Parents are conditioned to fear their kids getting into a bicycle accident with a car. The reason is that a small, light piece of metal is no match for a much larger, fast moving piece of metal. We teach our kids to yield to oncoming traffic, avoid areas of heavy traffic, use signals to alert drivers and, above all, always wear a helmet.
These basic rules of bicycling safety also apply to adults, who more and more frequently, are using bikes as alternate means of transportation. Despite every best precaution, however, bicycling accidents will continue to rise as the number of bicycling commuters goes up.
By far the most common cause of bicycle accidents is the distracted driver. In today's rushed society, drivers not only are in a bigger hurry to get places, but they've got more gadgets to distract them on their way. Crosswalk accidents resulting from distracted drivers or rolling right turns are a nearly everyday occurrences in Oregon's bigger cities like Portland, Salem or Eugene. As Vancouver and southwest Washington continue to grow, Portland bike injury attorneys are seeing more and more bike accidents across the river.
Poor road conditions or impaired drivers (from the elderly to the intoxicated) often cause bicycle accidents too. Even a dog attack can cause a biker to lose control and get in an accident. Other common causes of bicycle accidents are defective design or repair of the bicycle itself.
The last known U.S. Department of Transportation study on the most common causes of bike accidents found that bike accidents typically fall into roughly six different categories:
- Intersection or crosswalk yielding errors by motorist (21.7%)
- Intersection or crosswalk yielding error by bicyclist (16.8%)
- Unexpected turns by cars into the cyclist (12.1%)
- Bicyclist failing to yield at a midblock, driveway type location (11.7%)
- Motorists hitting cyclists by misjudging space needed to pass (8.6%)
- Bicyclists turning into motorist's path (7.3%)
Bicycle accidents are serious and their causes are numerous. Ultimately, every precaution or gadget cannot prevent injury. Awareness by both driver and cyclist, and an understanding of the role of each on the road, are the only things that in the end will help bring down the mushrooming injury statistics.