invisiblehand

Cognitive biases are not lies ... and your reporting other people's stories does not exclude the problem of cognitive bias.

Again, if you look at the evidence and believe that drivers pose few problems to the point that they are insignificant -- again my interpretation -- then how could this effect be meaningful? (in other words, something large enough to worry about)

How are you identifying the true effect of your and others' observations to be so certain?

Anyway, my point is that a lot of this -- not only your posts mind you -- is highly speculative. This does not mean worthless. But something in need of softer/fuzzier language.

Helmet Head

Of course I do. It's also why I lock the doors at night. Accounting for the imperfections of my fellow human beings is an integral aspect of living a responsible human life.


The thief caused harm with intent.
The vast majority of unintentionally harmful behavior, particularly in traffic, is predictable and avoidable, and it's my job, and nobody else's, to avoid being harmed by it.

dyadinchlane

I appreciate all the posts here. I'm most concerned about dooring - this is what we might educate car drivers the most about. The potentially catastrophic effect (and massively one-sided, even if a door hinge or window is broken) and simple cause of such a simple motion of kicking one's car/truck door open at the wrong moment is observable and has practically no standing in insurance claims or traffic statistics (as far as I can tell so far). I'm still in the process of building a blog about it, as you can see in my signature... Let me know if you're interested as well - I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Mine could be summarized this way (and I'd like to take this back to the original post): We can't be treated as "vehicles" if we can't or won't be seen at a critical moment when the car actually widens its footprint (with a deadly blade of glass to boot) by a few feet into traffic. That is, the car/truck door becomes a projectile potentially deadly to cyclists, and is opened at a time when the car/truck driver is arguably least attentive.

There are way too many ways that cyclists can get injured, but this potential calamity can be avoided so simply. And yes, I'm an advocate of three-foot rules and riding out in traffic, too, but as you can see in my most recent experience of a "near-dooring experience," I'm a bit taken aback about how I myself and other cyclists respond to the experience of it and the risks associated with it.

TRaffic Jammer

Suuuuure it is. You keep telling yourself that. Now what if the drivers were more aware, via education as to some of the typical behaviors that get people killed? OMG less people being killed by drivers.

noisebeam

Don't ride in the DZ and you won't get doored. It is that simple. You even note in your incident that there was no same direction traffic when the door opened in front of you so there was zero reason to ride in such a dangerous place.
If you want traction in educating motorist, educate them about something that will affect them. A dooring is no such thing. The teachable in this case are the cyclists.
Educate drivers about safe driving in general. That at least can make them safer so they have reason to listen.
(As an aside the stereotypes in your blog make you loose some credibility)
Al

Helmet Head

I don't dispute that. I'm just saying it's not necessary for that to happen in order for it to be possible to ride a bike in traffic safely, efficiently, comfortably and enjoyably.

So, again, I don't oppose improved motorist education.
I oppose the claim that improved motorist education is needed in order to make it possible to ride a bike in traffic safely, efficiently, comfortably and enjoyably.

iltb-2

Which confirms a pet theory of mine that pelotons/bunches of cyclists dressed up in their specialized "outfits" on the public roads causes motorists to have weird and dangerous HH Brand "NOTIONS" about the proper place of cyclists both on the road and on the sexual status scale. eh?

Helmet Head

This is silly.

To the extent (if any) that driver ignorance about cyclist rights is an issue, bike lanes (if they have any effect) exacerbate that issue by reinforcing the notion that bicyclists belong out of the way of same direction motor traffic.

This isn't a controversial claim. The law in many states even says so (cyclists are supposed to ride in bike lanes) explicitly.

Helmet Head

Indeed. A group of humans is innately annoying to people who are not members of that group.

John Forester

I wrote: Well, no, randya, you have it exactly backwards. The statement that you claim so vociferously to be true says exactly what I have been arguing for months, that the public view of bicycle traffic is one of childish cycling and cyclist inferiority. That, of course, is also what so many of you are supporting with your advocacy for the bikeway system that embodies exactly that view of bicycle traffic. I can't help it if your own mistaken beliefs turn this into your emotional quagmire.

