A Slice of Anaheim

Keeping our tradition of “slicing the Orange”, we present the latest statistics for Anaheim.

Anaheim is the 2nd worst city for bike collision fatality and injury in the county.

With 13 dead and 1,048 injured since 2001, we sought to unravel a common denominator.

Anaheim Deadliest Streets

Anaheim Deadliest Streets

Here are the roads where bike riders were killed:

Even the happiest place on earth is not immune to deadly collisions as seen by the fatality created by a speeding motorist at Ball and Cast Place in Disneyland last year.

The latest records from Anaheim are from 2/24/12.

Abbreviations used:

FTS = Failed to Stop, FTY = Failed to Yield, FTR = Far to the Right

And now for the pie charts!

Anaheim Killed by Fault

Once again, bike riders are their own worst enemy according to the authorities. Failing to stop, riding on the wrong side of the road, and failing to yield are 3 simple things these riders should have done and had they done so, there would be more bikes on the road today. After all, how often do you hear someone saying, “I wish there were more cars on the road!

Motorists were also guilty of carelessness resulting in an additional needless loss of life by speeding, and generally failing to maintain or exercise proper control of their vehicles.

Bike riders in Anaheim must really like pain because according to the data, they are responsible for over 80% of collisions with motorists. Now I have yet to meet one cyclist who actively looks to get into a collision with a car, truck, or tank, so I would treat these numbers with some suspicion.

Anaheim Injured

If perception is reality, then this reality needs to change and quick. With the 2nd highest death count and 2nd highest injury count, the cycling population of Anaheim is doomed to quick extinction if they keep this up. The causes presented by the data are mostly behavioral, so here’s a refresher:

  • Ride with the direction of traffic
  • Stop at and signs and signals
  • Be Polite, wave as you yield the right of way (a smile always helps)
  • Signal your intentions, let people know what you plan to do
  • Use front and rear lights and reflective clothing to be seen better

Five simple things that you can count on one hand. Master these and watch Anaheim switch sides from one of the worst, to one of the best cities to ride in. It all starts with you.

Yes, there are infrastructure issues as well. For this reason, roadway treatments in one city need to be coordinated with the the adjacent city, and so on. In fact, we looked at all the roadways involved in collisions and found that 20% of all collisions happened on 5 roads. Certainly some room for improvement there, can you guess which roads / streets they are?

An active and engaged Bicycle Action Committee is needed for this city – stat.

Who is willing to rise to the call?

Let us know who you are and we’ll help guide the process transforming Anaheim into a cycle-safe place to ride.

Thanks for your support.

Commuter Survey Update

Commuters prefer safety and speed with:

  • 57% using class1 MUPs during their commute.
  • 29% using additional public transportation (bus, train),
  • 43% are either lucky enough to live close to work , or are totally hardcore commuters by riding the first and last mile during their commute.

South County and the Beach Cities have good participation, and we’d like to see more involvement from the inland and north county areas.

Let’s hear from Anaheim and Santa Ana, Orange and Buena Park, and all cities in between!

Take the commuter survey here, Thanks for Your Participation.

A Slice of Newport Beach

Continuing our presentation of bike rider safety, we present the latest statistics for Newport Beach. We combined the previous charts from other cities, but here we separate injuries from deaths in two charts.

The 1st quarter of 2011 data is almost complete, and the rest of the year continues to be updated.
2012 data is slowly being processed from other counties, but the latest we have for Newport is from August 2011. The NPB PD has not been responsive to our repeated requests for current information, so we’ll show what we have now, and maybe in a year or two the charts will reflect what they input to the system yesterday.

Abbreviations used:

FTS = Failed to Stop, FTY = Failed to Yield, FTR = Far to the Right

And now for the pie charts!

NPB Dead Cyclist CollisionsThe chart represents the 11 fatalities that occurred in this city up to August of 2011. The color indicates who was at fault for the collision as determined by the appropriate authorities.  Newport Beach enjoys the dubious distinction of earning a “Bronze” in the deadliest city category of county competition with Anaheim and Santa Ana earning “Silver” and “Gold” respectively.

Cyclists ignored traffic signals and signs to their demise by failing to stop or exceeding the speed limit and loosing control.

40% of drivers’ fault for killing someone on a bicycle was do to being under the influence, and that’s for those who were caught.

