I have ridden literally every segment in this video myself. Seeing them in video reminds me how dangerous they are. Thank you for producing this and your work to slip the script.
Excellent video. Reports today of another wheelchair death in Demver on Colfax. From my own experience there, the walk signals are barely long enough for most people to get across; I do not know if this was a factor in this latest death, but not all potential “fixes” need to be expensive to implement. The will to make changes is a critical part of the equation.
I've been so excited to see more traffic calming being employed where I live in MA: speed bumps, chokers and mini roundabouts. Quite a few of the most dangerous intersections are under consideration or being redesigned to reduce pedestrian and bike strikes. This video is great, and gives people a good way to think and talk about traffic calming.
High speed cars need to be separated from fragile people and bicycles period. If this is not feasible where you live, move to where it is. I worked in bicycle advocacy hoping to enhance bike routes, I was soon overwhelmed by tragic stories. The groups solution was to promote bike helmets. I moved.
The world is ruled by cars. Half of the space in our cities is completely devoted to them. People love their cars more than their environment, more than their children, (putting a kid in a car is the highest risk scenario imaginable) but no matter. "I am going for a drive. DON'T TRY TO STOP ME!"
Until those who drive cars stop thinking more about their own goals and consider the walking or cycling folks sharing their roads, there will be no lowering of traffic crashes. I saw a driver just the other night run thru a stop sign in a parking lot and cut off a senior citizen pushing a grocery cart, staring them down like how dare they walk where I want to drive. It's selfishness and unconcern, and I fear our current political climate emboldens this mindset.
Every time I ride I think about the coworker that was killed while riding in a bike lane adjacent to a school by a distracted off duty police officer about 15 years ago.
@@BikeShopGirl that's the weird thing. I asked a few peeps why the go to Aldi, to save money. Yet they take a taxi there and back. I go on my bike both good for me and I think twice what I buy. Also pushes you towards thinking about quality rather than quantity
If you think Chapel Hill is bad, come on down 264 to Greenville. The motorists don't respect each other, much less bicyclists, motorcyclists, or pedestrians. Edit to add: I've tried commuting by bike with a recumbent trike and an electric modified Yuba Boda Boda. Four hits between the two bikes, luckily all minor. I only ride on the green ways these days
I take exception to the comment right at the end that says engineer, planners, and administrators need to change how they design roads. I have 30 years experience working as a traffic engineer in mostly government agencies and I can assure you that there are very few (if any) civil service level engineers who dictate design philosophies. What we worker bees do is design & build according to the "vision" of the governors, the mayors, the county boards, etc. who call the shots. There are many complete-street ideas that this cyclist/walker-engineer and other similar minded co-workers would love to do, but that is not our agency's focus so we can't. Heck, I can't even recommend building a roundabout because our current governor has banned them because she says that they are confusing and "dangerous". Never mind that I can illustrate thousands of examples nationwide where roundabouts have overwhelmingly reduced fatal & serious injury crashes; it doesn't matter what the facts are though because madame governor's horse-sense trumps all and everyone is stuck living with it . So castigate and point fingers at those who set policy. Castigate and point fingers at those who keep electing backward-looking officials. But please do not accuse my peers and me of being auto-centric and not realizing that there is a better way.
True, it all comes down to politics. Democracy has mostly failed, but the case of the car, the will of the people has been heard, "CARS ROCK! BIKES SUCK!"
Changes need to be made to the cars. GPS speed gates for all areas with cycling and pedestrians. Car manufacturers need to stop selling "race cars". Period. That time needs to be in the past. Lawsuits need to start taking billions from their profits if they made cars that promoted speeding, exhibition of speed, reckless driving. Something should be done with cell phones. I'm not sure how/what. But cell phone distraction is rampant. It will take so long to fix all the roads. There should be a two pronged approach. Fix roads + fix the cars ability for misuse.
It should be extreme. It should feel like people lost rights to behave poorly. They should feel embarrassed for fighting any progress towards safety. Anyone that fights for the right to speed in residential should be publicly outed.
@@VeeVeeArcher Speed cameras would be a good beginning. Pedestrian barriers would be great. Cars and trucks need to be detuned like they were in the 70s. Also make it illegal to tamper with or sell software that makes cars drive faster. I don't know what could be done about cell phones. The better thing is if more people used bikes and public transportation.
