In an article/debate about bike lanes vs. "sharrows" in Seattle, the author defends bike lanes:
And intersections — where the majority of bike/car collisions take place — are even more perilous. If you’re cruising along on the right side of the lane of traffic, confident in the false sense of security a sharrow gives you, you’re not going to have time to stop if a driver pulls out in front of you—which, believe me, happens all the time.Bike lanes make intersections safer? Sharrows give you a false sense of security over the "real" security provided by bike lanes? Perhaps in an alternate universe, a Bizzaro World, where up is down and black is white. The author obviously paid attention to the Soma-speak at ProBike.
The lack of critical thinking and application of logic is breathtaking, both in the article and in many of the comments. And when logic escapes, use obscenities to make your point.
The article mentions how Seattle feverishly painted more bike lanes and sharrows in advance of the ProBike summit, hoping to impress the Paint 'n Path crowd with their hip views about segregation and the ghettoization of bicycles. I saw the same thing in Montreal when they hosted ProBike/VeloCity... only they put in temporary side-paths for vehicular cycling-impaired bicycle advocates.
Traffic engineering as political sop and public relations gimmick. Great.
13 comments:
It's so sad how the need to appear to be promoting bicycling is always more important than the actual well-being of bicyclists.
It's also sad that the crux of this guy's argument is hinged upon a pathological inferiority complex. "Unless you’re going as fast as car traffic—in which case, you’d have to be cruising along at 35 miles per hour on most of the designated bike routes in Seattle—you’re going to stick to the right side of the lane, to avoid annoying drivers and to stay out of harm’s way. That puts you right smack in the “door zone”—the area of the traffic lane where car doors can open into a cyclist’s path."
So it would be better to have a door zone bike lane instead of sharrows? The twisted logic here is amazing.
Since when is a cyclist's primary responsibility to avoid annoying motorists? Are these people equally lacking in self respect in other parts of their lives? Do they cower like this at home, or in their workplaces?
Perhaps they are just empathetic. Most cyclists are also drivers and have probably gotten annoyed when stuck behind a slow cyclist. That's not justification but I do think it is a more reasonable explanation than all this inferiority crap.
Annoyance at having to wait a few seconds to pass a cyclist safely comes from a lack of perspective. It makes zero difference in a motorist's total time to his destination. It just means he has to wait a few seconds less at the next red light. It costs him nothing.
Anyone who is willing to compromise himself to coddle someone else's lack of perspective is suffering from an inferiority complex. Whether that be on the road or in a relationship.
The problem with the inferiority argument is that it presupposes that the individuals in question believe that they are endangering themselves for the benefit of someone else's convenience. Note the phrase "and to stay out of harm’s way" in the original quote. They see cars as a threat and their natural instinct tells them to get as far away from that threat as possible.
They aren't stupid or crazy, they are just wrong. And I don't think it is helpful to be insulting the people that we should be educating!
I agree, Stuart.
There is a connotation to the term CIC that has all the gentleness of a truncheon. A lot of vehicular cycling advocates (like myself) sling it around out of desperation, in the face of the persuasive suspension of logic we are confronted with regarding bicycle transportation.
A better terminology is necessary if we are to dissuade people from letting unreasonable fear dictate their behavior and actions. This is true in any endeavor.
Submissive Cycling, perhaps? ;-)
For years, I have disliked the term "Effective Cycling", especially in the olden days hen it took ten Saturdays to complete a course. I'd prefer something like "Defensive Cycling", but sadly, even the word "defensive" seems to immediately manifest symptoms of CIC.
Read this, I think you'll find it of interest: http://kc-bike.blogspot.com/2008/09/reflections-on-kansas-city-media.html
Stu,
Your points are well-taken. I have empathy for the people who are fearful, because they've been conditioned that way. Often I can help someone overcome fear-from-the-rear by taking them for a ride (or two).
One thing that pushes my buttons is cyclists placing importance on a motorist's misperception that he is impeded if he has to wait a few seconds. Our traffic culture is bully-dominant and hyper-selfish (mirroring our overall culture, I suppose).
I have had my efforts to educate fellow cyclists undermined, repeatedly, by vocal cyclists who insist that riding in a safe lane position is rude and will anger motorists.
The truth is, my experience disproves that. Motorists are more likely to be ugly to me when I'm driving a car the speed limit than riding a bike (in the lane) well below it. (BTW, I do pull off the road if traffic conditions cause motorists to have to wait more than a few seconds to pass, but that is a rare occurrence)
I'll admit that motorists in the 'burbs and outer-reaches of the metro tend to be less tolerant. That's a product of their total frustration with their long, miserable commutes. And again, the perception of delay bears no resemblance to reality.
So here's the challenge:
We can continue to cater to that misperception at our own expense, or be (as Summer says) a Critical Mass of One, hoping to influence others.
We have a choice in advocacy, too. We can ask for infrastructure which caters to misperception at our expense and makes things worse for competent cyclists. Or we can debunk the mythologies and try to change the culture to make roadway cyclists a normal, accepted and respected part of traffic. In the process, taming the car-centric instincts for the benefit of all road users.
I vote for the latter. And as such, we are embarking on an initiative to do that here:
http://thinkactbehealthy.org/civility/civilityontheroad.html
One additional thought:
I don't apply CIC to cyclists who are fearful of being hit by cars. It's a reasonable fear. The reality and ways to keep from being hit are counter-intuitive. No one learns them from this culture, they learn by trial and error or seeking education. I spend an enormous amount of my free time trying to educate these people... and with a lot of success (especially with newer riders, oddly enough).
