genec

https://www.humantransport.org/bicycl...cepolitics.htm


The conclusion is this:
Sounds great... now how do we get all those drivers of vehicles to cooperate?

Doohickie

For starters... here in Texas, if you get a traffic ticket, you can take a 6 hour traffic school to get it thrown out and not get points on your license. Take 1/2 to 1 hour of that every time the course is taught and devote it to the rights of bicycles on the road, etc., so that at least the "problem" drivers who get tickets get some education about what to expect from bikes.

For every cyclist that gets a ticket, make them go to the 6 hour traffic school, but make it be 6 hours teaching vehicular cycling techniques, traffic law as it applies to cyclists, etc.

For drivers and cyclists that already follow the rules, this is no inconvenience whatsoever, but for those among both groups who are breaking laws, it would be a way to remedy their bad behaviors (and maybe their bad attitudes).

Another good thing would be to make training mandatory for city and school bus drivers regarding how not to kill a cyclist, especially in cities, where bikes and buses often occupy the same lanes.

degnaw

tjwarren

Blah, blah, blah. Nobody shares the road. Drivers don't, cyclist don't, all anyone does is b*tch about everyone else.

Stop worrying about how to "get all those drivers of vehicles to cooperate" and start being a good example. Be polite, be courteous, follow the law, wave to people. *Show* them what being a good roadway neighbor is all about.


"You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Ghandi

genec

Yeah, I always have enjoyed the old motto of Texas... "Drive Friendly."

rubic

Driving, especially in heavy traffic seems to bring out the aggressive and predatory nature of the driver. Drivers cooperate? Leave that statement to the comedians.

JRA

That website (the website of the North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle Driving) has some interesting arguments on it, and is a relatively plausible-seeming VC site, but I'd be extremely wary of any conclusions found on that site. Granted, it's not as obviously crackpot as some of the other Forester-inspired propaganda sites, but calling conclusions on that site "scientific" is quite a stretch. They obviously know what the conclusions are going to be before they start.

I've thought for a long time that that site should be called either "The International Center For the Promotion of Wide Outside Lanes" or "The Center For Putting A Positive Spin On Some Of John Forester's More Ridiculous Theories."

I have no doubt that Steve Goodridge, who I believe is associated with that site, is one of the good guys, but it's disappointing to see a potentially excellent site so polluted by ideology.

You gotta love the "taboo" spin on Forester's infamous "Cyclist Inferiority Complex" nonsense, though. LOL.

Even reasonable people can be seduced by crackpotism if it's called "scientific" enough times.

That site (and just about everything based on John Forester's writings) is much more about politics than science.

Bekologist

North Carolina coalition for bicycle driving- keeping rider share low in their state,
thru promotion of autocentric roadscapes on which to drive a bicycle.

why bend over for the motorists and take it like that? all that kowtow to the motor car really does bicycling a disservice. look at how cities around the world integrate large percentages of bicycle traffic on public streets. it's NOT in North Carolina whilst promoting 'bicycle driving.'

Really, guys, Steve G - a little less suckling at the tailpipe down there in NC.



'the politics of driving a bicycle' sounds, well, political.

sggoodri

Unfortunately, the way bicycle transportation planning and engineering has often been conducted in NC has been much more about politics than science.

As an engineer by profession, my initial efforts to improve conditions for cyclists in NC focused on the design of the built environment. I was frustrated by the number of important roads that were very narrow two lanes with no shoulders or crumbling shoulders, by traffic signals that did not detect bikes, and by city and state bike projects that concentrated on putting cyclists on sidewalks instead of the roadway (e.g. a multitude of sidewalk bike paths and mandatory sidepath use laws). By comparison, in some places there were lots of really nice local city streets in Cary and Raleigh for cycling, typically with two 16' wide travel lanes and good connectivity to useful destinations. I saw cycling on those nice roads as a model for how to improve the others.

As I attempted to address the bad engineering and policies, I experienced resistance among engineers, planners, police and politicians to accept cyclists as vehicle operators on roadways. Many preferred the pedestrian on wheels paradigm. This made it impossible to make progress in terms of roadway improvements for cycling. So a few similar-thinking cyclists and myself endeavored to promote vehicular cycling in a way that would be accessible to open minded planners, engineers, police, and politicians. There is a lot of politics, but we also provide science where we can, such as analysis of car-bike collision data in the area.

