Boston Personal Injury Attorney Blog

Bicyclists throughout the state are encouraged to hop on their bike during this year’s Bay State Bike Week. It’s all for a good cause and to help to save lives.

This annual week-long event is being held this year from May 14th through the 20th and is used to raise awareness about bicyclists in the state. Every year, there are far too many bicyclists who are killed in traffic-related bicycle accidents in Boston and elsewhere. These accidents can be prevented!

As the weather warms up, more and more cyclists will be hitting our roadways and risks for accidents will increase. Be on your best and most cautious behavior behind the wheel to help avoid causing an accident with a cyclist.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), there have been hundreds of events registered throughout the state for this year’s campaign. You’re urged to sign up and participate by visiting the campaign’s website. Get involved and help to raise awareness about bicycle safety.

Just two years ago, MassDOT became the very first state DOT in the U.S. to organize a state bike week event. Our state continues to be the only state in the country to dedicate an entire week to our bicyclists. Our Boston bicycling accident attorneys understand that there were more than 600 lives of bicyclists lost in motor-vehicle accidents across the U.S. in 2009. During the same year, there were more than 50,000 bicyclists injured, according to bicyclinginfo.com. What’s worse is that experts believe these numbers are actually much higher as they believe that not all bicycle accidents are even reported by police.

This year, MassDOT is teaming up with MassRIDES as well as MassBIKE to successfully execute the Bay State’s Bike Week. Both MassBIKE and MassRIDES are two of Commonwealth’s statewide travel options program.

“The work that each community places in hosting events throughout the Commonwealth works to achieve the GreenDOT mission and the Healthy Transportation Compact statewide,” Richard A. Davey, MassDOT Secretary and CEO.

In addition to all of the registered events throughout the state, there will also be more than 10 Massachusetts Transportation Management Associations (TMA) that will be giving out this year’s MassCommute Bicycle Challenge. This is the state’s 18th anniversary and will be used to conduct friendly competitions between residents, visitors, employers, communities, schools and others and is used to encourage everyone to use their bike to get to and from work, school, errands, etc.

Even if you’re not getting out there on a bicycle, you’re still encouraged to help to raise awareness about these travelers. Everyone is urged to share the road safely with one another, regardless of mode of transportation, to help make our roadways safer for all!
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MassBike and WalkBoston are joining together to launch a free event, the 2012 Bike/Walk Summit.

Now, the two organizations are reaching out to pedestrian and bike advocates as well as the State House to help to raise awareness about these important forms of transportation in the City of Boston. Every year, there are far too many pedestrian and bicycle accidents in Boston and elsewhere. As the warmer months roll in, it’s time to start campaigning for these vulnerable travelers once again. This year is an especially important year to send a strong message to our state senators and representatives that walking and biking should be top priorities in the city, since it looks like federal support is on the decline.

Both WalkBoston and MassBike are asking you to RSVP today! It’s time to get Beacon Hill Moving. The event will be on the 17th of May from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Massachusetts State House, Nurses’ Hall. You’re asked to schedule a meeting with your senator or representative ahead of time. When you get there, safe biking and walking advocates will provide you with an information packet for both you and your government officials. You will also be given some key talking points regarding the current issues that are currently being discussed in the big house. When your meeting is adjourned, you’re asked to return to Nurses’ Hall to let your peers know how it went over some free lunch.

Our Boston injury attorneys understand that this event is being organized in the heart of the Bay State Bike Week! This week-long campaign is used to push awareness regarding bicycle travel. As a matter of fact, the state of Massachusetts is the only state in the country that has its own statewide bike week. That only makes sense considering the long history of biking in the area. In 2011, there were nearly 200 events during the campaign week. This year, safety advocates are hoping for more!

Earlier this month, Bike Night: Beyond the Spandex, was held to raise awareness about bicyclists in the area. This event included a fashion show for cyclists, hors d’eouvres, cocktails and a lot of bike talk. The fashion show was to help to display some popular biking gear and to bring safe biking advocates together. Bikers were also entered into a raffle to win some great prizes, including bicycles from Giant and Specialized and a number of items from Mavic, Grey Goose Vodka, Hubway, Road ID, Sam Adams, Baily Works and more.

It wasn’t only a chance for residents to get the hookup from local vendors and to win some great prizes, but it was also a chance for everyone to show their support for MassBike. As we head into Bay State Bike Week, biking advocates are urged to create and submit events to the community calendar. The more events we create the more awareness we can raise. Help to bring safe biking to the forefront and show your support today!
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Cyclists in Somerville are being held accountable for their behavior and officers are tracking them down for not following the rules of the road. Now, cyclists are being ticketed for violating traffic rules. Enforcement efforts have been ramped up to help to reduce the risks of bicycle accidents in Somerville and elsewhere in the area.

