Friday, July 3, 2009

BikeWise.org - Registry for Crashes, Hazards and Thefts

Wouldn't it be cool if you could share reports of bike crashes, hazards, and thefts online? You can at Bikewise (http://www.bikewise.org/).

Bikewise is offered as a public service by the Cascade Bicycle Club, based in Seattle, Washington. This online service, leveraging the Google Maps API, offers a place for cyclists all over the world to log bike related incidents including:
  • bicycle crashes
  • bicycling hazards
  • bicycle thefts
Their mission is to begin collecting data that may be of use in trending bicycling issues and providing a method for cyclists to communicate safety issues to public officials.

While the web interface is very useful, I did find a few cases where navigation between certain features is not as intuitive as it should be. Make sure you set you default location (unless you live in Seattle) or you won't see anything on the map.

Visit Bikewise, create a profile, and start submitting your incidents. Let's put Omaha on the nation's bike map.

2 comments:

Sean said...

pretty cool site... if more people use this it will be good info.

Scott Redd said...

It certainly can't hurt. It'd be nice to see, at least, where other cyclists think the hazards are.

It also helps to foster more of the idea that Omaha has a vibrant cycling culture.

It's also possible that at sometime the city's public works department or other city officials or bike advocacy groups could utilize this information to improve cycling in Omaha.

Keep those reports coming!