Bicycles Don’t Matter. No Really. They Don’t.
So then why do so many people get their panties in such a bunch about them?
But before going there… talk about Instant Karma: Yesterday I had the closest call I’ve ever had on my bike downtown. A Metro bus blew by me within inches, and when I confronted the driver about it at the next red light, he essentially admitted he was just “playing games” with me because he was annoyed that I had cut to the front of the line of traffic stopped at the previous light. Though some of you dear readers are no doubt brimming with glee over how I got what I deserved, I trust there are a few sane ones out there who recognize just how fucked up that bus driver’s response was. I annoyed him so he seriously threatened my life; sort of like if I called him a poopy head and he put a loaded gun to my head and pulled the trigger halfway. This person should have his driving privileges revoked. Period. (I filed a complaint with Metro — it will be interesting to see how it is handled.)
Back to the point: Bicycles have but the tiniest impact on most urbanites’ lives. But judging by the way some people spew the bile (google “slog” and “bikes”), you’d think bikes were holding the entire city hostage.
The impact that bikes have on traffic flow is negligible. The damage that bicycles do to people and property is negligible. The objective reality is that pretty much the worst bicycles do is that they annoy people.
Perspective all right: As I was writing this late last night I heard a volley of gunshots go off a couple blocks away from my house followed by three or four police cruisers screaming down 23rd Ave. That, and the social conditions that led to it, is something worth being concerned about.
I mean really people, are bicycles riding on sidewalks really that big of a source of anxiety in your lives? Does my riding up to the front of a line of cars stopped at a red light have any significant consequence, other than annoyance?
Meanwhile cars kill something like 40,000 people per year in the U.S. And maim who knows how many times more. And destroy a few bazillion dollars of property.
And while it’s no doubt true that people sometimes have annoying interactions with bicycles, the frequency with which it happens has got to be low in comparison to the onslaught of daily annoyances faced by the typical urbanite. There just aren’t that many bikes out there.
I am baffled by those who express the same level of contempt for cyclists that break the rules of the road as they do for drivers that break the rules of the road. In the latter instance, someone might end up crushed on the pavement, while in the former, perhaps someone might get, well, really annoyed. It’s awfully curious how these folks (including many cyclists) suddenly become sticklers for the letter of the law when it comes to bikes. But you can be sure that all but the purest saints among them have either jaywalked, or smoked pot, or committed some other trivial victimless crime.
Which brings us to the “we’ll only earn their respect if we set a good example” argument. Yes, there is some truth in that, but here again I find it remarkable how so many cyclists seem to believe it’s so important for all cyclists to strictly adhere to this saintly standard. Did cyclists in Europe have to prove they were all perfectly behaved at all times before their governments invested in serious cycling infrastructure? No, I think not. That’s because the Europeans are smart enough to focus on what matters: the support of cycling for the overall health of their cities — not trivialities such as a bike rolling through a stop sign.
And what also repels me from the “respect” argument is that it is based on — and therefore helps to propagate — the twisted attitude that drivers are doing cyclists a huge favor by merely putting up with their presence on the roads. In other words, you cyclists best be kissing our asses, and maybe we’ll be good enough not to mow you down. First of all, as I already pointed out, bikes have a miniscule impact on cars and people in the city. But more importantly, the truth is that every person who opts to travel by bike instead of by car is doing a favor for everyone in the city, including drivers. Cue up the indignant cries that I am claiming cyclists are superior moral beings. Whatever. The fact that travel by bike is good for the planet is objective, verifiable, quantifiable truth.
I would like to propose a new strategy: Cyclists ought to break the rules of the road at every opportunity that doesn’t comprimise their, or others’ safety. Then, over time, drivers would begin to get used to it, and ultimately they would realize that, hey, you know what, it really isn’t such a big deal when, for example, a bike runs a red light after stopping to verify there is no cross traffic. And then we can all move on, agreeing that in terms of the multidude of problems facing the modern city, bikes are like flies buzzing around the head of Godzilla. That is, they don’t matter.
Nobody out there has anything to say about all this, do they?
Dead nuts correct. Thank You Sir…
First off, the fact that a Metro driver messed with you like that, and then admitted that it was because you did something that is perfectly legal, shows that this person should be fired immediately. An example has to be made of clowns like this.
I don’t read a lot of forums about this topic, so I don’t know what normally transpires. Your link showed a bunch of people doing stuff that reminded me of these two GEMs.
http://xkcd.com/386/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
I don’t see cyclists and motorists, like they are mutually exclusive groups. I see people. And some people do stupid shit (like the bus driver did to you). I wish that there was something we could do about it, but we cannot.
Hopefully insane gas prices will make people rethink forms of transport other than driving. The real problem is that driving is the worst form of transport for a city dense enough to have skyscrapers. Most big cities end up turning on the car eventually, making it too bothersome to use them and easier to use other forms.
What Dave said. Great stuff Dan.
Going off Ben’s comment, if anyone here hasn’t yet read Alan Thein’s book “The Car and the City” I highly recommend it. It is a quick read and can be downloaded for free from Sightline here.
In his introduction Thein frames this issue in a very level headed and sensible way:
“Cars are among the most useful inventions of the past century. They provide private, convenient, door-to-door transportation on demand. They let you go when you want to go, make the stops you want to make, and ride in the company you choose.
Cities are among the most useful developments of all time. They give you access to the diverse talents of hundreds of thousands of people. They let you choose from a richness of economic, educational, cultural, and recreational offerings. They are, in a word, civilized.
This book is about the relationship between these two inventions—-the car and the city. It argues that, as wonderful as each is, the two do not always mix well.” (Emphasis added).
