Brennan

Yes, riding on the sidewalk is illegal in NYC, yet I have no doubt the confrontational pedestrian then proceeded to cross streets against every red light he encountered, just as every other New Yorker does.

RobertHurst

Obeying the rules of the road is great. I recommend it strongly! But rule-following by adult bicyclists is more of a PR issue than a safety issue, a clear fact illustrated in collision statistics. So if you want to give safety advice to cyclists, it has to be something more than "follow the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles."

Since Forester must acknowledge that the motorist mistake (most likely a looked-but-failed-to-see error) is the most important feature of traffic for cyclists, he has to come up with some sort of connection to his own writings, which in fact practically ignore the possibility of looked-but-failed-to-see errors. So he offers a very flimsy claim that by following road rules "you will be in the best position to recognize when a mistake is occurring." Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much if any factual evidence supporting this strange claim. So the flimsy, prefabricated thread between Forester's Effective Cycling and the most critical part of safe cycling -- anticipating looked-but-failed-to-see errors -- disappears entirely.

Forester's claim that I provide no instruction on how to operate safely in an environment punctuated by motorist mistakes is absolutely false. In fact the book is packed with advice on how to operate safely and effectively in this environment.

kalliergo 

Robert, it's not very helpful, or persuasive, to make an extravagant claim and support it only with a link to a long, undifferentiated list of studies and surveys (only some of which remotely qualify as "statistics"). If you want to convince those of us who have not (at least yet) accepted your thesis, It would be helpful if you would tell us exactly which statistics, available in which studies, support the assertion that rule-following "is more of a PR issue than a safety issue."

If it's a "clear fact," you should be able to demonstrate it clearly.

John Forester

My argument is not for a "strange claim"; it applies to probably all human endeavors and to many interactions between humans and non-human processes. One cannot obey the rules of the road (or of any other activity) without first learning how to obey those rules and how to judge how well one, or anyone, is obeying those rules. Learning to obey the rules of the activity establishes in the learner's mind a standard system of operation. Until that is established, the learner has no means of telling whether the activity is being done properly or improperly. Furthermore, with that standard firmly established, the observer finds that detecting a deviation, which might result in the need for evasive or corrective action, comes quicker and easier. It stands out among all the other features of the scene. Without such a standard and some feel for typical errors, the observer has to consider each feature of the scene in turn, trying to discover whether that feature presents a danger to be considered, which takes much longer because there are many such features in any one scene.

It is for these reasons that in all human affairs society demands that judgment be exercised by those who know how the affair is supposed to occur, rather than permitting such judgments to be exercised by people ignorant of those affairs. Driving in traffic is composed of a succession of such judgments and the actions determined by them. Really, would you consider it right for tests of driving to be administered by people who don't know how to drive?

hagen2456

Here's one example of the kind of studies I was thinking of, but at present I'm not able to find the ones I've read about a few years ago: https://phys.org/news117283969.html
Edit: one more: https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/l03-040

Your demanding that it should be bike-collission specific is a bit weird, as I was not talking specifically of that issue. i was merely mentioning the fact that the "mysteries" of traffic are now being studied in a new light. A shift of paradigm, if you will. That should be relevant to the way we see cycling, too.

hagen2456

I don't think that's the way we judge potential dangers - or not only. There are other clues that will give us a much better fore-warning, like the hesitations we observe in drivers (or cyclists), or similar "nervous" (or ever-so-slightly aggressive or erratic) actions. Little things that are not in themselves in any way dangerous to us, and certainly don't breach any rules, and may never become so.

Rollfast

But please, by all means, get off the bike first

Your safety ranger thanks you

John Forester

Hagen, you are describing typical signs of a process that is not operating properly, which is exactly the kind of symptom that can only be recognized by someone who knows how the proper operation should occur. So what's your complaint?

Bekologist

What's this thread about again?

Some guy riding his bike on the sidewalk in New York City (illegal) because of traffic congestion, and a boisterous pedestrian that pushed him for riding on the sidewalk.

what should the rider have done? tp be legal, walked his bike on the sidewalk a spot where he could safely reenter the roadway traffic stream.

Semantic hissy fits about which cycling author best describes how to recognize aberrant traffic? off topic.

hagen2456

You could easily make a computer program that would know how the proper operation should occur. Recognizing the signs I speak of as being potentially dangerous is an entirely different matter that has more to do with reading minds than rules. "Little things that are not in themselves in any way dangerous to us, and certainly don't breach any rules".

kalliergo 

I didn't see "turbulence" or "chaos" mentioned in either the article or the abstract.

