of bike lanes intersecting one another and not enough right or left turn signals for cars to turn with safety. Very few if any of the cyclists coming off this bridge from Brooklyn EVER look at what they are doing.
It's only a matter of time before someone gets killed. But the city has to bow down to the ultra rich in this city now so all common sense and STREET SMARTS are thrown out the window.
You have to be a real idiot to ride your bike in this city these days due to the total lack of prior planning on the part of the inept DOT. It's just getting worse.
"It's only a matter of time before someone gets killed"
Cyclists get killed all the time because of dumb unsafe moves.
Cyclists are the new darlings of the yuppington assholes that run the city and as such they get away with murder (Speaking figuratively here)
Please watch my new YouTube series, part 1 as I interview New Yorkers and ask them if Mike Bloomberg told the truth...we needed him for a third term to help us with the economy!
I give out free NYC condoms to NYers because they been screwed by our little old emperor of NYC.
Enforce the laws on both bikers and drivers. Bikers would follow the rules more if drivers didn't try to force them off the road.
Every accident involving a bicycle that I've seen took place while the bicycle was moving. In the case of bicycle/car it has been moving into car's right of way and the cyclist believing the car should (and could) yield. In the case of bicycle/bicycle and bicycle/pedestrian accidents, the cyclist was either inattentive, or unable to stop in time, or both.
The most recent accident was one of those cheap electric motor bikes driven (ridden?) by a guy close to 60, who misjudged the distance required for a car to come to a stop. The next most recent was the classic, full speed wrong way encounter on a major Manhattan avenue. I speculate that the pedestrian only looked in the direction of oncoming traffic, and the cyclist assumed that he was seen by the pedestrian, and she would not step into his path. All of these need to be recorded with hard data and not be blogged anecdotes.
"Bikers would follow the rules more if drivers didn't try to force them off the road."
Flat out Bullshit
I think the cancels-out rule should be played more. Two wrongs do make a right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghs3Cr2gWTQ
This is New York City, over 8 million people within 300 square miles. Your notion that this is, or can be, a car-centric place is crazy. Driving has only gotten worse in Flushing due to the overdevelopment while public infrastructure stays the same (or gets cut). This is not Bumfuck, Iowa. Public transportation and bicycles are the way to go. I have no desire to plunk down $10,000 for a car, plus insurance, plus gas, plus tolls, plus repairs, plus oil changes or whatever they do.
a) New York, outside of Manhattan IS a car centric city. Notice all the cars and highways?
b) Just because YOU don't want to doesn't mean there aren't more than a million who do. Acting like because you you don't need one, no one needs one is an assholish way of thinking.
When will these morons realize that this is not a bike friendly city! When you have an area that is this densely populated and with as many cars and trucks as we have it's not going to work.
This isn't pretty little Seattle or some other trendy city that that has a few blocks of big buildings. This is NYC and no other city is like ours. Bike lanes simply do not work in this city imho....
Bumfook, Iowa. Dot's vere I'm retiring. Hahr, hahr, hahr.
With Obamacare, we should mandate psychiatric examinations of Bayside pimp mobile driving geezers when they renew their licenses. This way they will move away and stop voting against the progressive agenda.
when you morons get your head out of your ass and your ass out of the car you might actually be able to see the world and loose some weight.
fuck-tards!
"when you morons get your head out of your ass and your ass out of the car you might actually be able to see the world and loose some weight."
What's the matter can't afford a car? LOLOLOL chump....
"...you might actually be able to see the world..."
See the U-SA . . . in your Chev-rolet!
Cars and houses are evil atomistic Bush "Ownership Society" ploys to coopt the masses away from the progressive Agenda. Anyone who wants a car or house should undergo intensive psychotherapy under Obamacare
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