Do you see what I see?

Bikey Face comments on the things we see as cyclists. We’re out in the open and have opportunity to sense and enjoy so much more than the person trapped inside of his climate controlled cage. We see the built environment, we see other cyclists as the people that they are,the rainbows and clouds. Some of us might even notice the pedestrian as a person instead of as a road obstacle.

And Lloyd Alter @ Treehugger draws our attention to a 1940s bicycle safety pamphlet that illustrates the dangers of not watching the road.

Bike safety 1940

DANGER DEATH MAYHEM if you ride your bike on America’s streets, and it’s never the driver of a death machine who might be distracted, even with the new Internet enabled gadgets proliferating in new cars for 2012. No wonder we’re all so afraid of venturing outdoors that we’re willing to overlook blatant greenwashing to drive Trufulla-killing cars.

(And is the driver in that illustration hunched over his steering wheel gunning for the girl on the bike?)

In the meantime, there’s an injury collision once every minute on California roads. Somebody in California dies every three hours in a car crash, yet nobody fears going into a car and stepping on the gas.

H/T Jenny.

5 Comments

  1. Do you have a reference for those statistics?  I want some back up the next time I get in a break room discussion!

  2. 54,589

    The all-time record for motor vehicle deaths. Set in 1972. Say that number again. 54,589. Almost as many as died in the entire Vietnam War. More than died in both Iraq wars and Afghanistan combined. More than all the US cycling fatalities since the beginning of time. Need I go on?

  3. Chip, are you asking for California statistics or the 54589 number from Steve? Comprehensive CA data is available through CA SWITRS and the CA Office of Traffic Safety. More info on both of these http://iswitrs.chp.ca.gov/Reports/jsp/CollisionReports.jsp

    US national data is compiled in FARS database http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.