Tucson bicycle collision near-real-time twitter feed
opportunity knocks August 19th, 2010
Check this out: Collin F, computer programmer and frequent TNBR participant, has created some kind of robot that downloads Tucson police information on some kind of RSS feed, searches it for its relevance to bicycles, and then puts the resulting report on twitter. It’s quite interesting.
He is also working on a map that shows the location of bicycle collisions, which will ultimately lead to some pretty good information about where the dangerous areas are.
I think the City should be paying him to do this, but he’s doing it for free.
–Erik Ryberg
August 19th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Nice work Collin F.
Interesting the Tucson Police: characterize every collision as “Accident With Bicycle @ E 22 St/S Wilmot Rd, Tucson (Hansons Gas Station/NW Quad) — Aug 19 14:19 [1008190439]”
Sound suspicious that EVERY collision in Tucson is an “accident” or unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally.
August 19th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Is there anything a motorist won’t go out and smash?
August 19th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
It also includes pedestrian collisions as a matter of comparative interest. By the numbers, Tucson motorists seem to be twice as hard on pedestrians as they are on bicycle riders, but that’s a whole different set of circumstances.
The data is originally from http://transview.org/TIRS/ and they have a hefty disclaimer on their site saying not to rely on the feed for any mission critical purposes — No wagering, please.
Also from what I can tell, the descriptions are selected from a very limited menu by the police dispatchers. I agree it would be better if they were called “collisions” rather than “accidents”.
August 20th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
I’m on Sunyvale’s BPAC, CA, and we get reports from traffic officers. Population about 125K. Our stats, of reported collisions, don’t show up any real problem areas. It is about 50-50 bike – car fault if it can be determined. We were hoping to use the data to try and correct problems but they are so spread out the data doesn’t lead to an indication of any particularly dangerous intersection or road section. Which is good in a way I guess.
August 25th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Cool stuff. I do something similar for the state of California using the CHP’s real time traffic incident feed.
Regarding @Ralph’s comment: Bike advocates in Santa Cruz, CA came up with a Santa Cruz bike collision map; some of the local cyclists got excited about the number of collisions on Soquel Avenue, concluding it must be an especially dangerous road, when another conclusion might be that this road is just especially popular with cyclists (which is probably closer to the truth).
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 am
@Richard. Some times it is hard to separate cause and effect. Real danger from thinking it is dangerous.
September 8th, 2010 at 9:12 am
…Sound suspicious that EVERY collision in Tucson is an “accident”….
MOST of the professional community that deals with traffic safety (law enforcement, medical personnel, traffic engineers) is moving on and dropping use of the term accident. Apparently TPD didn’t get the memo.
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/was-that-an-accident-or-a-crash/
In another note of progress, the State of Arizona has officially renamed the investigation report used throughout Arizona (including by TPD) for all traffic incidents, it is now called the Arizona Crash Report.
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/new-crash-forms-aliss-database/
August 5th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
[...] http://www.tucsonbikelawyer.com/tucson-bicycle-collision-near-real-time-twitter-feed/ [...]