Really, that last line in the crux of this issue and almost every other issue discussed on this blog. I’ve never had a problem biking in Bellingham or even the conservative small town in Idaho that I grew up in. The traffic volumes are just simply low enough that it wasn’t a problem.
Only in the city, where people are squeezed bumper to bumper and driven to their wits end by the stress of city traffic do they begin to turn like wild dogs on anything that is even perceived to add to their misery. Cyclists are the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back”, but what this proverb was talking about is that it’s a bad idea to load up the camel that much in the first place. It was overburdening the beast that allowed the “last straw” to do its damage, not the last straw itself.
People in general don’t respond well to stress and it causes them to do things that in an unstressed state they themselves would be shocked by. This is one of the main reasons that the car and the city just don’t mix well. Surely, there are other factors. Surely, our auto-oriented culture pushes a misplaced superiority complex. Surely there is a lack of awareness and surely some people are just assholes, but we should not discount the powerful impact of miserable city driving pushing people to a frenzied state of open hostility.
The driver certainly shouldn’t have done what he did. There’s no excuse for his behavior. And the remainder of my comment in no way questions the validity of your article.
I am wondering about one thing that you noted, though:
“…he was annoyed that I had cut to the front of the line of traffic stopped at the previous light.”
why did you “have” to cut to the front of the line? couldn’t you have just handled this in the exact same way as a car would have (waiting, in the center of the lane, behind the car that is in front of you)?
I’m not sure what the exact traffic conditions were in your situation (maybe you had a bike lane?), but, in the three years that I’ve been bicycle-commuting, I avoid cutting to the front of the line, unless I know that the cars I’m passing won’t be passing me again (this usually only happens when traffic is jammed up).
Cars understandably hate when cyclists do this, cause, it’s something that actually slows them down (unlike cyclists running red lights or ignoring stop signs, which, as you pointed out, do have a relatively miniscule impact on drivers). Drivers often take great care when passing cyclists, and they don’t like having to exercise this caution again and again and again with the same cyclist…
The phenomenon of a cyclist cutting to the front of the line at a red light, just to be passed by the drivers when the light turns green, then cutting to the front of the line again at a red light has a name: it’s called “yo-yo-ing” with traffic. I try get cyclists to avoid doing it, because I think it’s one of the root causes of all cycle/driver tension in the city.
Cyclists ought to break the rules of the road at every opportunity that doesn’t comprimise their, or others’ safety. Then, over time, drivers would begin to get used to it, and ultimately they would realize that, hey, you know what, it really isn’t such a big deal when, for example, a bike runs a red light after stopping to verify there is no cross traffic. And then we can all move on, agreeing that in terms of the multidude of problems facing the modern city, bikes are like flies buzzing around the head of Godzilla.
The philosphers and teachers who taught you ’slippery slope’ and ‘rules’ and ‘civil society’, Dan’l, are frowning in their graves, if not turning in them.
But go ahead and do all that, Seattleites, as I’m 1000 mi away & it won’t affect me. Here on the Front Range we won’t try that strategy as its still kinda cowboy out here.
Now, where’s that HTML tag for agree to disagree…
[Brad] re: yo-yoing. I think the main reason we do this is it’s the only way to run the red lights ;-)
Seriously though, yesterday I passed 6 blocks of completely gridlocked cars by splitting lanes (I was actually on a scooter, but the bikes were following me). I understand your point, and agree in some cases, but in most cases I see there’s plenty of reasons to split lanes.
re: yo-yoing, personally i (almost) never run lights, but i do do this, because i don’t like sucking up the exhaust pouring out from behind a car.
Since you took a pot shot at my comment on cyclists on the sidewalk I respond with this: my mother is 84 years old and weighs 98lbs soaking wet. Hit her with your bik while you are riding on the sidewalk she’s dead. Hit a toddler, likely they are dead. What all this boils down to is assholes ride bikes; assholes drive cars; assholes ride scooters; assholes walk. If we would, whatever our mode of transport, use common sense and courtesy there would be no problem. As with most things, its the 1% who behave like assholes that make everyone else look bad.
Brad, maybe the drivers having to pass the cyclist over and over again should be seen as the cyclist having to pass the drivers over and over again. If a row of cars were to pass a cyclist between two lights, placing him/her a quarter of the street back from the light, then again before the next light, again, again, wouldn’t that mean the cyclist is taking an increase in his/her overall traveling time? If the cars passing the cyclist between each light cycles don’t lose any time (they don’t, as you said, they will just pass the cyclist again) and have to actually look where they are going, what is the problem? Everyone wins: cars get where they are going no slower, bike gets where its going no slower, and drivers are actually paying attention to something other than the latest gossip with the girls…no?
amen winnie!
Well put. And I know that the battle cry will be that if we all team up, we can change societal & structural rules to allow for greater bicycle ingratiation. But it’s also as if you are (and lots of others) are dealing with deep set psychological beliefs that are long standing in America. The right to get around our great country as we please, unimpeded. I’m a bike commuter too, and I get road rage (unacted upon) on both types of vehicles that I own, bikes and cars.
[Winnie] It wasn’t a pot shot. You said “What makes cyclists worse is that they actually think that they can ride on the sidewalks.” Which they can here in huge-ass-city Seattle (and throughout the state). I was just pointing out your error, in the hope that you would ease up on the anger towards bicyclists.
[Matt the Engineer wrote]: “Seriously though, yesterday I passed 6 blocks of completely gridlocked cars by splitting lanes”
Yeah, like I said, if the drivers aren’t going to be passing you again (and they usually won’t during gridlock), I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. You get where your going, and you get out of everyone else’s way. Go for it! (at your own risk, of course).
Cyclists breaking rules, like cutting someone off in a car going the posted speed limit, means that the cyclist is creating a situation where he/she can be seriously hurt.
