John Forester

I've never presented the argument that you are now discussing. I have restricted my statements about nasty discrimination to the American system for bicycle traffic, and both the bicycle traffic laws and their history demonstrate that my statements are accurate.

I've cycled in America since 1942 and I intend to cycle as long as I am capable of doing so. I write about American cycling because this is where my attention and my work has been directed.

As for the behavior of motorists, I, and a great many others, have found that the cyclist who operates in the vehicular manner attracts fewer problems than those who don't operate in that way. And most of what they do is no more than annoying; they have not the power of government behind them.

John Forester

The great difference between British and American law for bicycle traffic is that British cyclists are not required by law to ride far right or on bikeways, while American law requires American cyclists to do so. The great difference between British and American intentions is that British try to assist cyclists, while Americans try to shove cyclists aside for the convenience of motorists.

Bekologist

How contrived, and utterly false.

Far from Carmel California, and STILL bicyclists are getting harassed! Noted British cycling author Dave Horton explains

"what....needs to change for Britain to get back on the bike? One thing is drivers' attitudes. Many people describe frequent near misses due to dangerous driving: tailgating, cutting-up, even deliberate harassment. This stems from an anti-cycling culture prevalent in the UK."

building cycling culture in the UK by Dave Horton


yeah, looks like even in Great Britain cyclists get harassed.

but back to Carmel California. Kids, harassed while riding their bikes in a bicycle bus to school on a slow speed street. could have easily happened in the UK, or Arkansas.

Theories of statutory equality being a cure all are SO inadequate.

hagen2456

If one reads some of the British biking blogs, one can easily get the impression that drivers' attitudes are even more negative towards bikes than what you see in the USA. This seems to be confirmed when British papers write about bike matters: the comments are vitriolic to a degree that I find quite astonishing, and again, worse than what you'll see in an American paper.

hagen2456

À propos, from https://crapwalthamforest.blogspot.co...cycling-8.html :

"There is a deep rooted, unquestioned assumption here namely that the key cycling skill is about dealing with motor vehicles. The argument becomes a circular one; the skill that matters is dealing with motor vehicle traffic, ergo anything that reduces the relative significance of that skill is undesirable."

Notice, in the embedded link, the use of "competent".

John Forester

This appears to be similar to the American argument that American bikeways reduce the level of traffic skill required by the cyclist. This argument has never been demonstrated to be true, not even by those who make it, and I have presented the case that it cannot be true. There's no substitute for competence. I suspect that the same is true of the UK.

hagen2456

Ah, but you see: the kind of competence needed is not only to "follow the rules of the road" as "a driver of a vehicle", but also to make the car drivers observant, law-abiding, considerate, sober, etc. A bit much to ask, I believe, not least from children cycling to school, or the elderly. You could of course ask why this then shouldn't be needed for the car drivers themselves, and the reason is obvious: they are a lot less dangerous to themselves and a lot more dangerous to cyclists than vice versa. THAT is what is reflected in the low number of bicycle commuters in the USA and UK. The large number of sane potential cyclist don't buy into the VC ideology - they are much too concerned about their own lives and their kids'.

John Forester

So you say, Hagen. However, if motorists were as bad as you say they are, then a great many people would be frightened of motoring also. The argument that motorists are shielded by steel doesn't cut much ice, because motorists don't want their cars damaged and, of course, don't want themselves to be killed or injured. Besides which, the American public (I don't know about other publics), when concerned about bicycle traffic, is motivated by, or concerned about, only the least important of the traffic dangers to cyclists and is unconcerned about the others, so much so that it accepts increases in the greater dangers as the price of reducing the smaller dangers.

Your argument, Hagen, insofar as it applies to American conditions, does not reflect the facts of the issue.

hagen2456

I wish you would try to address the arguments I give. Might be interesting.

