Agenda - 05-02-2017 - 7-c - Bicycle Safety Task Force (BSTF) Report and Next Steps

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7 The Process The Bicycle Safety Task Force was asked to examine the safety of our road users, and especially cyclists, on roads in unincorporated areas of Orange County. (See first attachment for the background of the creation of the Task Force, second attachment for the 2015 safety report, third attachment for the task force, and fourth attachment for full membership), The Task Force began its study by going over crash data in the Orange County Bicycle Crash Report, 2007— 2013 (fifth attachment). For the purpose of this study, we kept our focus on unincorporated areas. During the six-year period covered in the crash report, there were 34 bicycle crashes in the rural part of our county that were reported to and documented by the State Highway Patrol's office. We saw that preventable crashes resulting in injuries or even fatalities are occurring on our roads. Though 34 crashes over six years does not yield a lot of data, we were able to see that a majority of the crashes reported occurred when a motorist was attempting to, or in the process of overtaking a cyclist, and a majority of them occurred on straight roads with no special features. Geographically, many of them occurred either in the area west of Carrboro or in the area between Hillsborough and Durham along Old Highway 10. Anecdotally from members of the Bicycle Safety Task Force, we know that numerous bicycle-vehicle crashes go unreported and that there are many more "near misses" and "close calls" that occur in Orange County. Additional data from Emergency Services indicate that many more calls reporting unsafe roadway movements were received as well. The Task Force also went over existing as well as new North Carolina laws (sixth attachment), pertaining to cycling, with special attention to the new law enacted in Section 5.5(a) of GS 20-150(e), which allows motorists to cross a double yellow line when passing a cyclist. We covered several areas in which safety should be addressed, but one area that emerged as especially important was to encourage more respect on the roads. In general, motorists and cyclists are doing their best to share the road, though cyclists expressed frustration with motorists trying to pass them in an unsafe and dangerous manner, and motorists expressed frustration at finding themselves behind large groups of riders without opportunities to safely pass them. We invited a member of the Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) to one of our meetings, and he cited studies that have shown that the best way to change behavior is not through laws, but through presenting expected behavior as the norm, which led us to consider promoting a theme of"Drive Safely, Ride Safely" throughout the County. This discussion of promoting respectful behavior as the norm guided much of the discussion in meetings and the educational campaign that follows.