When roads are “designed” for motor vehicle traffic, introducing a mode of transportation (like, say, WALKING), to the equation, creates extremely dangerous situations that the operators of motor vehicles cannot control.
That’s why we have sidewalks. That’s why we need more seperated bike lanes.
By Dan’s rational, he should be able to bike down the middle of I-90…and then blame the driver who hit him going 75 mph that he was being reckless.
Staying away from right/wrong on behavior by anyone, I will say that Metro drivers, because of their Union, can and do get away with what could amount to murder.
This driver had been fired and then reinstated before killing with her poor driving attitude.
Google will reveal many more instances.
Link to King5 story
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_041807WABfatalbusKS.208adbe3.html
[wes wrote]: “maybe the drivers having to pass the cyclist over and over again should be seen as the cyclist having to pass the drivers over and over again”
I’ll agree that this can happen, but barring traffic congestion or other abnormal conditions, the car is usually going to be the one that ends up leaving the bicycle in the dust after a few rounds of yo-yo. We can debate about who passes who, but, if the car is eventually going to be coming out ahead, why delay the inevitable, and annoy the driver in the process of doing so? It just doesn’t make sense to me…
[wes]: “If the cars passing the cyclist between each light cycles don’t lose any time (they don’t, as you said, they will just pass the cyclist again) and have to actually look where they are going, what is the problem?”
Passing a cycle *does* takes time on the drivers part: they’ll often hover behind a cyclist, going less than their preferred speed, until a safe opening to pass pops up. If there is a row of cars behind the cyclist, you can multiply the frustration.
But ignoring the whole time lost/gained thing: Passing isn’t without it’s risks: a cyclist is at greater risk of getting doored or colliding with a right turning vehicle when passing on the right. From the Car side of things: drivers don’t like repeatedly passing cyclists because they also feel a greater sense of danger when passing (they’ll sometimes creep into the opposing traffic lane to give the cyclist three feet). Ninety-five percent of the drivers out there are courteous and cautious, and I don’t like maddening them by making them pass me multiple times just so that I can save a few seconds on my commute.
@ Matt the Engineer: we “talked” about the sidewalk riding thing on the previous post by Dan. It’s not legal where I live (Victoria BC, which has one of the densest urban areas, right up there with Vancouver, and is Canada’s cycling capital, too). Yet cyclists ride on the sidewalks all the time.
Are you sure Winnie lives in Seattle? Even if she does, and even if it’s legal to ride bikes on sidewalks in Seattle, it’s still crazy when it’s an A-hole on a bike ready to mow down pedestrians, whether a senior or a toddler (i.e., what Winnie said). It’s as crazy as those A-holes in cars trying to play chicken or mow down cyclists.
You’re just more “lethal” if you’re heavier and going at greater velocity, period.
As for Dan’s closing comment here (“Cyclists ought to break the rules of the road at every opportunity that doesn’t comprimise their, or others’ safety. Then, over time, drivers would begin to get used to it, …” etc.), all I can say is, you’re wrong, wrong, wrong.
European cyclists don’t do that. I know, I lived in Europe for many years, I was born there. There’s far more adherence to rules, people don’t jaywalk, cyclists don’t run stop signs or red lights, and cops actually hand out tickets.
PS: glad to hear that bus driver didn’t succeed in hurting you, and that you reported him.
[Yule] I find it a constant bad argument in both of these posts to only talk about crazy a-holes. What exactly are we arguing about here? I’m anti-a-hole too. So what?
Her original comment didn’t mention a-hole cyclists. She classified cyclists as a group. Then she called them worse than cars because they think they can ride on the sidewalk.
“I am baffled by those who express the same level of contempt for cyclists that break the rules of the road as they do for drivers that break the rules of the road.”
Brilliant. If you break the rules of the road and wind up getting hit by a car, or worse, cause a car to swerve out of your way and hit another (at this point your life isn’t important), it’s your fault and your fault only.
What I find baffling is the so called “inconvenience” for drivers. Drivers are not expending (personal) energy when they pass, or wait for me. They are not being physically discomforted by my presence. Nor do they have to deal with true, physical consequences to their person should they decide to end my life with their vehicle.
Put foot on gas = go. It’s not as simple for a cyclist, and that should be respected. I have driven, and used to drive all the time. I am currently car free, and enjoying life to the fullest. It’s true, there are times I get myself into situations where a car might need to go around me, or find a spot in line where I’m not occupying space. But we have both made our vehicular choices, and I can fit in more places than you, take up less space, and squirrel through lights and such when I deem it safe. That’s what you get for air conditioning, extra seating capacity and a roll cage that keeps me from crushing you with my massive 18 lb bicycle.
@Mr.Poe – I do believe that Dan states: “Cyclists ought to break the rules of the road at every opportunity that *doesn’t comprimise their, or others’ safety*.”
If a driver has to pass a bicyclist more than once, that’s objective proof that the first pass of the cyclist did NOT slow up the driver. Something else intervened and made the driver wait even longer.
A car making a careful pass of a cyclist on an empty road, loses a second or three.
A car, passing a bicycle in city traffic, and then coming to rest behind the car in front at the next light, the same place he would have come to rest without the cyclist, loses zero seconds.
I drive a car. I ride a bike. It has never crossed my mind that bikes advancing past cars to a stop light is an issue. Are there people out there actually pay attention to such minor things? I’m blown away! If someone told me that cars should follow behind bikes and not pass I would call them nuts too. Hey uptight drivers out there, If you were coming to a stop light and there were 10 bikes in a line stopped at a stop light would you pull up to the crosswalk or stay behind the bikes? Seems obvious.
A lot of it really does come down to crummy infrastructure (i.e., all-too-often none for cyclists), mingled with scofflaw attitudes.
