When I rode my ancient Nishiki 10-speed bike to the old Mercury News offices in North San Jose, I was reasonably certain where I was most likely to be clobbered by a car. It was near the odd, bending intersection of North Tenth Street and Old Bayshore Highway.

It wasn’t just the collision of angles, or the heavy traffic entering and leaving nearby Highway 880. It wasn’t even the dirt shoulders or the railroad track. It had to do with the peculiar way I approached the intersection.

For most of my commute from the Shasta-Hanchett Park neighborhood, I stuck to bike lanes (Taylor Street, Seventh Street). But I was stymied by an unconscionably long light as I waited to turn left on Tenth Street from Commercial Street (near Dahl’s Equipment Rentals).

Instead of waiting, I headed north against traffic on the left side of Tenth, grabbing a sidewalk and cutting across business parking lots until I reached Old Bayshore. Then I rode back to the right side.

I will admit it. This was not a safe maneuver. We bicyclists have two besetting sins: We’re impatient and we’re often arrogant. I told myself that the light at Tenth and Commercial was long enough to show the movie “Gladiator.” No reasonable person would wait.

New report

I found evidence of my own worst tendencies in a report on bicycle transportation and safety put out last week by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department and the Traffic Safe Communities Network (see it at at the bottom of this article).

Twenty-three percent of the bicycle-vehicle collisions in Santa Clara County were caused primarily by bicyclists going against traffic. In those cases, the bicyclists were at fault 94 percent of the time. Although I wasn’t directly on Tenth Street most of the way, something told me I wasn’t in the 6 percent of the guiltless.

Of course, there was good news, too. The report noted that between 2009 and 2013, commuting by bicycling had increased by 21 percent in the county — but this was atop such a tiny base that it’s doubtful that it means that much.

In San Jose, only 0.9 percent of commuters go by bicycle. In Sunnyvale, the rate is 1.5 percent. Only Palo Alto, which benefits from extensive bike paths and the heritage of departed bicycle advocate Ellen Fletcher, has anything approaching double figures (8.6 percent).

For anyone delving deeper into the numbers, there were other intriguing revelations. Twenty-two percent of the adults in San Jose are obese, compared to 11 percent in Palo Alto — though this seems to have more to do with class and culture than bicycling.

Helmets

And oh yes, helmets: Less than half (47 percent) of the bicyclists treated in trauma centers were wearing helmets at the time of their crash. Among those aged 18-24, the rate was only 27 percent, which I find wholly depressing.

The report closes with a city-by-city mapping of the intersections with the most bicycle collisions. I looked for Tenth and Old Bayshore. It wasn’t on the list of the worst.

Then again, my commute has changed since I’ve begun working downtown. Among the worst intersections is San Fernando and First Streets, smack on my route to work.

At least at that corner, I’m cured. I wait carefully for the light to turn. If necessary, I’ll pull out my smartphone and watch “Gladiator.”

Contact Scott Herhold at 408-275-0917 or sherhold@mercurynews.com. Twitter.com/scottherhold.