In September, the Daily Pilot ran a story about Newport and bike accidents. While we note that the reporters were able to get current  data from the NPB PD, what the reporters left out of the story is shown below: OTS-NPB

From the California Office of Traffic Safety, the above chart is for their “latest” data from 2010.

Despite the abysmal safety record for anything not on four wheels, Newport Beach earned the “gold medal” by placing 1st from 103 cities of similar size for alcohol involvement in collisions in the city. The good news for those that like to drive under the influence is that Newport Beach ranked next to last in enforcement as can be seen in their arrest percentage and ranking.

True, this data is from 2010 and things may have changed for the better, which is why we asked in the first place.

NPB Injured Cyclist CollisionsThis chart reflects the cyclist injuries within the city. Newport rides mid-pack at 5th in the top 10 cities injurious to your riding pleasure.

Clearly cyclists are at fault for the majority of collisions in Newport by riding on the wrong side of the road, not far enough to the right, failing to yield or stop, and failing to, CVC22109: “stop or suddenly decrease the speed of a vehicle on a highway without first giving an appropriate signal”.

Bicycles can be stopped faster than a motor vehicle, which makes us wonder; were the drivers following too close? Typically the presumption of fault is on the rear-most motorist  in a chain reaction collision. So 101 bike riders stopped as conditions warranted (stop signs, lights, being cut-off, etc.), yet were found “at fault” for failing to give an appropriate slowing or stopping signal?

By now you probably want to know where all the action took place.

Here is an overview of where the cyclist fatalities occurred:

NPB Death Map

The red dots are in the CHP system, while the orange are not.

Here’s the map showing where the injuries took place:

NPB Injuries

The size of the dots have nothing to do with the counts of injury at a particular location. Of interest in this map is the dilemma faced by residents or tourists of the peninsula. Hard to get into, out of, and round about on two wheels it seems. Also interesting is the high count of collisions on Irvine /Campus close to Harbor High and UCI, while no surprise at the “gauntlet” that is Corona del Mar.

Curious about the state of PCH since Newport Beach garnered responsibility for the stretch from Jamboree to Newport Coast, we tried to get data going back to 1996 to provide a balanced perspective on how the Corona del Mar Business Improvement plan is working out for people on bikes traveling through the “improved” area. Unable to get the data in a timely fashion we present:

Cyclist Collision Injuries

This chart shows the number of bike riders injured in collisions in Newport Beach from 2001-2008. This time- frame is chosen to reflect 4 years on either side of the control or “improvement” of PCH.  While things may have improved for the businesses of Corona del Mar, it appears people on two wheels paid the price.

Since we cannot go back we must go forward. The next chart shows a dramatic drop from ’09-10, which the tourism board probably found encouraging. Another drop in ’11 gives the impression that all is well until the realization hits that there’s still another 2 quarters to feed into the chart! Even so, doubling the currently recorded 26 injuries to 52 would put the city on track to have the lowest injury rate since 2003!

Cyclist Collisions in NPB 01-12

Is there data manipulation going on behind the scenes? There’s no way to know, and people seemed conditioned to accept a 2 year time delay in actionable, potentially lifesaving information.

Consider: a policeman fills out a collision report on his handheld wireless gps gizmo, and beams the collision record back to the department complete with pictures. The collision summaries are batched to the state. Minutes later, a collision request occurs at the local station. The request is honored within seconds, yet to receive a response from the state will take 2 years? If someone can explain how this makes sense, saves lives, time, and money we’d love to hear it.

Thanks for your support!

Rideshare Week 2012

From 10/1 to 10/5 Rideshare Week encourages commuters to take the bus, train, vanpool, carpool, bike or work instead of driving alone for their daily excursions.

Commuters can win a variety of prizes by pledging to participate in Rideshare Week including iPads, gift cards to the Irvine Spectrum, movie tickets and bike gear.

Rideshare Week is a part of OCTA’s Share the Ride program, which is aimed at helping commuters find efficient, environmentally friendly and cost effective ways to commute to work.

The program, sponsored by the Orange County Transportation Authority, helps commuters find a vanpool, plan a trip by bus or train, and find a carpool partner.

Rideshare week is sponsored by OCTA, Anaheim Resort Transit, Enterprise Rideshare, VPSI Inc., Spectrumotion, Kaiser Permanente and Jax Bicycle Center.

For cyclo-commuters, engage your coworkers to join a commuter train as there is safety in numbers