John Forester

Here is Hagen's argument:

Ah, but you see: the kind of competence needed is not only to "follow the rules of the road" as "a driver of a vehicle", but also to make the car drivers observant, law-abiding, considerate, sober, etc. A bit much to ask, I believe, not least from children cycling to school, or the elderly. You could of course ask why this then shouldn't be needed for the car drivers themselves, and the reason is obvious: they are a lot less dangerous to themselves and a lot more dangerous to cyclists than vice versa. THAT is what is reflected in the low number of bicycle commuters in the USA and UK. The large number of sane potential cyclist don't buy into the VC ideology - they are much too concerned about their own lives and their kids'.

The cyclist who practices vehicular cycling does not need to make great changes in the behavior of motorists. American motorists are not so much of a problem that cyclists are frequently endangered. In any case, it is impossible for the cyclist "to make motorists more observant, law-abiding, considerate, sober, etc." Therefore, there's no point in considering whether children or the elderly would find the task more difficult.


Hagen now asserts that motorists are much more dangerous to cyclists than to themselves, but he offers no evidence to support his argument.

Hagen then asserts that this supposed fact that motorists are much less dangerous to themselves than to cyclists is the cause of the low bicycle mode share in American transportation. That one is false. America had a low bicycle mode share long before anyone had knowledge of relative accident rates, for a variety of reasons. The American fear of cycling was never generated by accident rate, but by the motorists' insistence that cyclists stay out of the way of motorists, less they get crushed, which was then backed up by the far to the right law. That was fear of force majeur, nothing else, and was disproved the moment that reliable statistics of car-bike collisions were obtained, which demonstrated that fear and cause had no real connection.

So Hagen's arguments are mostly erroneous.

hagen2456

The two highlighted parts will, I believe, make it obvious to the astute reader how self-contradicting VC is.

It may well be that the fears of "the American cyclists" were not based on precise statistics, but they were certainly, for good reason, based on the fear of being crushed. Some stayed on the roads, no doubt to some extent helped by VC, but the rest prefered the safety of cars, buses, trains etc. They knew that not only would they have to follow the rules of the road to survive, they would also have to make sure somehow that the drivers were considerate, law-abiding etc. - or alternatively, themselves be super alert, fast accellerating etc.

They might have been a whole lot better helped by bicycle advocacy fighting for the discrimination against cars that is decent bike facilities, than by VC'ers insisting that the only difference between cars and bikes is the number of wheels. And they may still.

Bekologist

I'm sorry, guys, but by every indication the schoolkids WERE riding and taking the lane on a road without any bike facilities.

AKA operating 'VC' style. John would, should be proud of those schoolkids riding VC, yet still getting harassed.

squirtdad

I don't think any one here is happy or proud about kids getting harassed.

I am familar with the area (got married at the carmel mission) and based on that and the pinecone article it does sound like the kids and parents were riding "VC". To me this is just riding on the road......what should be a pretty normal activity.

These roads are narrow, no sidewalks and no room for infrastructure.....

So a question for those who see infrastructure as the best option.....what do these kids do.....not ride or ride as they are on the road, taking the lane as needed?

Bekologist

Cyclists should ALWAYS ride using best practices, wether in the presence of bicycle infrastructure or not.

Who thinks 'infrastructure' is a cure-all? no one posting here, even the most avid bikeway proponent recognizes the vast majority of streets will remain un-enhanced by bikeways.

That being said, A safe route to school in California that can't fit a bikelane should, perhaps, have sharrows or be designed like Berkeley's proven "bike boulevards'






or Portland's neighborhood greenways.

the motorists are always the largest contributing factor in bicyclist harassment.

John Forester

Hagen's arguments are erroneous. It is not up to cyclists to make motorists observant, law-abiding, considerate, sober, etc. That's the job of society. And American cyclists did not "kn[o]w that not only would they have to follow the rules of the road to survive .... " Hagen, what you think you know about America is erroneous. The American tradition is not vehicular cycling, but cyclist-inferiority cycling. Hagen, what you know about vehicular cycling is also erroneous. There's no need to be "super alert, fast accelerating, etc." You would do better if you learned before posting.