If a distracted driver kills someone this is not seen as the very serious crime that it is. Why? Because all car drivers drive distracted, all of them. Judges check their messages. Cops make calls. The mayor can't go four blocks without checking his FB mentions. And so, since 'everyone' does it, every day, "how can it be a crime?" And so it goes. Forcing change, as you suggest will be the only way to ameliorate their behaviour. We cannot legislate human psychology. But we can implement measures like you suggest. IF we have the political will. Most carheads would lose their minds if you tried to force them to slow down.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.... while every death is tragic and I am certainly for a reduced number of them, let's not pick & choose our windows of data. When I got my license in 1985, we were taught that approximately 50,000 people died on US roads annually (about ½ being alcohol related). That data was actually a few years old.... the last year at that level was 1980, and it hasn't reached that since. If you account for the increase in total vehicle miles traveled, safety has gone WAY UP, deaths DOWN. Your analysis is tangent to saying "OMG!! There's a record number of births this year!!".... without mentioning there are a record number of people. Rather myopic. I believe the term needed here is "per capita" or something akin to it. In the 1st 9 months of 2021 there had been 31,720 US road deaths. Extrapolate that out for the year for simplicity's sake and you get about 42,300 deaths for the year. Divide that by total vehicle miles traveled and you get approximately 1.31 deaths/100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT). In '85 it was 2.47..... 88% higher with nearly the same raw number of deaths. Since 2009 (sans '20 & '21.... anomalies from the pandemic and people losing there mother-loving minds on the roadways) the rate of deaths has hovered between 1.08 & 1.15 deaths per 100M VMT..... DESPITE the crazy increase in the number of traffic circles/roundabouts being built since then (vs previous). For goodness sake, Garmin can't even keep my GPS up to date with QUARTERLY updates. It seems we've hit a plateau. If anyone thinks I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll bring in MY credentials. I'm willing to bet that there isn't a single person in the 21 comments that showed when I started typing this comment (on a small screen phone with one finger.... guess the correct one for bonus points) has as many miles on our roadways than I do. In just the last 12 years at my current company I have been paid for more miles than the average person drives in their ENTIRE LIFETIME. Over 1.1 million. That's pay miles, probably closer to 1.16 million actual miles. This doesn't account for personal miles.... including 5 or 6 cross country road trips during this time NOR does it count ANY miles from 1985-2010 (uncountable, but I'm guessing a lot). I might know a thing or two about traffic. Or not..... after all I've been told any monkey can be trained to drive a tractor trailer.... across the country..... on interstates, country roads, big city freeways, side streets and belive it or not dirt trails through the woods in reverse..... over mountain passes in whiteout conditions, et....cet....er....a.... Back to the Future.... 1985.... where I was taught that people had died without a seat belt at a speed as low as 12mph (hmm, I guess I can't disprove that). If your goal is zero deaths (and pushing everything else aside.... as would be necessary to attain your goal), then a legitimate solution would be to lower the speed limit NATIONALLY to 10 or 15 mph. Of course half (or more) of the country would starve to death or some other unintended consequence. Bike paths/lanes aren't an affordable solution (unless you bicyclists are willing to start ponying up a road tax to pay for these things..... I'm going to guess a big fat NO on that). And what would be the unintended consequences of that plan..... One last thing...... bicyclists can be the most horrendous traffic law breakers I've ever seen. Traffic control signs/signals don't seem to apply to many of you. How about we start with vigorous enforcement of traffic laws on both motor vehicles AND bicyclists (and those pesky pedestrians running every which way ignoring THEIR traffic signals/laws)? Can I get an "Amen!!" ?.... probably not.
That's an awful lot of words to say, "NOTHIING WILL GET ME OUT OF MY CAR. I COULD CARE LESS HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE" Congratulations, you are a morally and mentally degraded car addict, a carhead. Addicts rationalise their addictions as so just demonstrated perfectly. Sell your car if you want to live. (I am not talking about 'accidents')
The good news is that soon, sociopaths will no longer be driving trucks. It will be machines, and those machines will have more regard for the lives of bicyclists then most "drivers".
Well this "sociopath" doesn't believe any machine has ANY regard for human life. I'd also LOVE to hear your definition of "soon". 🤣 BTW.... are you a bicyclist?? Love to hear just how much YOU are willing to dish out (bicycle registrations, etc) for all the bike paths YOU likely want? Oh, wait.... bicyclists want those paths to be paid for by GAS taxes or general funds (NIMBP... Not In My Back Pocket... right?)..... always wanting a free "ride".
I have nothing to add other than keep doing what you do.
🙏🏼
I have ridden literally every segment in this video myself. Seeing them in video reminds me how dangerous they are. Thank you for producing this and your work to slip the script.
It will get to that point.
Excellent video. Reports today of another wheelchair death in Demver on Colfax. From my own experience there, the walk signals are barely long enough for most people to get across; I do not know if this was a factor in this latest death, but not all potential “fixes” need to be expensive to implement. The will to make changes is a critical part of the equation.