If the infrastructure is there and it’s no skin off anyone’s nose to obey laws, then things run in such a way as to minimize the “A-hole potential.”
When that’s not the case, and cyclists are getting run off the road (i.e., drivers devolve to petty stuff like counting how often Cyclist X “advances” to a stop/ red light *after* holier-than-thou driver in super-sized honkin’ SUV has passed said cyclist), you have a problem that scofflaw-ing just ain’t gonna fix (which is why I’m against Dan’s suggestion to chill on obeying traffic laws).
Until the perfect infrastructure (or its closest equivalent) is built, I’d prefer it if everyone obeyed traffic laws, frankly.
Winnie @9 and Mr.Poe (of SLOG fame?) @21: Both of you are conjuring a boogie man. Prove to me that bikes matter and show me the data.
How many people per year are killed on sidewalks by bikes? I’ve never seen data, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s extremely improbable. Same goes for bikes injuring peds on sidewalks — as far as I can tell, it just doesn’t happen very often in the real world. But if anyone out there has data to prove me wrong, let’s see it.
(I know of one fluke incident maybe five or six years ago in Seattle: as I recall a drunk indigent rode into someone on the sidewalk, pushing the person off the curb in front of an oncoming bus. But this just as easily could have been a drunk pedestrian pushing someone in front of a bus.)
And how often does it happen that a reckless biker causes a car to collide with something else? Personally, I’ve never heard of it happening, for whatever that’s worth. Has anyone ever seen stats on this? My guess is that it is quite rare, though probably not as rare as someone being killed by a bike on a sidewalk.
And you can be sure that if either of the above incidents happened everyone would know all about it, cause the local press, who know their car-centric audience well, would go apeshit over it.
Again I ask, why all the heat about something that matters so little?
[dor wrote]: “…It has never crossed my mind that bikes advancing past cars to a stop light is an issue. Are there people out there actually pay attention to such minor things?”
Yeah. Read the soundoff section of any PI article involving cyclists. The semi-literates that post there don’t have the vocabulary to complain about yo-yo-ing, but there’s no shortage of fury over any minor thing you can think of involving cyclists.
That aside, I’m going to agree to disagree with many of the audience members here, cause, I’m getting the idea that we’re not really going to get closure on this.
Soo… I’ll continue to wait behind vehicles that are idling at red lights. When the light turns green, I’ll go, just like a vehicle would.
You guys can enter the danger zone of the right-edge of the lane, put yourself at risk for getting doored or ran over by a vehicle turning into a parking lot or driveway, just so you can pull to the front of a long row of cars who will soon be trying to pass you in a (most-likely) unsafe manner. When you delay the cars just enough that they miss the next green light, go ahead and pass them again while they idle at the red. Start the process all over again. But don’t be surprised if they’re a little less courteous the second time around.
Aaahhh, Different Strokes, I guess.
Bad cyclists make drivers angry.
Bad drivers make cyclists dead.
RE: filing a report with Metro- (friday the 13th) a bus pulls up next to me at a red light at 3rd and Yesler. We are wheel to wheel at the stop line, when the light turned the driver guns it and begins to pull into my lane in the middle of the intersection. Upon confronting the driver at the next stop she says, and I quote “you betta get your dumb ass out the way!” I never heard back…
@meat
…your point?
Dan, here are some stats for you on accidents involving motorists and cyclists. The study was funded by the US Department of Transportation and conducted by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center in cooperation with the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. Based on this, and anecdotally on the number of insane things I see both drivers AND cyclists do every day in Seattle, BOTH have a responsibility to share the road and obey traffic laws. You don’t get a free pass to do as you like just because you feel you’re saving the planet.
http://www.massbike.org/info/statistics.htm
Based on this, and anecdotally on the number of insane things I see both drivers AND cyclists do every day in Seattle, BOTH have a responsibility to share the road and obey traffic laws. You don’t get a free pass to do as you like just because you feel you’re saving the planet.
Huh. I’m not alone.
rb @31: Please show me where I wrote that cyclists get a free pass because they feel like they’re saving the planet. What I was pointing out is how bizarre it is that so many drivers loathe cyclists, when if they could think rationally about it they’d be doing everything they could to encourage more biking. And that would include things like not getting all pissy about a bike rolling through a stop sign.
What I am saying is that bikers should get a (qualified) free pass because bicycles don’t matter (reread the post title). This is the same kind of free pass that millions of Americans get every day when they jaywalk.
Thanks for the data link. Can you point me to any specific data that show that the presence of bikes on city streets significantly increases the risk for others?
Yule @18: Thanks for the European perspective. What I found amazing while driving all over Europe for two months was how good all the drivers were about using turn signals.
To everyone: That last paragraph in the post was a thought experiment and an intentional provocation. It’s a blog. And I have no editor!
Dan, here is the crux of your argument:
“I would like to propose a new strategy: Cyclists ought to break the rules of the road at every opportunity that doesn’t comprimise their, or others’ safety.”
But who are cyclists to determine that breaking traffic laws doesn’t compromise someone else’s safety? I see this all the time downtown – near misses because some asshole on a bike thinks that traffic laws don’t apply. And yet, if they get hit, they cry about it. I’m mostly a pedestrian, and am 100% biased against drivers and cars, but for the most part the majority of them are at least TRYING to obey traffic laws, where as too many cyclists seem to feel the rules don’t apply to them.
