Watch: The dangers of only riding in the bike lane in a car-centric world

Meet Casey Neistat, a male bicyclist in New York, who got fined $50 for not riding in the bike lane by a police officer. Casey tried to convince the officer that many times it was more safe to ride on the road instead of the bike lane but the officer didn’t care. So Casey decided to make a point about the NYPD ticketing bicyclists and show what could happen if you only ride in the bike lane. Despite the numerous objects blocking the bike lane Casey keeps on riding in the bike lane only. And as a result he ends up crashing into various piles of construction equipments, boxes, cars and even a police car. You can watch the video below. The video starts with his conversation with the police officer. The actual crashing starts about a minute in.

You may laugh at him and his video, just like I did. But being a bicyclist, or even a pedestrian, in a car-centric world is dangerous and could easily get you killed. For example. In the UK cyclists made up only 0.5% of the total traffic but accounted for 5% of the entire number of road deaths and 11% of the serious injuries during 2009. The report, done by the road safety charity Brake, also concluded that “while road casualties overall had decreased, cyclist deaths and injuries had not”.

And a recently released report shows that between 2000 and 2009 more than 47000 pedestrians were killed in the USA. The study also shows that more than 668000 other pedestrians were injured because of accidents.

“The Transportation for America report asserts that transportation agencies across the country continue to design infrastructure with only vehicle traffic in mind. “It’s a serious problem that doesn’t get a lot of attention,” said Michelle Ernst, who wrote the report.

Most pedestrian deaths occur on “arterial” roadways, designed for traffic without sidewalks or bike lanes to accommodate walkers or cyclists, the report said.”

But luckily there are cities where they have bicycles and pedestrians in mind when they design their streets and transportation systems.

Simon Leufstedt is the editor of Green Blog. Simon has previously studied Global Environmental Justice and is currently studying Human Ecology and Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. Simon is also blogging over at the Swedish 350 website and working with the Swedish TckTckTck organisation. You can follow Simon on Twitter and on Google+.
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