Some people still resisted the science due to their taboos about cycling in traffic. So, we held special LAB Road 1 courses for planners, engineers, and police. This increased our buy-in to vehicular cycling concepts. One of Raleigh's head traffic engineers who took our course has been heard repeating the mantra regarding riding in a very narrow lane downtown: "take the lane!" That same engineer had previously conducted a formal scientific experiment with edgeline striping in Raleigh for traffic calming, and found no net reduction in vehicle speeds. He has since lost interest in bike lane striping, and he started telling people "bike lane stripes aren't about safety, they are about marketing." He introduced me to the use of "marketing" as the appropriate term to describe stripe and stencil promotion. He is now a supporter of wide outside lanes and protection of vehicular cycling. He is also a frequent participant in cycling education and encouragement activities in Raleigh and Wake county.

invisiblehand

How would you go about conducting a "scientific" examination of the issue?

unterhausen

I try to cooperate when I'm driving. But I see too many drivers that are not only driving selfishly, but that seem to have their ego attached to their right foot. If some idiot wants to drive much faster than me on the interstate, I do everything I can to help them out

I think that many cyclists are too understanding of other motorist's needs and desires. The best thing is to be predictable.

genec

Ultimately however, here is a site dedicated to vehicular cycling that comes out and declares the answer is "cooperation..." WTF!

One has to wonder what kool-aid that writer was drinking...or if they had ever used the roads to get from point A to point B.

Sure, if we had that mythical "cooperation," all sorts of things would go smoothly.... from sharing the road to international relations. Good freakin' luck.

noisebeam

^^^ huh? Where do you get that cooperation is not the norm and it what makes cycling on the road so enjoyable?

sggoodri

I assume you know that I'm the author of that particular article.

I believe that cooperation is indeed the norm among drivers - between the dump truck driver and the Beetle driver, between the Beetle driver and the cyclist, and every other combination. If it were not the norm, no one would ever get anywhere due to all the crashes, and all vehicles would be designed to withstand multiple impacts per trip.

The traffic laws were written to align with the process of cooperation that drivers have found most practical. Laws that conflicted with safe, efficient, and fair road sharing were eliminated in favor of those that worked. This has allowed motorcyclists and truck operators to share the road reasonably well with Smart Cars and tobacco wagons.

Vehicular cycling advocacy is based on the idea that the same cooperation rules apply well to cyclists because cyclists have maneuverability and perception constraints similar to other drivers.

Some people have challenged the idea that cyclists and other road users can cooperate. They suggest that cyclists' vulnerability invites non-cooperative bullying. This can happen to any driver, and while it can be especially upsetting to cyclists, it appears to be less a safety hazard than a source of frustration that could be addressed by education and law enforcement.

It has also been claimed that cyclists are too slow for motorists to be willing or able to cooperate with them, or that they create inconveniences that encourage social friction. If competition over resources is contributing to the conflict, increasing the availability of the resource - in this case roadway pavement for faster travel - can be part of the solution. This is why many vehicular cycling proponents advocate for wider outside lanes on busy/faster roads to provide adequate width for safe and comfortable passing of cyclists without changing lanes. Similarly, redundant local streets in a well connected network can help cyclists avoid areas they find uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, the number of situations where vehicle speed differences preclude effective cooperation are fairly limited, and cyclists can still learn to deal with them within the vehicular paradigm. (For instance, when turning left on on a 6-lane high speed arterial it is easier to wait for a large gap and merge all the way left at once rather than doing it one lane at a time.) Lastly, those few drivers whose incompetence or belligerence makes them incapable of cooperating with other road users are a threat to everyone, and need to be removed by law enforcement. Vehicular cycling proponents are typically very strong proponents of traffic law enforcement for public safety.

In short, frustrations and imperfections with the current system of treating cyclists as drivers doesn't warrant throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

-Steve

invisiblehand

Do you really think this Gene?