Colfax, federal, and Havana were the worst in Denver.
They were.
The carheads will fight us every step of the way too.
I've been so excited to see more traffic calming being employed where I live in MA: speed bumps, chokers and mini roundabouts. Quite a few of the most dangerous intersections are under consideration or being redesigned to reduce pedestrian and bike strikes. This video is great, and gives people a good way to think and talk about traffic calming.
High speed cars need to be separated from fragile people and bicycles period.
If this is not feasible where you live, move to where it is.
I worked in bicycle advocacy hoping to enhance bike routes, I was soon overwhelmed by tragic stories. The groups solution was to promote bike helmets. I moved.
The world is ruled by cars. Half of the space in our cities is completely devoted to them. People love their cars more than their environment, more than their children, (putting a kid in a car is the highest risk scenario imaginable) but no matter. "I am going for a drive. DON'T TRY TO STOP ME!"
Until those who drive cars stop thinking more about their own goals and consider the walking or cycling folks sharing their roads, there will be no lowering of traffic crashes. I saw a driver just the other night run thru a stop sign in a parking lot and cut off a senior citizen pushing a grocery cart, staring them down like how dare they walk where I want to drive. It's selfishness and unconcern, and I fear our current political climate emboldens this mindset.
💜
Sang it sister! This conservative will stand shoulder to shoulder with you for safe streets!
Every time I ride I think about the coworker that was killed while riding in a bike lane adjacent to a school by a distracted off duty police officer about 15 years ago.
Dedicated/ separated bike lanes to reach "critical mass", like Holland, Denmark, Germany.
Very good. Denver has taken a big step forward in making their streets bike safer.
I lived near the Dutch border for 20 years, come back to 🇬🇧, like riding in caveman times.....ummmh
Caveman that have a gas addiction
@@BikeShopGirl that's the weird thing. I asked a few peeps why the go to Aldi, to save money. Yet they take a taxi there and back. I go on my bike both good for me and I think twice what I buy. Also pushes you towards thinking about quality rather than quantity
Did you film this with your insta 360? It looks great. Also great video!
A mix of Insta360, hero 10, and a cycliq on a friends bike.
You should take Cycle Savvy!!! Best Class EVER!!
If you think Chapel Hill is bad, come on down 264 to Greenville. The motorists don't respect each other, much less bicyclists, motorcyclists, or pedestrians.
Edit to add:
I've tried commuting by bike with a recumbent trike and an electric modified Yuba Boda Boda. Four hits between the two bikes, luckily all minor. I only ride on the green ways these days
It's a war out there.
I take exception to the comment right at the end that says engineer, planners, and administrators need to change how they design roads. I have 30 years experience working as a traffic engineer in mostly government agencies and I can assure you that there are very few (if any) civil service level engineers who dictate design philosophies. What we worker bees do is design & build according to the "vision" of the governors, the mayors, the county boards, etc. who call the shots. There are many complete-street ideas that this cyclist/walker-engineer and other similar minded co-workers would love to do, but that is not our agency's focus so we can't. Heck, I can't even recommend building a roundabout because our current governor has banned them because she says that they are confusing and "dangerous". Never mind that I can illustrate thousands of examples nationwide where roundabouts have overwhelmingly reduced fatal & serious injury crashes; it doesn't matter what the facts are though because madame governor's horse-sense trumps all and everyone is stuck living with it . So castigate and point fingers at those who set policy. Castigate and point fingers at those who keep electing backward-looking officials. But please do not accuse my peers and me of being auto-centric and not realizing that there is a better way.
Great comment!
To confirm what you see needs to change: policy and elected officials so that you have the place to design better road systems?
True, it all comes down to politics. Democracy has mostly failed, but the case of the car, the will of the people has been heard, "CARS ROCK! BIKES SUCK!"
Changes need to be made to the cars. GPS speed gates for all areas with cycling and pedestrians.
Car manufacturers need to stop selling "race cars". Period. That time needs to be in the past. Lawsuits need to start taking billions from their profits if they made cars that promoted speeding, exhibition of speed, reckless driving.
Something should be done with cell phones. I'm not sure how/what. But cell phone distraction is rampant.
It will take so long to fix all the roads. There should be a two pronged approach. Fix roads + fix the cars ability for misuse.
It should be extreme. It should feel like people lost rights to behave poorly. They should feel embarrassed for fighting any progress towards safety. Anyone that fights for the right to speed in residential should be publicly outed.
@@VeeVeeArcher Speed cameras would be a good beginning. Pedestrian barriers would be great. Cars and trucks need to be detuned like they were in the 70s. Also make it illegal to tamper with or sell software that makes cars drive faster. I don't know what could be done about cell phones. The better thing is if more people used bikes and public transportation.