Those who are ticketed will be required to fork over info, including their name and address, to police officers. Some aren’t surprised by the news though, saying bicyclists should and have been following the rules of the road all along.

“This isn’t really news,” said the executive director of MassBike, David Watson. “This is not the first community in Massachusetts to enforce traffic laws for bicyclists.”

Our Boston bicycle accident lawyers understand that bicyclists are required to follow the same rules of the road as motorists. According to surveys, most bicyclists know and follow the rules of the road, but there’s always an exception and those exceptions are making our roadways dangerous for everyone.

Watson says that targeted enforcement isn’t really fair and that everyone should be targeted and held accountable for travel along our roadways. He adds though, that it’s worth a shot if it can help to make our roadways safer for all. The truth of the matter is that motorists are responsible for the vast majority of accidents involving cyclists.

Watson argues that most cyclists are in fact following the rules of the road, but he says that it’s those select few that are running wild that are ruining it for everyone and giving cyclists a bad name.

To help to spread the word about the importance of safe biking habits, officials with MassBike continue to push their “Same Roads, Same Rules” program. This is a program that’s aimed at both cyclists and motorists and reminds them that the road is there for everyone and we need to share it accordingly to preserve roadway safety. Watson says that targeting the behavior of cyclists without targeting motorists as well is virtually pointless. Everyone needs to be the target and treated equally.

According to a recent study, conducted by MassBike, nearly 90 percent of bicyclists know the rules of the road regarding bicycling in Massachusetts. On the other hand, only about 50 percent of motorists knew them. For this reason, MassBike and Watson are hoping that the safety campaign will reach more motorists, and bicyclists, than ever before and will be able to help to keep everyone safe on our roadways. These two forms of transportation should be able to ride in unison along our roadways. It just takes a little effort and awareness.

According to Boston Bikes, nearly 40 percent of bicycle accidents involve a vehicle and about 5 percent of accidents involve a pedestrian. In the city of Boston, most bicycle accidents happen along Massachusetts Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue.
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The Hubway is now nine-months old and offers roughly 600 bikes at more than 60 stations to residents and visitors across the city of Boston.

Bicycling advocates say there’s one thing it’s missing though – helmets. This is probably the main reason why only about 20 percent of bikers in the city wear a helmet while biking. A recent study, conducted by experts at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, looked at more than 3,000 cyclists in both the Boston and the DC area and concluded that bike-share customers were about twice as likely to bike without a helmet as those with a personal bike. Experts say that these statistics are putting bikers at a higher risk for a serious head injury in the event of a bicycling accident in Boston and elsewhere, according to the Boston Globe.

“It’s often more of a spur of the moment decision to use a bike share, and riders often find themselves without helmets,” said study author Dr. Christopher Fischer, Beth Israel Deaconess emergency room physician.

Our Boston bicycling accident lawyers understand that the number of Hubway users with helmets may even be lower, according to previous Boston studies. Previous studies determined that less than a third of Hubway users wore a helmet. In 2009, there were more than 50,000 bike accident-related head injuries and nearly 650 fatal bicycling accidents that happened across the United States. Researchers believe that helmet use can actually decrease the risks for serious brain injury in the event of an accident by as much as 88 percent.

Fischer says that there are a large number of accidents that happen because bikers fall off of their bike because of various traffic and bike-related accidents and victims suffer anything from a little bump to a severe and traumatic head injury, and in some cases even death. He adds that helmets may not be able to protect riders in every situation, like being hit by a bus, but he says that the pros outweigh the cons and that this protection is better than none.

According to state law, bikers under the age of 12-years-old have to wear a helmet while riding a bike. Like other states, there are no laws in the books that require older bikers to wear a helmet.

According to a recent study from undergraduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helmets would be beneficial if they were available to Hubway riders. The students even developed a prototype, called HelmetHub, that would offer helmets to Hubway Riders. The helmets were adjustable and would fit most heads. The helmets would be distributed by a touch screen vending machine-like device that would work much like the bike-sharing devices. The helmets could be rented and returned to any other kiosk within the city. Officials with the City of Boston expressed a little interest in the prototype, but ultimately say that issues regarding sanitation would be a top concern to overcome before making these helmets available to all Hubway users.
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