Date: 17 Apr 1993 12:00:00 +0200
From: hajo@quijote.in-berlin.de (Hans-Joachim Zierke)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.soc
Subject: Government study: Bikepaths are dangerous

Finally, government got knowledge of the facts most cyclists know.

A new study was done for the German government agency working out the
"suggestions" to traffic engineers how facilities should be built,
called "Bundesanstalt fuer Strassenwesen".

It was done by the University of Hannover and a Hannover planning
bureau.

Due to the very "official" character of this study, this one might be
very helpful in other countries (same way like we use Australian
experiences with helmets for arguments).

At this moment, I only got some abstracts, but will look at the study
as soon as possible.

Foreigners might be lucky to obtain it for free from the
"Verkehrsministerium, 5300 Bonn" (this adress should be sufficient). If 
there is interest from abroad, they normally will try to be helpful. But 
I can't promise.

Title: 

"Sicherung von Radfahrern an staedtischen Knotenpunkten"
Institut fuer Verkehrswirtschaft, Strassenwesen und Staedtebau,
Universitaet Hannover
Planungsgemeinschaft Verkehr, Hannover
Bericht zum Forschungsprojekt 8925 der Bundesanstalt fuer Strassenwesen
Bergisch Gladbach, Oktober 1992

Some results:

They looked at several "accident types".

With the accident type: "Cyclist moving straight, car turning right" the
accident rate was 10 times higher for streets with bike-paths.

They also found that painting the bike-path across the crossing street
does not help a lot. The only working way of adding some safety to
bike-paths was: Getting the path on a higher level, some centimeters, 
than the crossing street. But the accident rate was still higher than
for cycling on the road. Bike-paths also got horrible results at "fast 
right-turning lanes" for cars. Involvement of trucks is higher for 
streets with bike-paths.


Ciao
Hajo

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