sbhikes

You should read some of the replies to John's post on CG. Even his minions don't think his "logic" is entirely without emotional BS.

sggoodri

I cannot speak about Forester's students, but my own experience with novices is that they appear to cycle much more safely and confidently after I have taught them the basic concepts that Forester describes in his course outline than they did before. Since these people are friends of mine, I had time to observe them before and after, and they share their stories with me. They had a number of close calls and other problems before I worked with them, and far fewer after.

This is why I find it worthwhile to spend my own time trying to teach vehicular cycling basics, and will be taking a three day course to become a certified instructor. I see a significant benefit in terms of empowering novices and encouraging cycling.

-Steve Goodridge

deputyjones

Right, mostly what you will find there is me arguing with HH and telling people that I ride a bike path to work everyday, which I do.

sbhikes

Where is Bek?

Brian Ratliff

Perhaps my verson of Google is broken. I don't get it. I've seen most of these posts before and it doesn't look like deputyjones is any spy. Please, spell it out for poor ol' Brian to understand the uber clever point you are trying to make here.

deputyjones

I wondered the same, and I'm hoping he is riding

John Forester

Diane, you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions. I did not know of the speakers bureau list and site until told of it today. I am not ashamed of being on it. However, note that I have no speaking fee, only travel expenses. I am there because someone has to speak up for lawful, competent cyclists and against bike planning with its cyclist-inferiority base.

John Forester

I don't wonder that the discussion on this list is so disorganized. When intending to reply to a particular message, one cannot read the message to which one is replying. Or is there some hidden system for doing this? If so, please inform me by email to forester@johnforester.com

genec

John, welcome aboard. You and I have exchanged emails through the SDCBC list. I can't say I agree with all of your opinions, but none the less, you have provided guidance to thousands of cyclists and if nothing else provided hours of debatable discussion here.

People here are going to have a wide range of opinions, as you no doubt have probably read.

At any rate, before any fur flies, I just wanted to welcome you to this very public forum.

Bruce Rosar

The fact that these forums are publicly searchable means that there's no need for spies among us.

Pete_Fagerlin1

This is not a list, nor a "email discussion group."

BTW, welcome to the Internet (and your bow tie is simply smashing ole chap!).

bigpedaler

i applaud your desire to certify.

that said, let me say this:

novice cyclists will show improvement once someone shows them ANYTHING!

genec

Click "reply with a quote."

But no, it doesn't provide a threaded list to follow... just the quote of the immediate message for which you can reply.

Brian Ratliff

Welcome John Forester!

I should warn you, you should not post your email here unless you are fond of spam (webcrawlers run through all websites on the internet and pick out email like phrases for spammers to use). If you scroll down the "reply" page, you will find a listing of the previous 25 messages. Otherwise, beneath the message you want to reply to, there is a link called [reply w/ quote]. Hit that and you will get a reply box with a copy of the message included.

To edit your message to take out the email address, or at least to make it less "email like" so the webcrawlers won't recognize it (replacing '@' with 'at' and '.' with 'dot' will do it), click on the link which says [edit].

KnhoJ

It's as close to unanimous animosity as you can get! I guess it might be possible that everyone is wrong, though. Maybe it's the comic sans. Everyone hates comic sans.

Now, boasting isn't any way to make friends.

You do realize what you just said...? You're bragging that you singlemindedly focus so tightly on what to do, you completely overlook how to do it? Because that's it exactly, there's no way to misinterpret what you wrote.
I think you're finally beginning to figure it out! Cheers!

Bruce Rosar

Depending on

• what they're shown and
• how they're shown it,

what they then do will likely be different, but not necessarily an improvement.

derath

Sorry too late. I already opened the vote for ILTB as forum contrarian a few months back. He won in a landslide!

+1

Pretty much all the A&S board is good for anyhow. I'm all outta popcorn though

Made Tapioca pudding instead

John Forester

Brian Ratliff claims: " in many places where cycling for transportation has been encouraged, lo and behold, the number of cyclists on the streets goes up! "

Brian, what are those places, and to what extent has whatever change that has occurred reduced motoring in a transportationally significant way?

Also from Brian: "According to his worldview, cycling will always be second best to the car, always fighting for space on the road and to be left alone against the encroaching auto-centric society."

