NYC's Bike Share Program

New York Bike Share lawyer

Click here to Read the New York City Comptroller's recent study on the Citibike Share Program

CitiBike has Launched !!!

The bicycles now stationed every few blocks are available around the clock. Several Smartphone apps are now live to inform users of bike availability.

A link to the bike share map is here.

From the Wall Street Journal

So far the Bike Share Program Looks Safe for its Participants

It seems rational that with all these additional bikes and inexperienced riders, the number of accidents and crashes involving the bike share program will be high. However, the opposite looks to be true. Paris's Vélib' is perhaps the most successful bike-sharing program in the world. Launched in 2007 with 20,000 bikes, its widespread popularity not only transformed how Parisians traveled across their city, but also helped to model other programs around the world. "The accident rate is lower on a Vélib' than on 'normal' bikes," a spokesperson for the office of Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë told Streetsblog. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, Vélib' riders were responsible for one-third of all bike trips in Paris, but were involved in only one-fourth of all traffic crashes involving a bicycle.

In London, where they employ the Barclays Cycle Hire system, so far after 4.5 million trips no bike-sharing user in London has been seriously injured or killed in a traffic crash, according to Transport for London.

Crunching those numbers, no people were seriously injured or killed on the first 4.5 million trips on Boris Bikes, while about 12 people are injured for every 4.5 million trips on personal bikes. And in over 1.6 million trips, ten bike-sharing users received non-serious injuries, compared to an average of 35 such injuries for the same number of trips on personal bikes.

In Washington D.C.'s Capital Bikeshare system, the bike-sharing users had a much safer rate of crashes than bike owners. In its first seven months of operation, Capital Bikeshare users made 330,000 trips. In that span, seven crashes of any kind were reported and none involved serious injuries. In comparison, there were 338 cyclist injuries and fatalities overall in 2010, according to the District Department of Transportation, with an estimated 28,400 trips per weekday, 5,000 of which take place on a Capital Bikeshare bikes.

So while only seven bike-sharing riders were injured in 330,000 trips, on average 13 people riding personal bikes are injured over the same number of trips. And bike-sharing riders suffered no serious injuries, while riders using their own bikes suffered injuries that were sometimes serious or even fatal.

In other systems, apples-to-apples comparisons with personal bike riders are impossible, but extremely low injury rates among bike-sharing riders still stand out.

The Public Health Law Center at William Mitchell College of Law recently published an article on limiting liability for bike Share Programs. It offers programs on ways to limit bike share liability such as waivers, requiring riders to wear helmets, and the purchasing of liability insurance to protect the program from lawsuits. They also suggest that keeping the bikes well maintained and educating riders on bike safety will also reduce liability and risks of bike share accidents.

If you are involved in a citi-bike or Bike Share crash you need a New York Attorney who is also a cyclist and understands the risks New Yorkers face on the streets. Contact us today at 1-866-Flanzig or email us at info@NewYorkbikelawyer.com

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