BICLOU, EPISODE 32 - A cycle lane that stops suddenly, dead end tracks or that propel you towards a trash can, invisible baffles ready to crash against your wheel at the first inattention: bad cycling infrastructure abounds everywhere in France.
To avoid them, to be wary of them and to know them better, we have drawn up a top 5 of the most dangerous facilities for cyclists.
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A top 5 fed by the personal accident database
We established our ranking using the annual database of road traffic injuries in 2019. We have narrowed down this analysis to Île-de-France.
This “BAAC file” allows us to better understand the most frequent accidents for cyclists and their fatality rate:
- In 2019, 91 cyclists fell alone, without a vehicle or pedestrian hit.
Only one of them was fatal.
15 cyclists were hospitalized and 75 were slightly injured
- At the same time, 1,153 accidents resulted from a collision between bicycles and motor vehicles.
The toll is very heavy: 27 cyclists killed, 119 seriously injured and 1,033 slightly injured.
"It's dangerous to mix pedestrians and cyclists"
Thanks to these data, we have chosen to place infrastructures in poor condition or strewn with obstacles in 5th and 4th position in this ranking.
It is generally faulty arrangements which lead to falls of single cyclists.
Rarer accidents, and often less serious than accidents against pedestrians or vehicles.
In 3rd position, we find the bike lanes built on a sidewalk.
The “BAAC File” shows how common and serious collisions between cyclists and pedestrians are, especially for pedestrians, the most vulnerable users on the road.
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"It is dangerous to mix pedestrians and cyclists because they have a different speed, recalls Stein van Oosteren, spokesperson for the Île-de-France cycling collective, these are cohabitations that go wrong".
Many dead end tracks
The first and second place in our ranking are monopolized by facilities that directly bring bicycles and motorized vehicles into contact on the road.
These cohabitations lead to the most recurring and most often fatal accidents.
In second place are thus discontinuous lanes or cycle paths, which suddenly stop or change sides and thus force the cyclist to take high-risk portions of the roadway.
Like this strip which suddenly stops to the right of Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris (75), before starting again in the middle of the road.
“You have to be a professional stuntman to be able to do that,” regrets Stein van Oosteren.
“It is endangering citizens!
"
At the top of this top 5, the cycle lanes set up along very busy roads, without physical separators.
Infrastructures that do not protect cyclists from overtaking too close or from extremely serious collisions with vehicles launched at full speed.
“It is endangering citizens!
Frankly.
You can't imagine worse.
This is hell for people who decide to leave their car, ”says Stein van Oosteren.
On his phone, our images of a hectic journey on a portion of the D1 which links Triel-sur-Seine to Vernouillet, in the Yvelines, (78).
On this segment which spans the Seine, a narrow cycle lane sometimes weaves its way between two lanes at 90 km / h.
There, the cyclist is trapped between two streams of cars, as if propelled into the middle of the path without any protection.
When contacted, the Yvelines department did not wish to answer our questions directly.
The service concerned ensures that "At the time of its design, the entire road infrastructure complied with the technical recommendations in force" and ensures that there has never been an accident involving a cyclist on the axis. cycle route of the D1.
"The prehistory of the bicycle"
If this portion opened in 2003 is a very striking example, it is far from being the only one.
Just dive on the D307 in Noisy-le-Roi, another town in Yvelines (78), to identify a similar segment.
For Stein van Oosteren, these sections belong to “the prehistory of the bicycle”.
"It should not exist and soon it will no longer exist", assures this Dutchman perched on a large flowery bicycle.
“From the moment we consider the bicycle as a serious means of transport, we will no longer do that, on the contrary, we will make beautiful cycle paths so that everyone dares to ride a bicycle”, he hopes. he.
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