That’s the take home message in this news from Science Daily, which highlights research showing that the more cyclists there are on the road, the safer it becomes. Motorists change their behavior and driver more safely when they see more cyclists and pedestrians on the road around them.

Experts say the effect is independent of improvements in cycling-friendly laws such as lower speed limits and better infrastructure, such as bike paths. Research has revealed the safety-in-numbers impact for cyclists in Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, 14 European countries and 68 Californian cities.

“It’s a positive effect but some people are surprised that injury rates don’t go up at the same rate of increases in cycling,” says Sydney University’s Dr Chris Rissel, co-author of a 2008 research report on cycling.

“It appears that motorists adjust their behaviour in the presence of increasing numbers of people bicycling because they expect or experience more people cycling. Also, rising cycling rates mean motorists are more likely to be cyclists, and therefore be more conscious of, and sympathetic towards, cyclists.”

Lloyd at Treehugger goes into more detail on the safety aspect, pointing to Bike Commute Tips where Paul writes, “Amen to this. Stop perpetuating the myth of bicycling as a dangerous activity. Leave your helmet at home.”

Copenhagenize highlights this part of the article:

Dr Rissel says transport authorities should highlight the fun, convenience and health and environmental benefits of cycling, rather than what he views as an undue emphasis on danger and safety messages, which can deter cyclists: “We should create a cycling friendly environment and accentuate cycling’s positives rather than stress negatives with ‘safety campaigns’ that focus on cyclists without addressing drivers and road conditions. Reminding people of injury rates and risks, to wear helmets and reflective visible clothes has the unintended effect of reinforcing fears of cycling which discourages people from cycling.”

Other responses:

• Carbon Trace in Springfield: In Springfield the number of bikers on the road (and every other available surface) has increased dramatically in the past three weeks because college students are back in town. And I’ve noticed less honking and other cranky behavior by motorists.
• Amsterdamize: We already knew this, but hey, let’s keep science right smack in the middle of the ‘discussion’ and spread the word, ok?

Images: Catalog photos from Velorbis and Specialized. Guess which is from which?

Just like the children in Lake Wobegon, all of us are “above average” drivers.

I’m reading the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt quotes former New York City traffic commissioner Henry Barnes, who says, “As times goes on the technical problems become more automatic, while the people problems become more surrealistic.” Traffic discusses the “surrealistic” people issues of driving — the psychology and sociology of traffic.

Chapter 2 discusses the “Lake Wobegon effect” — that we all think we’re better than the idiot drivers around us. Vanderbilt talks with Rusty Weiss of DriveCam in San Diego. To improve safety for commercial fleet vehicles, DriveCam installs video cameras that record the 10 seconds before and after an “event” — a collision, sudden braking, hard steering and so forth. They capture the 99% of near hits that all of us take for granted and forget about in our daily driving, and use that video to coach drivers how they can drive more safely. Research shows that driving with the DriveCam improve safety dramatically, even with teen drivers. They also capture some dramatic crash footage, like this one of a cab driver who falls asleep at the wheel and ends up with his head in a rear window.

Higher quality and more videos are available at the DriveCam website. The middle video on this page shows a tow truck driver falling asleep at the wheel and driving several hundred feet in a bike lane before he’s jolted awake when he hits the curb. The scary thing is that he’s unaware of what happened even after the curb hit — without the video, there’s no way for him to learn how to improve his driving. If a cyclist was rear-ended at that point, no doubt the driver would have claimed he was correctly in his lane and the cyclist, naturally, must have veered in front of him because he’s a good driver with a good driving record.

If you’re involved in any kind of transportation or cycling advisory committee, I highly recommend the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do.

Two children in a marked crosswalk were hit by an SUV at Portola and 30th in Live Oak, California. The driver told officers she couldn’t see the children because she was blinded by the sun. “It’s the driver’s responsibility to make sure they can safely drive without any obstruction,” California Highway Patrol officer Grant Boles said. “Don’t just drive blind into the sun.”

Officer Dave Reed adds, “If you can’t see, the speed limit is zero.”

It seems self-evident, but *doh*. More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

The campfire smell seems to have gone away, but there was a layer of ash on my bicycle this morning.

California’s new handsfree mobile phone law goes into effect tomorrow. The law does not ban texting while driving. I even saw this last Friday in moving traffic.

The handsfree law doesn’t specifically exempt bicyclists, but Mr Roadshow says it doesn’t apply to cyclists. Neither he nor I are lawyers. YMMV.

Happy Friday! I’ve been too cranky lately so I was planning to post something happy and non-controversial this morning, but then I saw this: a mother in New York City lets her 9 year old child ride the subway. Alone!

I met a guy at a party last week who makes his daughter phone home after walking one block to her friend’s house. And he’s in a suburb. The leafy kind! Two parents told me they won’t let their kids walk to the mail box. There’s too much “opportunity” for them to get snatched. Other parents told me that they’d love to let their kids start going out on their own – at maybe 13, or 14. Until then…

In they stay. Or they’re driven around by their parents.

The fact that a child is literally forty times more likely to die in a car accident than at a stranger’s hands makes no difference. Driving is seen as safe. Freedom – once a right of childhood — is seen as suicidal.

When my son was nine he rode his bike to school alone, and many other parents thought I was borderline abusive for this. I recall a story from a few years ago of a teen who rode his bike in all weather to school – a “concerned” parent actually called child protective services in on the parents because the Boy Scout was forced to endure weather!

Admittedly, nine seems a little young to me, but if the kid is familiar with the route and knows his way, I’m not going to freak about a parent who allows this. In response to all the media attention and controversey, Lenore Skenazy started a new blog, Free Range Kids.