“Given the current state of the planet, you’d think that the average Seattlite would have nothing but gratitude for anyone willing to travel by bike.” (this is from another post of yours)
Sorry, but when cyclists can’t be bothered to follow the rules of the road, and run me off of sidewalks, and nearly cause accidents on the rare occasions that I DO drive, I’m NOT full of gratitude. I am a vegetarian, travel by foot, public transit or carpool (i.e. don’t have a care of my own), compost all of my food waste, recycle, and have taken every step I can think of to conserve. I even turn off the water during my morning shower – I get wet, turn of the water while I lather, and then quickly rinse. Chances are, I’m doing WAY more for the environment than many people on a bike, and yet they feel the can run me down on the sidewalk because they’re on two wheels instead of four. Let me tell you, Dan, NO wheels is even better for our planet. Pedestrians trump cyclists every time in terms of eco-friendly transport, so suck it on that.
“Bicycles have but the tiniest impact on most urbanites’ lives.”
Not true. My partner drives me to work some weekday mornings (on others I walk). My biggest worry is a collision with a cyclist, not other drivers, in large part because so many cyclists make a choice not to obey traffic laws. In spite of how careful we are, and aware of cyclists (I’m actually pro-cycling and anti-car), we’ve had several serious near-misses because a cyclist decided that they were immune to traffic laws and veered right in front of us.
“The objective reality is that pretty much the worst bicycles do is that they annoy people.”
I am primarily a pedestrian and rarely drive. As both a pedestrian and an occasional driver, cyclists cause more problems than annoyance: running red lights, curb jumping, and weaving through traffic are actual hazards (to cyclists and drivers), and careless cyclists on sidewalks scare the hell out of me at times (like the guy on the bike who almost ran me over on Tuesday and screamed obscenities at me (RED/BLACK SPANDEX ON A CANNONDALE AT 5:30, LK WA BLVD AND MADISON, THAT’S THE SECOND TIME, NEXT TIME YOU’RE GOING DOWN AND I WILL KICK YOUR ASS), or the jackass riding on the sidewalk who actually ran into me while I was waiting for a bus on Wednesday on Eastlake, and again, screamed at me for being in his way. I’ve never had a driver run into me and then yell at me for being in their way. In fact, I’ve found drivers in this city to be quite polite. I walk home from work most days (Eastlake to Madison Valley), and have more run-ins with cyclists than drivers.
“And while it’s no doubt true that people sometimes have annoying interactions with bicycles, the frequency with which it happens has got to be low in comparison to the onslaught of daily annoyances faced by the typical urbanite. There just aren’t that many bikes out there.”
Take some time to read the stats I linked. Cyclists are also responsible for accidents – it’s not just an “annoyance”.
Lastly, I really enjoy your blog and usually feel you are right on with your posts. Please understand that I am actually pro-cycling, anti-car, pro-transit, and a dedicated pedestrian. I have never owned a car, and never will. I only got a license at the age of 26, and stopped cycling because my knees are messed up. But I really feel you’re way off on this. If cyclists are going to ride in traffic, they have a responsibility to obey the rules. I can’t, as an occasional driver or pedestrian, be worried about my own behavior and also that of cyclists who make an active choice to disobey traffic laws. There are too many cyclists in Seattle with a bad attitude who think they can do whatever they want, and then have a fit when one of them gets run over. We all have to live in, and share, the city. If you choose not to obey traffic laws, then fine, but don’t come crying when you get hit because you ran a red light on your bicycle.
PS, you’ve got to be joking when you say “This is the same kind of free pass that millions of Americans get every day when they jaywalk.” When I worked downtown, I saw pedestrians get jaywalking tickets on a daily basis. Yet I see cyclists all over disobeying traffic laws and not wearing helmets, and will honestly tell you that in 15 years living in Seattle, I’ve NEVER seen a cyclist pulled over. I’m sure it must happen, but I have yet to see it.
PPS, then I’m done, you really should check out these stats: http://www.massbike.org/info/statistics.htm
I think it makes a good case that EVERYONE has to be responsible in the drive/bike/walk transportation mix.
This is what I read in [rb]’s data:
42.4% of accidents were clearly the car’s fault
35.8% were clearly the bike’s fault
there wasn’t data on the rest.
16.8% was from bicyclists running red lights and stop signs – what is mostly discussed above. Assuming bikers die proportionally from all types of crashes, this was 126 deaths in 1999.
Any death is a terrible thing. But keep in mind that 557 people die each year from accidentally falling off buildings. By comparison 48,000 people are killed each year in all vehicle accidents. And it looks like you’re 90x more likely to be shot than to be killed while running a red light.
I don’t mean to belittle your point. The safest way to ride a bike is to follow the traffic rules. But this risk should be put in perspective.
One more thing. Alan Durning had a great piece in Sightline Daily a while back about this. It turns out that per mile travelled, biking is 3x safer than even walking (waits patiently for someone to blame a-hole bicyclists for this fact).
For anyone up in Vancouver on August 20, there’s a free presentation/ lecture by Gil Penalosa, “Walking, Bicycling and Public Spaces: Lessons Learned from Bogota and Beyond.” Link:
http://vancouverpublicspace.ca/index.php?page=gilpenalosa
An excerpt from the announcement:
QUOTE
Walking, Bicycling and Public Spaces: Lessons from Bogota and Beyond
An evening with Gil Peñalosa
Wednesday August 20, 2008, 700pm, SFU Harbour Centre
We are now facing a “perfect storm” of increasing global warming and environmental degradation, growing traffic congestion, an obesity crisis and other public health concerns, soaring energy costs and slowing economic growth. It is time to go beyond baby steps and take some major leaps. We must re-position walking and cycling as key parts of the solution to these major challenges. As Bogota has shown, creating great public spaces for walking and cycling contributes enormously to creating healthier, happier, more thriving communities. Hear former Bogota Commissioner of Parks, Sport and Recreation share his experiences and his lessons for Vancouver.