To which randya replied:
I agree that our situation would be much nicer if society changed to accept each of us cyclists as a mature person capable of obeying the rules of the road and looking after himself or herself. However, such an attitude change is not necessary, since society has allowed us, so far, to operate as drivers of vehicles, although our status to do so has constantly been under challenge.

You assert that obtaining that change in public attitude is necessary. You want to persuade the motoring public that cyclists are mature people capable of obeying the rules of the road and looking after themselves. OK, but you are simultaneously complaining that you have to have the protection of bikeways because you are not capable of obeying the rules of the road and looking out for yourself, which facilities motorists designed to protect themselves, so they said, from people who are incapable of obeying the rules of the road and of looking after themselves.

You are trying to persuade motorists of what, for them, is an inconvenient truth, while simultaneously destroying the validity of your own argument by justifying theirs.

That's where the emotional quagmire resides.

genec

John, for my part, I argue that bikeways (specifically paths, not BL) should exist when surface streets are designed that are not cyclist friendly...

Oh sure I would love to see a "childish" system (which I found quite friendly to cyclists) such as that in Oulo, but I doubt it would ever happen here.

But as long as roads are pushed to speeds well over that which cyclists can maintain, (50 and 65MPH, plus) then it seems that there should be provisions for cyclists in our "immature driver" society.

Helmet Head

Whether a given street is "bicycle friendly" is a subjective assessment.
The rules of the road, and the roads (except for freeways), were designed to be shared by vehicles being driven at disparate speeds. This idea that all of traffic should be moving at some uniform speed is pure bunk, and is at the heart of claims that roads that are perfectly friendly to bicyclists are somehow not bike friendly because the max speed is (say) 50 mph and much of traffic is often moving 50-60. Welcome to my commute, which is very bike friendly.

Don't buy the bunk about uniform speeds.

John Forester

Well, at least you are making suggestions in a more reasonable way. You are justified in thinking that a bike path system similar to that in Oulu will not occur here. I rather doubt that it occurs in many places, since the majority of the bike paths, and all of those that provided shortcuts, run between isolated blocks of apartment buildings separated by forest. That can only be created when building an entirely new city in a wilderness of cheap land, and with other specific social characteristics also.

As for paths in urban areas that have high-speed streets, I think that you need to consider more carefully. To get from A to B (or to P, for that matter), you still have to cross all the traffic that travels across the line between them. The problem is not the high-speed same-direction traffic, which just goes by you, but that which crosses or turns, or across which you intend to cross or to turn. That's one advantage of freeways, that they put the traffic that crosses your path up high (or down low) where you don't have to interact with it. So far as high-speed urban traffic goes, it runs either on freeways (65 plus) or on major arterials (55) that have very few intersections. If they have more than a few intersections, the signaling system breaks the traffic up into platoons, mostly slower at that, between which the cyclist can maneuver quite nicely. The problem locations, as you have, I think, previously described them, are where there are so few intersections and such open spaces that the roads have been designed as freeways without being freeways. I agree that these should not exist, and that, where they do exist, steps ought to be taken to allow slow traffic to operate properly. However, those steps would only rarely, I think, be paths, because of the costs and difficulties of making grade separated paths. I think the more likely solution would be appropriate signaling.

genec

You are right... it is not just speed, but road width, and traffic density coupled with free turns that makes a road non cyclist friendly... a 60MPH country highway can be quite bike friendly.

A 50MPH multilaned urban arterial with free merges, lots of driveways and heavy traffic and narrow lanes is NOT bike friendly... even if the traffic in the right most lanes is only moving at 40MPH.

Allister

My mistake. I meant SDCBC.