CIC is a term I apply to cyclists who stubbornly refuse to adopt the simple methods of riding safety because they inherently don't believe that cyclists should be "in the way." Even when the concepts are explained to them (nicely :-). Even when the city has placed a pavement marking to aid them in feeling legitimate in the lane. When we're actually getting a step in the right direction and they try to push us back in the wrong direction, well, gimme the truncheon.
LOL!
This can go back and forth; back and forth ...ad infinitum.
I agree that "Effective Cycling" is a burdensome moniker; that is why I prefer Vehicular Cycling. OTOH, I disagree that Cyclist Inferiority Complex (CIC) is problematic.
People nowadays are too sensitive - on both sides - to offending or being offended. Political correctness is a failing, not a virtue. Would you prefer "gutter bunny"? How about suffering "fear from the rear" - no pun or double entendre intended. Either way, it is an irrational fear of being hit from behind by a motor vehicle - statistically very unlikely, I might add, though it does happen. When it does, it tends to be blown out of proportion.
I will stick with CIC. Anyone who finds it offensive can seek therapy elsewhere.
Keri wrote:
"One thing that pushes my buttons is cyclists placing importance on a motorist's misperception that he is impeded if he has to wait a few seconds."
I suggest that being impeded is being impeded, even if it is only for a few seconds. The issue is whether impeding in a given situation is justified. The problem is that some motorists believe that any time they are impeded by a cyclist, regardless of how long or what the circumstances are, that cyclist is doing something wrong. The misperception is not about whether they are impeded or whether that impeding is significant. The misperception is about whether the impeding is justified.
Actually, the much bigger problem is, like you say, the importance placed on this common motorist misperception (that cyclists impeding motorists are doing something wrong) by many cyclists.
@Principled Pragmatist
"The issue is whether impeding in a given situation is justified. ... The misperception is not about whether they are impeded or whether that impeding[sic] is significant. The misperception is about whether the impeding[sic] is justified."
Definition please. In the first statement, you seem to suggest that impedance is intentional and can, under certain circumstances, be justified. In the second, you propose that the perception of the impedance being justified is the source of misunderstanding. These are mutually exclusive evaluations.
My query is really rhetorical as I already know the answer. Let me suggest that it is not your concern how other vehicles operate, other than the effect upon your progress and well-being such operation may have. This idea of herding or controlling the traffic flow is precisely the concept driving the existence of laws against it. That a cyclist, by the very physics involved in our engineering limits and power generation capabilities will delay a motor vehicle cannot be overcome. When law enforcement or ignorant drivers cite flow impedance as justification for our relegation to side paths and bike lanes, they are exhibiting gross ignorance. They certainly do not need help in that opinion from idiots proposing that others intentionally engage in this activity.
In instances where there exist more than one lane in each direction, there is almost never rational justification for pulling off to the side of the road to allow the more powerful traffic to pass - that is one incidental reason for the existence of the additional lanes. Where a single, wide lane in each direction exists, again, there is almost never justification for pulling off to the side of the road to allow the more powerful traffic to pass - simply migrating a bit to the right should accommodate overtaking. It is only when a single, narrow lane exists in either direction that a bicyclist should consider pulling off to allow others to pass. Even so, this is only mandated by law when it is unreasonable or impossible for the overtaking vehicles to otherwise pass safely.
Do not confuse a physical limitation to maintain a comparable speed with motorized traffic as intentional impedance - it is not. By the same token, intentional impedance of another lawfully entitled vehicle is unjustified; not to mention illegal.
Velociped wrote: "In the first statement, you seem to suggest that impedance is intentional and can, under certain circumstances, be justified."
Not at all. Sometimes impedance is intentional, sometimes it is not. But impedance is impedance whether it is intentional or not. For example, a car may suddenly break down on a bridge and impede traffic in that lane, but it's not intentional.
Whether a given instance of impedance is intentional is but one factor that determines whether it is justified.
My point is that sometimes impeding others is justified, and sometimes it is not.
You also wrote: "By the same token, intentional impedance of another lawfully entitled vehicle is unjustified; not to mention illegal."
Intentional impedance is not necessarily unjustified nor necessarily illegal. For example,aA cement truck driver driving on a narrow one lane road uphill may be knowingly impeding the one car driver behind him, despite the fact that there are some driveways he can turnout on. Yet he may justifiably and legally continue knowingly and intentionally impeding the driver behind him. That is, he's not required to necessarily pull over in every driveway. Similar situations exist for bicyclists.
The problem is that many bicyclists believe that if they ever impede motorists under any circumstances, they are doing something wrong; that they must never be in the way of motorists.
Also, a slower driver may impede traffic even when there are multiple lanes in the given direction, whenever volume exceeds the capacity of all lanes to maintain normal traffic speed. After all, the reason there are multiple lanes is generally because that capacity is needed, at least at peak commute times, to maintain flow at normal traffic speeds. When volume is near that capacity a slow driver in one of the lanes reduces that capacity enough to impede others.
In such a situation a cyclist taking a lane is almost certainly impeding traffic, and many cyclists mistakenly believe this is inherently wrong, illegal, dangerous or all of the above, no matter how justified they may be in taking a lane in that situation (because it's not wide enough to be safely shared, they are merging in preparation for a left turn, to avoid door zone, etc.).
Post a Comment