Allowing for mistakes, seems to me that most road interaction is cooperative

CB HI

He knows. His response is more likely a side effect of his frequent fighting with JF and Surge when dealing with local San Diego cycling issues.

genec

Yes folks, I really do think cooperation is NOT the norm... I think folks cooperate not due to their appreciation of traffic and that we should all work to get along, I think folks cooperate as they have little choice... Just as they avoid the dog in the road, lest it messes up their ride.

I think there are a significant (not all mind you) number of drivers that are regularly competing and are using speed and "might makes right" approaches in their approach to driving.

Sure there is a certain amount of cooperation... I saw just that the other day when a motorist waved me through a crowded left turn... and I did the same for a driver leaving a driveway...

But I feel that these illustrate the rare minority driver, not the majority driver who is often working to get away with what ever they can, rather than "drive friendly" and cooperate with fellow road user. (watch what happens as soon as a police cruiser shows up in any traffic... opps good behaviour.)

I think part of that is the competitive nature of our country, part is the egos involved, and part is the frustration of not being able to "open it up" as illustrated in countless automobile ads. I see this in day to day driving. (the classic turn signal cutoff is a prime example... a turn signal should result in a yielding of space, not acceleration by others to retain space)

I also believe that anyone that expects drivers to be cooperative towards a group that neither has the speed or might, is thinking in quite a foolhardy manner.

And I am not speaking mainly from So Cal experience either... having just returned from a couple weeks in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (now cited as the number 2 location in the nation for road rage and uncooperative drivers).

And no I did not know who wrote the piece I cited when I started the thread… in fact I first saw it referenced on the Dallas cyclist web site. (it was a link)

Cooperation we do indeed get, but it is not the goal, nor the modus operandi of most drivers out there.

Roody

I use roads to get from A to B every day. I get good cooperation from drivers 99.999 per cent of the time. Yes, every month or so I encounter one who isn't uncooperative. But that happened with about the same frequency when I used to drive.

I'm not saying that I don't support well designed complete streets, but until Utopia occurs I continue to do well on the streets god gave us.

genec

What it really boils down to is that drivers are not actually trying to be cooperative... they are NOT intentionally "driving friendly," but due to social pressure, and law enforcement, we get what we now have.... something just short of "Lord of the Flies."

genec

Actually when I first read it, I thought John Allen had written it...

sggoodri

Drivers cooperate with one another primarily out of their own self interest. They also become conditioned to how traffic behaves in that cooperative pattern. Both of these factors are exploited by vehicular cyclists; by behaving as a driver, the cyclist ends up being treated as one.

Living in North Carolina, I've seen my share of drivers who resent having to cooperate with cyclists on the road. I've never denied their existence. Nor have I suggested that the solution would be easy; I've recommended a combination of greater roadway width on routes where more space for passing would be useful (to reduce resource contention), greater education of drivers about their responsibilities toward cyclists and other vulnerable road users, better law enforcement targeting drivers, and more predictable behavior by cyclists, particularly in compliance with the vehicular rules of the road. I've also tried to formulate pro-cyclist-rights advocacy points that appeal to motorists and to conservatives who are often skeptical toward or threatened by many "bike advocates." To this end, I describe vehicle choice as a valuable freedom that comes with responsibilities, and describe myself as someone willing to respect another driver's choice to pilot a Hummer if they are willing to respect my choice to drive my bike. Anti-motorists might not like that approach, but I've found that it can stop some anti-cyclists in their tracks.

JohnBrooking

Which is a great reason for cyclists to ride further into a non-shareable lane instead of hugging the curb, so the overtaking motorists understand that they can't pass without messing up their ride. You're right that if you give them the choice, they'll take it, so don't give it if it's not safe to.

fordmanvt

You show them that if they don't cooperate, they don't benefit.

JohnBrooking

Steve,

I'm sure I have seen charts that claim to show that bicycle use in Holland also declined during the rise of the automobile in the '50s, along with the rest of Europe and America, and came back up again after the bikeway facilities began being built. I don't know a reference off the top of my head. Have you seen these, and can you explain them?

JohnBrooking

I love this! It's one of those things I sort of knew already, but never really put into words quite this clearly. Thank you.