We need to reverse a reported upward trend in vehicle-bicycle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents in Denton.
Documents obtained by the Denton Record-Chronicle through open-records requests show that 73 traffic accidents involving bicyclists or pedestrians were reported between February 2013 and March 2014.
The preliminary data show that the number of accidents between Denton drivers and cyclists, in particular, appears to have increased.
Ten of the 73 accidents between Denton drivers and people were serious enough to send either the cyclist or pedestrian to a hospital with incapacitating injuries.
This summer, Denton police Lt. David Hildebrand provided the City Council with an informal report on recent accident data. Using crash information collected under the police department’s new reporting system, he found that Denton drivers were at fault in 56 percent of the cases, nearly always for failing to yield to the pedestrian or cyclist.
Hildebrand said he found the accidents scattered around the city with no particular “hot spot.”
The total count of vehicle-bicycle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents suggests that a recent upward trend is continuing. In 2009, there were 45 accidents between Denton drivers and cyclists or pedestrians. By 2012, that number climbed to 59 — a 30 percent increase at a time when the city’s population increased about 7 percent.
Between 2008 and 2012, most of the increase in those accidents came between drivers and pedestrians. The number of driver-cyclist incidents remained fairly flat, hovering between 20 and 24 accidents each year.
However, police responded to 33 accidents between drivers and cyclists between February 2013 and March 2014, Hildebrand found.
City Council member Dalton Gregory, a cyclist and an advocate for the city’s bike plan, said he hoped the recent increase in accidents was an aberration and not a trend.
Until this year, city leaders have worked most on the engineering part of the bike plan, providing for extra lanes and paths that help make Denton more walkable and bike-friendly. The city’s first bicycle coordinator — a position that was funded as of this week — can help with the education part of the plan, Gregory said.
“Cyclists need to be doing their part to be seen,” Gregory said. “Motorists need to do their part to be on the lookout.”
We agree. Our streets and highways belong to everyone and we all share equal responsibility for making them safe.
This is not war. The folks injured in recent accidents are our neighbors, innocent people who were simply going about their daily activities.
One was an 81-year-old man who lost part of a finger on his left hand after he was hit while crossing University Drive on his bicycle. The driver was cited for failing to yield right of way.
We believe it’s time to remember an old highway department slogan that still makes a lot of sense.
Drive friendly.