Also, both studies appear to relate to freeway/motorway traffic flows and neither seems to provide information or guidance relative to appropriate behavior for individual operators of any kind(s) of vehicle, certainly not for cyclists.

That said, Bek makes a good point. We're rather far off-topic.

John Forester

So, what's your point, Hagen? You are describing characteristics of an operational situation that differ from the standard process and, therefore, would be quickly recognized by a person who understands the standard process. Only when one knows the standard process can one quickly recognize deviations from it. Without knowing the standard process, no deviation can be recognized, because there is no standard against which to compare it.

Please explain why you are participating in this debate. What point are you trying to make through your statements of disagreement?

hagen2456

I've made my point twice now in relation to your statements. I think that must be enough.

John Forester

But you have not made any point, not presented any argument, demonstrating that knowledge of how a process, in this case a traffic movement, is supposed to occur is irrelevant to detecting errors that might lead to a dangerous situation. I maintain that this knowledge is exceedingly helpful; you deny that this is so, without presenting any reasons for so believing.

hagen2456

I thought the words "- or not only" was some kind of English. Guess I was wrong. Ill try to make myself a little more clear next time I'm trying to add something to the discussions here.

John Forester

Originally Posted by John Forester
But you have not made any point, not presented any argument, demonstrating that knowledge of how a process, in this case a traffic movement, is supposed to occur is irrelevant to detecting errors that might lead to a dangerous situation. I maintain that this knowledge is exceedingly helpful; you deny that this is so, without presenting any reasons for so believing.



Hagen has been unable to present the argument with which to support his thoughts. His words "or not only" (which I reviewed in context) don't describe his argument, but he still believes that he has presented an appropriate argument. Therefore, Hagen, I make an attempt to present the argument that I deduce, maybe inaccurately, you think that you presented.

The argument goes like this. Vehicular cycling is taught by teaching the rules of the road. Therefore, a cyclist taught by this method cannot detect a dangerous traffic error until he sees that a formal rule of the road has been broken. Is that it, Hagen?

Well, it is inaccurate from first to last. I never teach the rules of the road; I teach how to obey the rules of the road, which is an entirely different subject, including how others obey them. Once the student cyclist develops a useful feel for how traffic operates and what that operation looks like, then he has the skill to quickly detect deviations from that method and take precautionary action, which may run from mere alertness to see if something worse is developing, to making a violent movement away from the danger.

hagen2456

John, I've tried to describe a difference in nuances that I believe has some impact on how one reacts in traffic. I don't think I'm able to do it any more precisely than I've done above, so I'll just let it rest here. But please allow me to say this much: I really don't feel that you're making an effort to understand what others have to say.

John Forester

I tried my best to understand, by deduction, whatever argument you were trying to make but were unable to present. That is trying to understand what you have been saying. But you have neither agreed with your argument as I had to deduce it, nor offered a different argument to correct my deduction. The point you are trying to make is still unknown.

You say that you have tried to describe a difference in nuances, a difference between nuances or between yours and mine, or what? And I have replied that we agree that the kinds of nuances that you describe are useful indications regarding traffic behavior. So why do you choose to disagree about that understanding? I don't understand why you chose to make a point of disagreeing with me about them. So far as I can understand, it is a matter of disagreeing for the sake of doing so.

hagen2456

You're stressing the "obeyance of rules" a lot. But other road users may be obeying the rules perfectly while still letting you know - by the signs I described somewhere above - that they may breach them in the near future.

We may agree, but I just can't get your way of describing these things to cover how I personally read traffic. Perhaps I'm just slow-witted. Perhaps it's not important.

