Via The Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch:
While not opposed to collecting data on the number accidents involving bicycles and vehicles that aren’t moving, Illinois Department of Transportation Officials haven’t received many requests to do so, according to a spokesman.
Kim Nishimoto, whose son was killed in a dooring accident, said she thinks IDOT’s position that a vehicle must be in motion for a crash to be tallied is a mistake and a disgrace. Her son, Clinton Miceli, died June 9, 2008, after an SUV driver’s door was opened on North LaSalle Street in Chicago. Miceli, 22, couldn’t avoid striking the door, and he fell off his bike and was run over by a passing vehicle, according to police.
– Each year between 2005 and 2009 averaged more than 3,500 crashes between vehicles and Illinois bicyclists.
– Those crashes resulted in 18 to 27 cyclists killed and more than 3,300 injured annually, according to IDOT.
– A 2008 Chicago law will fine motorists between $150 to $500 for opening a vehicle door in the path of a bicyclist. The law requires motorists to remain at least 3 feet from cyclists, outlaws left or right turns in front of bicyclists and prohibits driving, standing or parking in a bicycle lane.
– Chicago police recorded 76 bicycle versus door accidents in 2010. That number was up from 62 in 2009.
A Tribune request for violations data showed that since 2008, Chicago police issued no tickets for opening a vehicle door into the path of a bicyclist or turning in front of a bicyclist. Three tickets were issued last year and two tickets in 2008 to drivers who passed bicyclists at an unsafe distance. But Chicago police issued 161 tickets last year, 114 in 2009 and 106 in 2008 to drivers for driving, standing or parking in bike lanes or marked shared lanes, records show.