UNQUOTE
There’s more info if you follow that link. Presumably, he’ll be talking about infrastructure (missing infrastructure, in most cases…). The kind of infrastructure that provides more space for cyclists and pedestrians (separated, please, as per the examples in Dan’s next post…) so that both can be safer.
rb, thanks for saying much more eloquently many of the things I would say. I’m a driver, bicyclist, but much more often a pedestrian. Half the time, it doesn’t have to do with who kills who, it has to do with who scares the living hell out of who.
I’m tired of minding my own business on the sidewalk or in the crosswalk and being either yelled at by a bicyclist for not getting out of the way fast enough or *not* having anything said to me as someone races up behind me and then cuts in front of me practically scaling the dress from my hips. A gentle “on your left” would be nice.
And while driving, yes, I hate passing bikes but much of that is because Seattle needs better or more bike lanes which is why yoyoing can be hard on all those on the road. The more I have to pass you and try to give you a wide berth, the more my heartrate goes up especially because the damn SUV on my other side is cussing me out… ;-)
The stats quoted by M.T.E. @38 show that cars are more likely than bikes to be the cause of bike-car collisions. This means that drivers are more careless than cyclists, at least in the circumstances that lead to the worst case scenario — a collision. This data contradicts the belief many people seem to have that most cyclists are totally out of control while most drivers are behaving responsibly (e.g. see rb @35).
And you also have to consider what happens as a result of a car-bike collision: the cyclist loses, big time (in all but the most unusual cases). So even when it’s the cyclist’s fault, the car driver suffers relatively little (yes, I admit it’s more than an annoyance, but it’s highly unlikely to involve significant injury or monetary loss). But when it’s the driver’s fault, the cyclist STILL LOSES just as badly.
To me, the obvious way to compensate for this inequity is to regulate cars more strictly than bikes, and to have a separate set of rules for each — rules that are based on the relative danger that each poses. Of course we don’t have that, and so some cyclists take matters into their own hands. But this DOESN’T mean that cyclists should do whatever the hell they want. It’s stupid to run red lights against cross traffic, and I think it’s safe to assume that this is what happened with the cyclists in the stats who were killed going through red lights. But stopping at a red light, and then going through it when there’s no traffic is a totally different thing. I think it’s completely appropriate given the risk to others posed by the action. We even let cars do it when they’re turning right.
Now when you also consider that there are probably something like 100 times more cars than bikes on the road, it’s hard for me to understand how the bike-car collision data quoted @38 does much to discredit my original claim that bicycles don’t matter.
FYI, another good site for stats:
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html
“Drivers are at fault in almost 90% of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths in New York.”
rb @35: there’s a lot I could write, but life is short so I’ll leave it at this: I’m sorry you’re having such a stressful time traveling around Seattle. What you describe is completely alien to the reality that I experience in this city. A cyclist yelling at people to get out of the way on the sidewalk is something that I would expect to be extremely uncommon (and is, in my experience). Same for the cyclist who is intentionally reckless and then cries about getting hit (I honestly think you are inventing this person in your own mind).
But hey, I’m keeping my mind open. Could you, or JenMoon, or anyone else out there please tell me the place and time I should go to have the best chance of witnessing a crazed biker on the sidewalk? I’m totally serious. I’m willing to try to reconcile the vast difference between our perspectives.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been a bike commuter, but I’m hoping recent life changes will allow me to become one again. I’ve dealt with jackass drivers from the bike side, and jackass bikers from the car side, and if I could just snap my fingers and make all the jackassery disappear I would.
That said, here’s my own axe being ground (apropos of absolutely nothing I’ve read above): I love, love, love the pictures of bikes with protected lanes on car routes. I hate, hate, hate the conversion of rail rights of way to bike paths. The Burke-Gilman is a nice ride on a bike, but it’s a disaster from the point of view of intelligent transit. Using that historic rail right-of-way for something, say light rail, that would get more cars off the road and make them more bike-friendly would be more my first choice in land use. It’s now a lost corridor, and there’s not a chance in hell that the folks with the lake shore houses will ever consent to letting trains back on an amazing route that formerly tied Bothel to Ballard, with the U District in the middle. What is it going to cost to eventually recreate this, now that land is expensive and everyone fights every step forward?
Bicyclists should think more about what’s really in their best interest: Getting more cars off the road. Sometimes taking land just for bikes works against that goal.
Here’s the deal:
When bicyclists start obeying traffic laws, then we’ll start respecting their right to use the road just like everybody else. Just because you’re using a vehicle that is grossly underpowered and dangerous, does not give you the right to ignore the rules that apply to everyone who uses a public roadway.
As a motorcycle rider, I am acutely aware of how dangerous it can be to share the road with four-plus wheeled vehicles and their cellphone-preoccupied drivers. I also know that in any contest between my bike and their car, the car wins. It doesn’t matter whether I had the right-of-way or not, I wind up hurt or worse.
So, I ride very carefully out of self-preservation: as if every car on the road is actively trying to kill me (busses doubly so, since Metro gets a free pass by law on wiping out other vehicles), and I have an invisibility field on. If I tried to ride my motorcycle the way I see bicycle commuters ride day-in-day-out, I’d have been dead a long time ago. As it is, this summer I’ve see at least one bicyclist a week down somewhere alongside my commute because they were riding irresponsibly.
And haven’t you people ever heard of protective gear? Corporate-sponsorship spandex and a foam yarmulke mean nothing when you go down at 25 mph. But I digress.
Bicyclists have just as much right to use the road as motorcyclists or drivers do, but also the same obligations and responsibilities combined with much more risk. Ask any motorcyclist and they’ll tell you what every self-righteous bicycle commuter needs to learn: the added risk is your choice, and its not appropriate to push responsibility for accounting for it onto others. Be careful, be safe, obey the rules, don’t do anything unpredictable, and let the bigger vehicles go by. If anything, bicyclists need to be far more careful about obeying the rules than anybody else, since they have the most to lose if something bad happens.