Cycling second best to the car, indeed? That's not English, it has no meaning. If you mean that much more personal transportation will be done by car than by bicycle, that's my position. So what? Fighting for space on the road, indeed? I've never had to fight for space on the road. Why do you, and with what weapon do you choose to fight? The encroaching auto-centric society, indeed? I think that the proportional growth of motoring is reaching the top of the supply curve; most all the motoring that people want to do, and can do, is being done. And so what? What do you propose to do about it without actually being the anti-motoring person whom you claimed above that you weren't?

deputyjones

Somebody call Cloe at CTU and have her run a trace on that IP.

John Forester

skanking asks a rather naive question: "I really don't understand why you can't have both segregated facilities and lawful bicycle use in traffic at the same time. Why are these 2 ideas oppossed?"

The answer is in terms of resources in space, money, social attitude, and political will. Having both requires more space, more money, it requires two different social attitudes (vehicular cycling vs cyclist inferiority cycling, if you will), and sufficient political will to carry all of these pairs. Won't happen, hasn't happened anywhere that we know of.

And some more from skanking: "How does advocating that people know the rules of the road when cycling in traffic result in opposition of all other types of cycling?" This not the real issue. As far as cycling on the roads in traffic is concerned, obeying the rules of the road is very necessary. All other types of cycling on the roads in traffic are dangerous and clumsy, and we need one social policy about cycling on the roads in traffic. What you do on offroad trails is immaterial and is outside the scope of the discussion.

And a bit more also from skanker: "What am I missing here? I understand his point that cyclists are a minority and the reality is that we need to learn to operate in the world as it is---but how does that translate into oppossition of efforts to change that reality?"

Two reasons: The first reason is that attempts to change from operating according to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles are directly harmful to lawful, competent cyclists. We must not lose that right. The second reason is that there is no reasonable probability that anything bicycle advocates can do will eliminate the preponderance of private motor transportation. Since its results are both harmful and impossible to achieve, don't even contemplate it.




skanking biker's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Green Bay, WI

Questions---How does one's support of "segregated" bike facilities translate into "anti-motoring" emotional sophistry**********??--As the chainguard letter states

I really don't understand why you can't have both segregated facilities and lawful bicycle use in traffic at the same time. Why are these 2 ideas oppossed? How does advocating that people know the rules of the road when cycling in traffic result in opposition of all other types of cycling?

What am I missing here? I understand his point that cyclists are a minority and the reality is that we need to learn to operate in the world as it is---but how does that translate into oppossition of efforts to change that reality?

deputyjones

OK. I'll bite although I am not yet convinced.

I DO have both in the area where I live. There are bike paths that are multi-use and I have the right to ride in the roadway. I use both approaches when I ride depending on the location, time of day, specifically hazardous intersections, etc.

John Forester

Zeytoun states: "This is a very common error people make, confusing correlation for causation.
The correlation is club riding experience to fewer accidents. The causation he assumes is that it is the VC concepts of club riding that cause the fewer accidents."

There is a very great difference between correlation and causation, as I have frequently stated. One very great difference is that a reasonable causal connection has to exist for a correlation to be used as support for causation. We are discussing here only collisions between cyclists and motorists. It is recognized that obeying the rules of the road causes traffic to flow in patterns that do not cause collisions. Contrariwise, it is recognized that nearly all collisions are caused by one or both parties disobeying the rules of the road. It is also recognized that few American cyclists obey the rules of the road, while a much greater proportion of those with club cycling experience do so. If the club cyclists show a car-bike collision rate per mile only 25% of that of the general public, it is reasonable to conclude that obeying the rules of the road had a great deal in preventing collisions.

Bekologist

Bruce Rosar

I suspect that John is thinking of completely separate systems. Truly separate systems don't have their traffic sharing junctions (i.e., intersections, crossings, etc.) at the same grade and time.

For example, the U.S. Interstate system is completely separate from the ordinary highway system. All of the junctions (interchanges) within a true Interstate (a fully controlled access highway) are grade separated.

Brian Ratliff

Portland, OR, for one. Here are some rough stats. Because of the way Portland is arranged, the bridge counts encompass ~90-100% of the bicycle commuting traffic.

I am not sure exactly what you are talking about here, but I would not characterize myself as "anti-motorist" or "pro-motorist". I think society largely expands into whatever space it is given. If you keep building roads (LA is the perfect example), people will make more car trips. To build a road or not is not a decision that society makes. It is a decision the government makes, and society makes use of the space.

So, to keep auto-centricity from encroaching into city life, the government should build less roads, and modify the existing roads to be more accomodating to uses other than by cars. Yes, cars have played an integral role in shaping our economy and expanding the wealth of, and indeed, creating, the middle class. But there are limits, and I believe we are reaching them.