Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Fairfax Bike Crashes 2005-2008
As we mentioned earlier, FABB met recently with a representative from the Fairfax County Police. During the meeting we were shown a list of bike crashes between 2005 and 2008. It was only a partial list, showing the locations with the greatest number of crashes. There were six crashes at Sunset Hills Rd and Wiehle Ave, the highest number during that period. There were five at Shreve Rd and Virginia Lane. Three locations had four crashes. (In the map section above, the purple pin indicates six crashes, the yellow pin, 4 crashes)What wasn't reported was that most of the top crashes were adjacent to the W&OD Trail. You can almost trace the Trail by following the crash locations. Since the Trail is the most heavily used bike facility in the county it's not surprising. However, it would be useful if the statistics included this information. When crashes are recorded, the closest road intersections are used. We may request that if a major multi-use trail is nearby (W&OD, Fairfax Co Pkwy, W Ox), then that information be recorded as well.
The crash stats only reflect those crashes where there was damage (over $1,000?) and/or an injury. Many, many crashes either go unreported or are not recorded by the police. We may ask police to experiment with recording all bike crashes in an area during a given time period, and compare that info with the official crashes. I would guess that the ratio would be about 3 or 4 reported crashes to 1 recorded crash.
We created a map showing the locations where there were 2 or more crashes. Eventually we want to have a map showing all recorded the crash locations during this time period.
Labels: bike crash
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