For some perspective… from a country that has one of the highest rates of cycling:
“Dutch traffic law was changed in 1998 regarding accidents involving cyclists and pedestrians so that motorists are now considered to be wholly at fault.
Having the right of way does not excuse motorists from hitting cyclists and pedestrians and the
courts require that motorists anticipate unsafe walking and cycling behaviour. That applies even to illegal behaviour and insurance companies pay damages to cyclists and pedestrians automatically regardless of guilt.”
GW@45: What exactly do you mean by respect? Are you saying that motorists won’t start obeying the laws until bikers obey the laws?
What is your opinion on motorcycles splitting lanes? I believe motorcycles should be allowed to do it. That is, motorcycles should have their own set of rules because they are different from cars, just like bikes should.
And thanks so much for the lecture on safety. One thing I’ve noticed about bicycle discussions in an online forum like this is that the motorcyclists who comment tend to be more self-righteous than anyone.
“Respect” = taking the complaints of bicyclists about other roadway users seriously when bicyclists don’t bother to abide by the rules that apply to anybody who uses a public roadway and then get all pouty when anybody calls them out on it. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. We abide by the rules, accept the consequences when we don’t, and aren’t going to shed any tears over bicyclists who meet a bad end because they couldn’t be bothered to and thought that their use of a bicycle somehow entitled them to do whatever they felt like.
Lane-splitting is stupid and dangerous, and I say that as a full-time motorcycle rider who might conceivably “benefit” from making it legal in WA. The only place in the US it’s legal is California, and that’s only because the CHP uses antiquated air-cooled Harley Davidsons which overheat if they sit in traffic. Drivers already have trouble seeing motorcycles in places where they might reasonably be expected. Going out of the lane or doing some other thing which is unexpected makes motorcycles nearly invisible to drivers. People see what they expect to see.
This goes back to psychological experiments on attention. There’s the classic experiment where subjects watch a short film and are asked to count how many times a ball is passed around. Half of them are so intent on watching the ball that they utterly fail to see the man in the gorilla suit dance into the picture halfway through, even though he’s clearly visible on screen. Drivers do the same thing. They’re concentrating on the primary dangers on the road (other cars) and looking for them in the expected places. The human brain is not wired to process complex visual information fast enough to approach this problem any other way. So, if I ride my motorcycle (shaped differently from expected hazards) along the centerline in traffic (going faster and in a different place than slow moving vehicles all in lanes), many drivers completely and utterly fail to see me even if they are looking right at me and I’m wearing my bright yellow gear. That doesn’t make them inattentive. It makes them human.
Then there’s also the matter of reaction times. Everybody takes a couple of seconds to react to hazards, decide what to do about them, and then act. Even race car drivers need time to perceive, judge, and react. A car moving at 35 mph / 50 fps, will travel at least 80 feet before its driver can react to a bicyclist darting into his lane or suddenly deciding that he/she is going to act like a two-wheeled pedestrian instead of a road vehicle or a motorcycle riding the line because he/she couldn’t be bothered to wait his/her turn in traffic. That’s 80 feet before the driver even starts to react.
Bicyclists face the same problems as motorcyclists. The big difference between us is that most motorcyclists now tend to accept that that’s just the reality of being on a small two-wheeled vehicle in the middle of big four-wheeled traffic and take steps to not become roadkill. Bicyclists, on the other hand, tend to keep the pedestrian mentality of entitlement while taking on all the risk of being slow and precarious in traffic, expecting drivers to see them and accommodate them even when the bicyclists are doing things that are extremely risky and make them effectively invisible. If you ride a bicycle or motorcycle on public roads and won’t follow the rules of the road, the consequences are on you. Not only that, but you have to be far more careful than a car driver to use the same road. That’s not fair, but that’s how it is. The only way out of that is to either not ride, be extremely careful and follow the rules, or only ride in places where cars don’t go.
Motorcyclists tend to be outspoken about this for a few reasons:
1) we’ve got a lot of experience with the hazards of sharing the road with cars (many of the issues you’re talking about for bicycles were also big problems for motorcycles until there was a concerted effort to improve motorcycle safety back in the 1980s…bicyclists could learn a lot from that effort if they ever bothered to study it)
2) safety training for motorcycle licensing is mandatory in most states (as opposed to bicyclists, who rarely have training on how to ride safely or well, and don’t have to demonstrate that they’re capable of understanding and abiding by the rules of the road before setting out into traffic…bicycle safety would improve a LOT if safety training was mandatory for anyone riding one on a roadway)
3) the consequences of an accident are typically even worse for a motorcycle rider than a bicycle rider (the threshold for major injury is about 50 feet per second, or around 35 mph…most motorcycles go faster than that, while only some bicycles do…having said that, however, a car moving at 25mph hitting a bike moving at 10mph puts you into the major injury category)
None of which is meant to imply that motorcyclists are superior to bicyclists, but rather that we’ve been struggling with many of the same issues for a longer period of time, against much stiffer opposition (motorcyclists were treated as quasi-criminals for a large part of the 20th century), and have typically had more at stake. Over time, motorcyclists worked out a way to address the problem through:
1) educating drivers
2) becoming safer riders
3) reforming traffic laws
If bicyclists really want to deal with the danger posed to them by riding in traffic, they need to learn from what motorcyclists did to deal with the same problems, not scream for special treatment and exemption from all the rules that exist to try and keep us all from killing each other.
You’re welcome on the lecture, BTW. Based on what you wrote, it was pretty clear you needed some clarification on these issues before the attitude you were expounding on gets you or someone else killed. I enjoy this blog immensely and would be disappointed if you got yourself run over because you were trying to prove a point about how bicyclists need to be confrontational with motorists in order to gain respect on the road.
