Mapping bicycle-car and pedestrian-car accidents

May 28, 2008. Bicycle accident just north of Parliament above Lakeshore. Smashed windshield on the Toyota with bicycle in foreground..also passing cyclists. Cyclist taken to St. Michaels Hospital. Cyclist passing by looking at the accident. Toronto Star/Michael Stuparyk

The Toronto Star has a feature each week, where they map various aspects of life in the city. This week's maps are on crime:

Map: Breaking and entering rates

Map: Change in breaking and entering, 2004-8

And just last week, including a feature in the printed newspaper (most of the map features are exclusive to the web), they produced a "definitive" map of Toronto's neighborhoods. See "We define ourselves by our neighbourhoods" and the map, Interactive map: Toronto neighbourhoods.

Their previously produced maps on bicycle and pedestrian accidents are interesting, because until this kind of data is produced regularly, made public, and analyzed, it is difficult to move practice forward and improve the situation.

This is true especially in light of the discussion in Greater Greater Washington around the removal of the ghost bike memorial to Alice Swanson, who was hit by a truck and killed last year, at the intersection of 19th and R Streets NW. See "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that's what the ghost bike means to me."

The entry makes clear that the driver was at fault, turning right from the leftmost part of the street, but the accident report produced by the Police Department does not fault the driver, but instead, the bicyclist. From the entry:

Swanson's family and bicycle advocates have also been trying to get a copy of the police report. Thus far, the police have refused. WashCycle got an informal look at a redacted version, where the police seem to go out of their way to blame the cyclist for getting hit. The investigating officer concludes that the truck driver didn't violate any laws, but, according to WashCycle, implies that Swanson violated the law against moving faster than is "reasonable and prudent." (...)

Meanwhile, the truck apparently did break the law, whether or not the police particularly care about said law. If you're turning right in a car, and there is a bicycle lane, you are supposed to move into the bicycle lane before making the turn. You should signal and look over your shoulder to move into the lane, just as if there were a regular car lane to the right. Turning from the car lane is the same as making a right turn from the left-hand lane when there are two regular lanes. It's illegal.

For all the talk of "Wiki Government" and "Apps for Democracy," this kind of very basic mapping (along with public posting of statistics and management by data evaluation efforts, such as is done in the Baltimore Citistat program) strikes me as something that should be being done anyway--a matter of course and standard procedure--by government. (The Vancouver Sun has an interesting map on where parking tickets were written and for what offense.)

Certainly this is something more technically adept people than I could work to produce for DC. A map like this should be added to the region's premier blog on bicycling, Washcycle and the websites of various bicycling and pedestrian advocacy organizations.

-- Map of the Week: Bike accidents (Toronto Star, March 19, 2009)
-- Map of the Week: Pedestrian accidents (Toronto Star, March 27, 2009)