The Dangers of Cycling

Portland is often considered one of the most bicyle-friendly cities in the U.S. We have bike lanes, bike paths, maps of bike routes, and aware drivers (when they're not talking on cell phones and otherwise being oblivious to their surroundings). While ridership has escalated over the past five years, the number of bike/car accidents has remained the same. Still, when I ride in town, I exercise extreme caution. I never assume a car will stop at a stop sign or signal a turn. I make eye contact before crossing intersections or changing lanes. Despite my paranoia, I still managed to get nailed by the "right hook," a classic accident scenario that is set up by having bike lanes to the right of car lanes where cars need to make right turns at intersections. This scenario has been made safer by the new "bike box"--a painted box that allows bikes to move ahead of cars when stopped at traffic lights, thus allowing them to proceed across the intersection ahead of auto traffic when the light turns green.

The bike box does not provide a solution to traffic that is continuously moving through a green light, however. Despite driver and rider caution, this accident scenario is likely to happen repeatedly. Most of my friends think mountain biking is dangerous--but all of my notable cycling injuries have occured on the roads