City continues to look at bicycle safety

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers ALL ABOUT LIGHTS—Shane Gray, 5, looks quizzically at a model traffic light as Safe Moves traffic safety school instructor Pat Hines talks to him about bicycle safety. The lesson took place during the recent inaugural Glenn Garvin Memorial Bike Rodeo in Thousand Oaks. It's hoped that a new generation of bicyclists will obey the traffic laws that apply to both them and to motorists. Bicycle accidents are up in Thousand Oaks, with 25 incidents from January through September this year compared to 18 bicycle accidents for all of 2007, according to city reports.

John Helliwell, city traffic specialist in the public works department, said there's no pattern to the accidents. He keeps a list of all of the bicycle accidents and studies how they happen to see if the city can somehow make bicycling safer on the community's streets.

"(Mishaps) dot the city. They happen in different places all over the city," Helliwell said.

His list showed bicycle accidents occur because of various reasons, but many could be avoided if bicyclists would simply follow the law and ride on the correct side of the street—in the same direction as vehicle traffic. Sometimes, bicyclists go too fast and crash on their own.

Motorists- apparently unaware they're sharing the pavement with bicycle riders- also contribute to many mishaps. They sometimes turn right and abruptly cut in front of bicyclists.

Drivers also seem preoccupied with automobile traffic, forgetting that bicycles in Thousand Oaks are allowed to ride on sidewalks with or against traffic. For example, when a driver pulls out of a driveway, he may look only at traffic in a divided road that's coming from the left- - and ignore a bicyclist on the right who's riding against traffic on a sidewalk.

City staff spends many hours trying to make T.O. safer for bicyclists, said Mark Watkins, public works director.

The city now provides bilingual brochures that include safety tips and a bike route map to show streets that include bike lanes.

In the brochure, bicyclists are reminded to keep their twowheelers in good shape, always wear a helmet, obey traffic signals and signs, ride in the same direction as vehicles, use proper hand signals, make eye contact with drivers when crossing streets, ride in single file, be careful of parked cars with people opening their doors, and have a front light and reflectors when riding after dark.

"It's also illegal to ride your bike wearing earphones," said Andrew Powers, city public information officer.

Helliwell meets quarterly with a community bicycle safety committee, he said.

"It was their idea for us to have sharrows."

Sharrows are signs painted in the roadways to remind motorists that they're sharing streets with bicyclists.

Thousand Oaks Boulevard has sharrow signs painted on the pavement. According to the "bikesafe" brochure created by the city, the two weakest links in the bicycle riding street chain are Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Hillcrest Drive. Both are crucial for bike riders who take the fastest routes east to west or vice versa in Thousand Oaks, but neither has dedicated bicycle lanes. Riders must weave in and out around parked cars and share lanes with vehicle traffic.

"There are houses on Hillcrest (Drive) and we'd have to take away residents' parking to create a bike lane," Watkins said.