Bicycle safety and preventing bicycling accidents

Preventive tactics and safe practices

The most important safety measure bicyclists can take is to avoid collisions with cars and trucks. Bicycle safety consultants recommend these tactics to avoid collisions:

• Make yourself and your bicycle highly visible. Your bicycle should always have a headlight, preferably an LED model, and a blinking red tail light. Wear a reflective vest and bright colored clothing to increase your visibility.
• Your helmet should be white or light-colored.
• Have a loud horn, and don’t hesitate to use it.
• Get a handlebar or a helmet mirror and check it frequently.
• Ride with the flow of traffic, on the right-hand side.
• Observe all traffic rules. Stop at stop signs and red lights. Remember that bicyclists must follow the same rules of the road as other vehicle operators, including obeying traffic signs, signals, and lane markings.
• Avoid busy streets. The route you take when you drive may not be the safest route to take on your bike. Look for alternative routes with less traffic.
• At intersections, stop ahead of or behind the vehicle nearest you, to be sure the driver can see you. If you stop right beside the vehicle, you may be in the driver’s blind spot.
• Ride far enough away from the curb that you won’t get hit if a person in parked car opens a left-side door into the roadway.
• Assume that cars can turn right at any time. Do not assume that they will signal. Often they don’t.
• Never move to the left without checking behind you. A car could be coming up on you.
• Never pass a car on the right. The car could turn right unexpectedly, right into you.

Don’t ride in dangerous conditions

Night is the most dangerous time for bicyclists. Even with lights and reflective clothing, drivers often won’t see you. Don’t ride at night if you can avoid it.

Rain and high wind will make it harder to control your bicycle. The most dangerous time to ride is when the rain has just started. The rain lands in all the little pockets and uneven spots in the road surface, and the grease and oil floats on top, making the roadway especially slick. If it starts to rain while you’re riding, stop for coffee or duck under an overhang and wait it out.

A strong wind, 20 mph or more can push a bicycle around. Gusts are especially dangerous because they’re not predictable. Wait out a wind if you can. If you must ride, keep the bicycle to the side of the lane that the wind is coming from, so that if a heavy gust shoves you, you have some room to maneuver.

The importance of helmets

The most important piece of safety gear for cyclists is a properly fitted helmet. Helmets are designed to cushion and protect riders' heads from the impact of a crash. Like safety belts in cars, helmets cannot provide total protection against head injury or death, but they do reduce the incidence of both.

Nearly 70 percent of fatal bicycle crashes involve head injuries, according to the US Department of Transportation, yet only 25 percent of cyclists wear helmets. Wearing a helmet dramatically increases a bicyclist’s odds of surviving a crash, and a helmet reduces the risk of a traumatic brain injury. The DOT estimates that if all children age 4 to 15 wore helmets when they rode bicycles, 45,000 head injuries and 55,000 scalp and face injuries could be prevented every year.

Helmets decrease the severity of head injuries, the number of days spent in the hospital, and the overall cost of medical care after a bicycle crash. Helmets have the additional benefit of protecting the cyclist from dust, rocks, and other debris thrown up by other vehicles.

The first bicycle helmet law was passed in California in 1986 and became effective in 1987. This law was amended in 1994 to cover everyone under 18.

The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute offers these recommendations for buying and fitting a helmet:

• Make sure your helmet fits to get all the protection you are paying for. A good fit means level on your head, touching all around, comfortably snug but not tight.
• The helmet should not move more than about an inch in any direction, and must not pull off no matter how hard you try.
• The strap holds your helmet on your head, and is as important as the helmet. Make sure the strap and the latch are strong.
• Your helmet should be highly visible. Choose white or a light color. With a dark-colored helmet you increase the risk that a driver will not see you, especially at night.
• Always replace a helmet after a crash. The compressible foam inside the helmet absorbs the energy of the crash. Once it has done this, the foam does not recover. A helmet that has been through one crash will not protect you from a second one.
• For the most up to date evaluations of helmets check the most recent Consumer Reports helmet review.
• No matter how effective and safe your helmet is, it only protects you if you wear it.

Other important safety equipment

Protective clothing can prevent injuries and reduce the seriousness of injuries to arms and legs, hands and feet. Protective clothing includes:

• Eye protection: Riders should protect their eyes against insects, dirt, rocks and other debris, and tearing and blurred vision from the wind. Good quality goggles or glasses with plastic or safety lenses can provide a measure of protection. Goggles and glasses should be unscratched, shatter proof, and ventilated to prevent fog buildup.
• Jackets and pants: Clothing should be tough enough to provide some protection from abrasion if you’re tossed from your bike. Avoid pants with wide bottoms or excessive fullness; don’t risk your clothes getting tangled in the chain.
• Gloves: Wear gloves that give you a solid grip on the handlebars, brakes, and shift levers. Leather gloves or fabric gloves with leather palms and grip strips on the fingers work the best.

Use your gear to increase your visibility

Jerseys, jackets and other upper body clothing should be brightly colored to increase your visibility, especially at night. It’s a good idea to wear reflective orange or yellow vests you’re your clothes. Reflective strips on clothing, helmet, and bicycle also help to make the rider more visible to other drivers, especially at night.

Choosing a safe bike

Choose a bicycle that’s a comfortable fit and does the job that you need it to do. When you’re astride the bicycle you should be able to touch the ground with both feet. Seat height, seat angle, handlebar style, and handlebar height all contribute to ease of handling. Have an experience bicycle sales person adjust all these so you’re comfortable on your bike, and can handle it easily. Check the brakes and the shift levers, and make sure you can reach and operate them easily and comfortably.