Hi Dan (& readers): Just a quick follow-up on my comment (#40, above) re. the Gil Penalosa lecture at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on Aug.20. Roland Tanglao in Vancouver recorded the first 10 minutes of it (yeah, just a “blip,” alas), and posted it to Blip.tv.
It’s still interesting, even if too short. You can see it here:
http://blip.tv/file/1191401
This is the start of the lecture, and it’s less about bikes/ walking than about cities in general. The gist: decide what kind of city you want first, and then the rest has to follow.
Thats a pretty interesting blip Yule. I think he makes a really good point at the end there when he says in the 21st Century, with such a globalized and technologically connected world, the most important factor in economic competitiveness is quality of life.
As a Seattleite transplanted to Copenhagen, I can attest that bikes become *infinitely* less annoying when they have their own lanes and traffic lights and are not forced to share the road with cars.
‘Bikes are annoying!’ is actually a great argument for building bike lanes and giving bikers more assistance, not less. A biker will never cut you off in traffic or be in front of you at a stop light if he has his own ‘road’ next to yours.
It’s amazing that no one in American cities seems to understand that everyone, deep down, wants the same thing.
“It’s amazing that no one in American cities seems to understand that everyone, deep down, wants the same thing.”
It’s amazing to me that anyone thinks for a moment that Americans – much less those in cities – want the same anything….or should be expected to.
Seattle is not Copenhagen – better we recognize that sooner than later. It is not the fault of bicyclists that our urban form is sprawled (blame old streetcars as well as cars). Our trips on bikes are longer, the amount of time we can budget to transportation is finite. If my commute were 2km long instead of 20, I might (MIGHT) be persuaded to travel at the Danish 12kph pace. Unfortunately, that is neither reasonable or practical.
Both the Danes and the Dutch have a couple of things going in their favor for their cycle track systems – mainly, the cities are small, and they are most certainly FLAT. Neither situation exists here.
In my perfect world, we start removing motorized traffic from streets and reclaim that with wider, better connected on-street facilities that don’t threaten pedestrians (and this is a huge issue in both Denmark and the Netherlands)and gets me from A to B at a more reasonable clip. Yes to more density to shorten trips for those who choose that lifestyle, but don’t penalize those who live in rural Fremont (for in beloved Copenhagen, Fremont would be a rural suburb) by making cycling clumsy and inconvenient.
Let’s design for OUR city, not someone else’s.
[Phil] That’s the second time this week I’ve heard that streetcars created sprawl. That’s just silly – houses in the old streetcar neighborhoods have 30′ lot widths. That’s density, not sprawl.
You don’t get sprawl until you get a good 5 miles from downtown. Exactly one thing creates sprawl: cars.
The streetcars of old were small, heavy and slow. Through most of the 19th century, in Europe as in America, they were horse-drawn. Definitely not progenitors of sprawl, unless we include fatigued animals collapsed in the street in our definition of it.
[phil] I’m not saying that Seattle is Copenhagen. My only point up there is that bikes and cars don’t antagonize each other when each has its own designated, separated space. There would be a lot less aggrivation (and danger) for everybody if Seattle made the investment in some separated lanes, curbs, road paint, etc.
Look, 35 percent of people bike to work in Copenhagen. In Seattle it’s something like 2 percent. Surely there are a few numbers in between that Seattle can strive for. Just because CPH’s circumstances are different (and they are, in even more ways than you pointed out) doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to learn from it. Both Berlin and Paris are huge, it’s worth pointing out, and both have great bike infrastructure. No, they didn’t do it exactly the same as CPH, nor could they. But they took Denmark’s example and applied it to their own context. Even London, for Christ’s sake, is investing in bike infrastructure to an unprecedented degree, and that city has even bigger challenges than Seattle (tiny streets, insane density, huge size).
I’m from Seattle, by the way, and have been living here in Denmark for three years. It’s frustrating to see how little effort it would take on the city’s part to make a huge difference in emissions, health and quality of life, and how there are always naysayers pointing out why it will never work. Why not *try*, man, geez.
Not having read all the comments this may have very well been touched upon ad nauseum, but between cyclists, motorists and pedestrians there are a lot of people out there with an ever so swollen sense of entitlement.
Here’s a life-enhancing/saving tip: You’re entitled to nothing.
Drivers: Watch the fuck out. You are operating a machine capable of killing just about anybody, keep pthat in mind.
Cyclists: Watch the fuck out. Pad yourself up as much as you like you are still vulnerable. Quit riding around without a care in the world as though everyone will be looking out for you. Be the better person.
Pedestrians: That goes triple for you.
The world owes us nothing, let’s all just do our damndest to keep ourselves nice and alive.
Thanks.
Dan, I had the EXACT same experience with a Metro driver downtown in the summer of 2008. Spooky. I confronted him at the next light and had pretty much the same conversation (4th and Pine)… I suggested his actions could very likely cause a fatality next time and reported him to Metro… unbelievable…
I just noticed the date of this post, I suppose there’s a very slight chance it was the same driver. let’s hope he/they’re off the streets.
ugh. please be careful on those streets.
Seems like every (numerically insigficant, but everytime) time I go west on Pine and get ready to turn right ‘on red’ just past the Paramount … signal on, creeping out someone on a bicycle blasts past me on the right, slows a tad to be sure no one is coming through their green, and merrily goes through the red light. I figure at some point I will hit one of them just because the car will be in forward motion. I’m already emotionally prepared to get over it.
What the f*ck. This problem has nothing to do with being a biker or a driver. The problem is with people expecting certain behavior out of other people. Relax all you passive aggressive people. Life’s not worth the time to get angry on a blog over these little issues. Join a task force or another group to go out and educate drivers and bikers alike. Take action not attitude.