Cascade Bicycle Club, a Seattle based organization has launched a new on-line collaborative mapping tool which allows users to report and learn about bicycle crashes, hazards and thefts. While bikewise still has no data points in Contra Costa County, with enough user participation it could become an extremely useful tool.
What Bikewise has to say about itself:
bikewise is run by Cascade Bicycle Club, in partnership with sustainability activist and software developer Phil Mitchell. “We’re based in Seattle, Washington, but this site is meant to be useful anywhere in the world. We started bikewise in the conviction that we could make biking safer and more fun by gathering good data on the things that sometimes go wrong.”
Crashes: “It’s estimated that 75% or more of all crashes go unreported. We believe that by gathering detailed information on how and why crashes happen, we’ll be able to ride smarter. Also, we hope that knowing where crash hotspots are will help us to identify issues with traffic behavior and road design.”
Hazards: How many times have you ridden past a dangerous sewer grate or overgrown vegetation and wished there were someplace to report it? Now there is. “We aim to not only collect hazard reports, but to pass these on to the appropriate authorities. (Please note: we’re still putting this part of the system in place.)”
Thefts: Tracking where and how bikes get stolen is a key part of making preventing thefts. “We’re currently working on other pieces of this system, so that if your bike does get stolen, you have a better chance of getting it back. More to come on that.”