Essex

It's been several weeks after the incident and I have new views:

A. Eat crap on a daily basis which is what most NY'ers do - and learn to like it
B. Punch fat bastards in the face - especially those who put their hands on me
C. Not ride my bike in NYC
D. Be a totally 100% law abiding citizen (wuss) and walk my bike 7/8's of the way up a VERY long block to the next ave to avoid any confrontation with any denizen of the Big Crapple
E. Buy the entire Indian restaurant where I picked up the food so I no longer have to schlep to get good Vindaloo, or Jalfrezi

John Forester

I now understand, Hagen. Here is my side of the story. It is correct that I stress obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Not, as you suggest, "obeyance of rules", but obedience to a specific set of rules, those stated in American traffic law as applying to drivers of vehicles, ignoring those that apply only to drivers of streetcars or only to cyclists. I stress this because obedience by cyclists to those rules is quite rare. American is suffering the consequences of its seven-decade (or more) policy that cyclists should not obey those rules, but should obey those few laws that are based on staying out of the way of motorists for the purpose of making motoring more convenient. America has two sets of laws for cyclists, mutually incompatible. The first law gives cyclists the rights and duties of drivers of vehicles, the second set of laws denies cyclists most of those rights without decreasing the duties. This confused set of laws has produced three populations of cyclists. At one end are those who believe that their prime duty is to keep out of motorists' way, at the other end are those cyclists who have discovered the defects of such cycling and have become scofflaws, doing whatever they want in the belief that the traffic laws are not designed for cyclists. A third group are those who recognize the benefits of operating as traffic operates; that is, of obeying the rules for drivers of vehicles.

So, I emphasize the importance of learning how to obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, which is learning how traffic operates with the cyclist operating within it. But that learning is not "by the verbatim rules" but by acquiring the skill of learning how traffic operates with the cyclist operating within it. In the process of acquiring that skill, the cyclist learns not only how he should operate but how other drivers should, or mostly, operate with respect to those parts of traffic that are important to him. He has learned how traffic should look, and, therefore, has the best preparation for detecting when traffic is not working properly. When he quickly recognizes that, he has the best chance for taking whatever avoidance action would be appropriate.

Does this answer your concerns, Hagen?

hagen2456

Well, to be honest: to my way of reading it, there still seems to be a difference in "attitudes" (but it may just be the phrasing, like "when traffic is not working properly"). Making the "rules" be "rules of the road for drivers of vehicles" does not really change that.

John Forester

So you don't like my suggestion that observing "when traffic is not working properly" indicates the need for particular watchfulness in that direction. But you have offered, if my memory serves, hesitations and deviations from course as indicators; I just don't see any particular difference. So be it.

However, when you say that there's no difference between the "rules" and the "rules of the road for drivers of vehicles" you show your ignorance of the most important aspect, for cyclists, of American traffic law. I don't know how Danish or Dutch traffic laws treat cyclists; your view is probably based on what you know so that you don't appreciate the significance of the American system. I have described it before, but that appears to have passed by you without your noticing it.

American traffic law has two major classes of road users: drivers and pedestrians. I won't discuss pedestrians further. Drivers are all those who use the roadway, typically with wheeled vehicles, and they have specific rights and duties, generally worked out to provide a reasonable balance between safety and efficiency (often called convenience in legal terms). This system enables all drivers to operate together according to one set of rules for drivers of vehicles that are designed to eliminate collision-causing conflicts, and that works for cyclists as well as motorists. There are subclasses of drivers: streetcar operators, motorists, and cyclists, each subclass with specific additional rights or duties. For example, motorists are not allowed to race, nor to follow dangerously closely to other traffic, both of which are reasonable restrictions for safety. However, the rules for cyclists (written and enacted by the motorists who control traffic law) destroy the normal rights of cyclists, limiting them to the edge of the roadway or to a bike lane, often to facilities that are defective. Motorists claimed that this is a reasonable safety restriction, but it has been demonstrated to be nothing but a legal assertion of motorist superiority, cyclist inferiority, to make motoring more convenient. Of course, that simple restriction cannot work, so there are exceptions saying that cyclists can sometimes obey the standard rules for drivers of vehicles. The result is confusion, with motorists so sure that cyclists' prime duty is to stay out of the way of motorists, with cyclists never knowing which set of rules to obey, or to obey none at all, and with government unable to teach cyclists because of the conflicting legal policies.

That is why I have to be so insistent on cyclists obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. That is the method of operation that provides reasonable safety with reasonable convenience, results which so many American cyclists fail to understand.

Mithrandir

I don't think it's necessarily vehicle- or transportation-based tension. I've noticed that animosity and tensions have been growing everywhere within the last decade. Just look at any news article or any random youtube video now; there's people flaming the crap out of each other over the smallest little things, and it's getting worse. Something about western societal politeness has completely collapsed in recent years.

kalliergo 

This, from John, is as succinct and accurate a summary of the current situation in the US as you'll find anywhere.

Please read it carefully, even if you are a separate facilities advocate and think you hate John's position and teaching.