Doane

Wow, that's amazing.. looks like it can work quite well when implemented in the right way.

John Forester

I disagree with that statement. It is correct but only if one considers only frequency rather than effect. Most of harassment by motorists is no more than noise produced by rednecks or other uncouth creatures. If it gets to the level of endangerment, then it is assault and can, in theory, be treated through the legal process. However, harassment by government is much more severe, leading to criminal punishments and further justification, in the mind of uncouth motorists, for the harassment that they like to produce.

It is funny, in an ironical way, that Bek is making so much exaggerated noise about noisy motorist harassment, as if he disapproved of it, while, instead, he actually wants it as an argument for the bikeways he so much desires. The irony is that Bek denies harassment by government, because he really does think that cyclists should not have full rights as drivers of vehicles, but only under the governmental discrimination that produces FTR laws and bikeways.

Bekologist

the VC diatribe abut equanimity at the hands of motorists not operating in the American road climate is circular, sophistic reasoning.

Rank, amateur sohistry that is abundantly proven vacuous and null by the prevalence of abhorrent treatment of british bicyclists.

I suspect kids riding to school in Britain also get harassed, if they ride at all. not much riding in GB, despite it being such a paradisal place to ride.

New Zealand bicyclists are also not immune to motorist harassment despite the ostensibly equitable road climate for bike traffic there.


I suspect kids in the netherlands are not harassed nearly as much as american child bicyclists.

Bekologist

Absolutely. perhaps Carmel can enhance some heavily biked roads as bike boulevards on these streets frequented by kids on bikes and identified in a bike master plan as both significant for bike traffic and meriting that type of treatment.

I'm confident Carmel would entertain a presentation about bike boulevards at a future city council meeting.

squirtdad

Bek...why is it alway some level of infrastructure? Most people have no idea of what sharrows or bike blvds are and they are far from clear in meaning without education. Places where anyone has any idea of what these are are few and far between.

there are simply a lot of places where there will be no infrastructure of any type (lanes, sharrows, bike paths, bike freeways...etc)

I wonder why you are confident that Carmel would entertain bike blvds? I am no carmel political expert, but this is a town that is primarly multi-million dollar second homes and touriists and people want nothing to intefere with the "charm' of the town. Adding confusing signage in a town that lives for the tourist driving in on the weekend is a non-starter

the days of Carmel as an artists haven are long gone (My wife used to get in trouble for bouncing on Ansel Adams trees and her best friend was Edward Weston's granddaughter).

Doane

Unfortunately, Carmel has changed a lot over the last 15 years and probably now has more senior citizens on walkers then people of any age walking, and way more then those on bicycles. Half of the population lives out of town or out of country and owns property as "vacation" homes. Seeing kids on bicycles is the exception, not the norm and the city council would put that on the end of their priorities... pity. Berkeley, a college environment with young people.. young in mind and body, has supported the bicycle friendly environment they have created. Santa Cruz, another college town North of us also has a lot more bike riders and would be a more successful candidate.

hagen2456

A shame you didn't live in the middle ages. You would have made one fine theologican in the tradition of Aquinas, Augustin etc.

Lots of logic based on a set of idealist premises.

John Forester

No, Hagen, I base my recommendations on seventy years of cycling in America. What the idealists have produced works worse than vehicular cycling.

genec

And yet modal share is higher anywhere that cyclists don't depend only on vehicular cycling.

John Forester

You are wrong, Genec. The American bicycling population has never had to depend only on vehicular cycling. Indeed, they do their best to avoid doing it. That's not good for them, but that's the way it has been for seventy years or more.

The reason that America has a very low bicycle mode share has much more to do with motorization than with vehicular cycling. America was the first largely motorized nation, and now, I suppose, is still the most motorized, making motoring the most useful mode of urban travel.