Tag Archives: crash

Self-balancing motorcycle

Road and Track magazine has reported on a self-balancing motorcycle from Honda. How does the motorcycle balance itself? As shown in videos with the Road and Track article, the front fork is hinged so the front wheel can move forward, … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling, Equipment, robotics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

About the bicycle radar reflector Kickstarter campaign

This article has been translated into Portuguese. This is commentary about a Kickstarter campaign for a radar retroreflector integrated into a bicycle taillight assembly. An image from the Web site:     One nice thing I can say about the … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling, Equipment, lighting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Montreal sidepath protects?

A classic right-hook collision occurred on August 26, 2015 in Montreal, where the cyclist was riding on a sidepath. Here’s a news report on the crash. As I’ve said repeatedly, sidepaths do not prevent crossing and turning collisions. The sidepath … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling, Cycle tracks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Duck Boat crashes

We had a duck boat run into a motor scooter from behind on Saturday, May 7, 2016 in Boston, killing one of the riders. It isn’t clear from the news story why this happened, though I expect that the poor … Continue reading

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Helmet disparagement and ethics

To quote the late, great Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, “Never treat anyone in the public sphere like an idiot. If you treat him like an idiot, he will act like an idiot.” Providing helmets is difficult when bicycles are … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Another crosswalk confusion, and a fatality

In response to my post about confused yielding requirements where shared-use paths cross streets, Ryan Reasons has published comments on a recent fatal truck-bicycle crash in the Seattle, Washington area. The photo below is from the KOMO TV/radio station news … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycle facilities, Bicycling, Sidepaths | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Some thoughts about self-driving cars

Google’s report on its self-driving cars: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-0515.pdf Most than half of the collisions reported in this document are slow-speed rear-enders of the Google cars. That’s unusual. It might be that the behavior of the Google cars is more cautious than … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling, Crashes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Change lanes in a roundabout?

Ohio cyclist Patricia Kovacs posted an e-mail asking some questions about roundabouts: Ohio engineers are telling us to use the inner lane for left turns and U turns. Both the FHWA [Federal Highway Administration] and videos available on our local … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling, Bike lanes, Roundabouts, traffic circles, Traffic Signals | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

When slow is too fast

The basic speed limit, not to go too fast under the existing conditions, is often lower than the posted speed limit. When facilities like the bike lane in the video are built in which 10 mph, or even 5 mph, … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycling, Bike lanes | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Monsere, Dill et al. — Not Yet a Review, But…

M. Kary, who prepared a review of the Lusk et al Montreal study, has had a preliminary look at the Monsere, Dill et al. study of barrier-separated on-street bikeways (“cycle tracks”) which the bicycle industry lobby PeopleforBikes is promoting as … Continue reading

Posted in Bicycle facilities, Bicycling, Cycle tracks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments