[Ebbc-Talk] Portland finding green "bike boxes" at intersections INCREASE right-hook collisions

The "safe zones" established in Portland to protect cyclists from "right-hook" turns during green lights may have actually INCREASED th number of cars hitting cyclists who are moving up on the right in curbside bike lanes during the green phase:
 
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2012/10/16/city-finds-bike-boxes-may-actually-increase-crashes

Although there are mitigating factors that cloud the doubling in car-bike collisions (an overall increase of 57% in bikes on the road over the past four years and a lock of clear causality attributable to the green "bike boxes" at intersections) it does appear that the number of collisions between moving cars and moving bikes is now higher. (The green zones were installed to keep moving cars from hitting stationary cyclists who were stopped at the intersection.)

It seems that merging into the traffic flow at intersections--as we teach in our EBBC Street Skills courses--is far safer  than depending on the
illusory and nonexistent "safety" of a green-painted zone.

Jon

Jon Spangler
Writer/editor
Linda Hudson Writing
www.LindaHudsonWriting.net
TEL  510-864-2144
CEL 510-846-5356
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"She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life."
  —Frances E. Willard, in A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle (1895)

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