Face it, you have no idea what you're talking about, when every post contains at least one sentence like that.

genec

It is nice to see that we do have something of an agreement on this... if not so much for the solution, but at least that these situations are less than friendly toward cyclists. Thanks

Helmet Head

Let me know when you develop an interest in understanding the ideas I'm trying to convey, if you ever do.

Allister

Speak for yourself.

That kind of fatalist attitude is waaay more unhelpful to a safer road envirenment than any 'anti-motorist' sentiment could ever be.

I, unlike you, expect drivers to act the like responsible adult humans, that have the capability to see beyond their own selfish desires, and at the very least, obey the friggen road rules. It is an immutable condition of their right to drive a car on public roads, and if they think that it's ok to treat that agreement with contempt, then they should remove themselves, or be removed from the road. Same goes for anyone.

It's one thing to recognise the current conditions, even note that they are less than ideal, and to work around them as best you can, which is all VC ever was. It's quite another to consider them unchangeable or 'inevitable', and to preach what was only ever a work-around as the only way cyclists can possibly be safe on the roads. To then extrapolate that this work-around will also encourage non-cyclists to take up cycling is a leap of logic on a scale rarely seen even from you.

Driver's attitudes are getting worse, and will continue to do so without conscious effort to reverse the process. Doing nothing, and working around it, is clearly not doing that. Why shouldn't cyclists be at the forefront of campaigning for better motorist education and enforcement? No-one else seems to care enough to do anything.

Allister

Don't hold your breath. I don't care enough to wade through the morass of illogic and inconsistency that you spew out on a daily basis. Let me know when you want to start making some sense.

randya

Helmet Head

Well, that explains everything.

Even a geometry text book will seem like morass of illogic and inconsistency that does not make sense if you don't care enough to wade through it.

Helmet Head

If you're comfortable with negotiation and merging, which is easy to learn and get comfortable with, there is nothing bike unfriendly about it. Most people just can't seem to get around the belief that they shouldn't be out there if they can't keep up with everyone else. So of course, given the premise that traffic speeds should not be disparate, it's going to seem bike unfriendly. But this again is a reflection of what is going on in someone's perception of the situation inside his head, rather than what's actually going on in traffic. That's why one cyclist will assert a given situation is certainly bike unfriendly, while another will just be fine with the exact same situation, finding it perfectly bike friendly.

randya

How can anyone argue against more motorist education, regardless of what bike infrastructure is or isn't provided? Even if you're gonna ride 'militant VC', the motorists still need to have a clue in the first place.

Helmet Head

That's a silly question since no one has argued against more motorist education.

See if you can follow this:

The argument I've made is against the alleged need for more motorist education in order to allow for safe, efficient, comfortable and enjoyable cycling in traffic. There is no such need, since safe, efficient, comfortable and enjoyable cycling in traffic is already possible today. Can being in traffic be made even safer with more motorist education? Perhaps. But that's beside the point, which is making it more safe is not required to make it reasonably safe, because it already is reasonably safe.

One of the biggest obstacles to making cycling more popular, perhaps the biggest obstacle, is the widespread myth that cycling in traffic is inherently dangerous - that it simply cannot be safe to ride in traffic. So a big part of cycling advocacy should be aimed at correcting that myth, not reinforcing it. Insisting that more motorist education is required before cycling in traffic can be safe, and that segregated cycling facilities are required in order to make cyclists safe, are arguments that reinforce this myth, rather than correct it. Such arguments are anti-cycling advocacy.

But that's not arguing against more motorist education. That's arguing against the lobbying for more motorist education (or segregated cycling facilities), especially by bicycling advocates, on the explicit or implicit grounds that improvements in motorist behavior and attitudes (or segregated cycling facilities) are required to make cycling reasonably safe.

Bekologist

the "requirement" above is soley your artifice, head.


However, back on topic,

Looking at bicycling around the world, bicyclists as a class of citizens and users of public transportation cooridors "fare best" when they DON'T buy into the engineering prejudices perpetuated by hypocritical, confused 'vehicular fools' led by an admitted curbugger.