If a distracted driver kills someone this is not seen as the very serious crime that it is. Why? Because all car drivers drive distracted, all of them. Judges check their messages. Cops make calls. The mayor can't go four blocks without checking his FB mentions. And so, since 'everyone' does it, every day, "how can it be a crime?"
And so it goes.
Forcing change, as you suggest will be the only way to ameliorate their behaviour. We cannot legislate human psychology. But we can implement measures like you suggest. IF we have the political will. Most carheads would lose their minds if you tried to force them to slow down.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.... while every death is tragic and I am certainly for a reduced number of them, let's not pick & choose our windows of data.
When I got my license in 1985, we were taught that approximately 50,000 people died on US roads annually (about ½ being alcohol related). That data was actually a few years old.... the last year at that level was 1980, and it hasn't reached that since. If you account for the increase in total vehicle miles traveled, safety has gone WAY UP, deaths DOWN. Your analysis is tangent to saying "OMG!! There's a record number of births this year!!".... without mentioning there are a record number of people. Rather myopic. I believe the term needed here is "per capita" or something akin to it.
In the 1st 9 months of 2021 there had been 31,720 US road deaths. Extrapolate that out for the year for simplicity's sake and you get about 42,300 deaths for the year. Divide that by total vehicle miles traveled and you get approximately 1.31 deaths/100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT). In '85 it was 2.47..... 88% higher with nearly the same raw number of deaths. Since 2009 (sans '20 & '21.... anomalies from the pandemic and people losing there mother-loving minds on the roadways) the rate of deaths has hovered between 1.08 & 1.15 deaths per 100M VMT..... DESPITE the crazy increase in the number of traffic circles/roundabouts being built since then (vs previous). For goodness sake, Garmin can't even keep my GPS up to date with QUARTERLY updates. It seems we've hit a plateau.
If anyone thinks I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll bring in MY credentials. I'm willing to bet that there isn't a single person in the 21 comments that showed when I started typing this comment (on a small screen phone with one finger.... guess the correct one for bonus points) has as many miles on our roadways than I do. In just the last 12 years at my current company I have been paid for more miles than the average person drives in their ENTIRE LIFETIME. Over 1.1 million. That's pay miles, probably closer to 1.16 million actual miles. This doesn't account for personal miles.... including 5 or 6 cross country road trips during this time NOR does it count ANY miles from 1985-2010 (uncountable, but I'm guessing a lot). I might know a thing or two about traffic. Or not..... after all I've been told any monkey can be trained to drive a tractor trailer.... across the country..... on interstates, country roads, big city freeways, side streets and belive it or not dirt trails through the woods in reverse..... over mountain passes in whiteout conditions, et....cet....er....a....
Back to the Future.... 1985.... where I was taught that people had died without a seat belt at a speed as low as 12mph (hmm, I guess I can't disprove that). If your goal is zero deaths (and pushing everything else aside.... as would be necessary to attain your goal), then a legitimate solution would be to lower the speed limit NATIONALLY to 10 or 15 mph. Of course half (or more) of the country would starve to death or some other unintended consequence. Bike paths/lanes aren't an affordable solution (unless you bicyclists are willing to start ponying up a road tax to pay for these things..... I'm going to guess a big fat NO on that). And what would be the unintended consequences of that plan.....
One last thing...... bicyclists can be the most horrendous traffic law breakers I've ever seen. Traffic control signs/signals don't seem to apply to many of you. How about we start with vigorous enforcement of traffic laws on both motor vehicles AND bicyclists (and those pesky pedestrians running every which way ignoring THEIR traffic signals/laws)? Can I get an "Amen!!" ?.... probably not.
That's an awful lot of words to say, "NOTHIING WILL GET ME OUT OF MY CAR. I COULD CARE LESS HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE"
Congratulations, you are a morally and mentally degraded car addict, a carhead.
Addicts rationalise their addictions as so just demonstrated perfectly.
Sell your car if you want to live. (I am not talking about 'accidents')
The good news is that soon, sociopaths will no longer be driving trucks. It will be machines, and those machines will have more regard for the lives of bicyclists then most "drivers".
Well this "sociopath" doesn't believe any machine has ANY regard for human life. I'd also LOVE to hear your definition of "soon". 🤣
BTW.... are you a bicyclist?? Love to hear just how much YOU are willing to dish out (bicycle registrations, etc) for all the bike paths YOU likely want? Oh, wait.... bicyclists want those paths to be paid for by GAS taxes or general funds (NIMBP... Not In My Back Pocket... right?)..... always wanting a free "ride".