Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The designed-in dis-functionality of bike lanes
Ana gets hit from Rick Langlois on Vimeo.
Better folks than I explain it here.
This what you get when you ask for segregation from the road system... a false sense of security and a really heightened risk of serious injury. This collision is 100% the fault of the design, and was 99.9% preventable had the bicyclist been integrated with the slow-moving traffic.
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7 comments:
Ouch! Possibly a future pedestrian/bike planner?
While I'm not a bike lane fan, this is NOT a bike lane problem. I've been hit in an almost identical situation as Ana. At the time, I was in a 1991 Jaguar, and traveling slower than she was in the video.
Perhaps I I need to make a post explaining WHY this is not a bike lane problem, but an operator problem, but I'd rather not. And, in fact, I have encountered the same situation on my bike, but the damage to my Jag has made me wiser. The most RECENT similar situation was posted at
http://dfwptp.blogspot.com/2011/07/another-bike-lie.html
Oh, in the referenced post, though on my bike, I was in the situation of the motorist that hit Ana and the role of Ana was played by an SUV driver.
Steve, unlike you collision in your Jag, this is a problem with a lane designed for free flow, unencumbered by the flow of traffic around it. While the same situation can occur with a multi-lane roadway, it's a given in a bike lane installation. The danger is designed in, not situational.
The visibility problems and implied impunity inherent in the design also contribute to the inevitability of such collisions.
That's why I give design a 100% responsibility, and the bicycle operator a 99% responsibility charge.
As long as you also give the bike operator a 99% responsibility charge (realizing that the motorist was, technically at fault), we only differ by a little. When I lived in Los Angeles, I OFTEN saw motorists driving down what was supposed to be a parking lane to the right of traffic at 50mph. Come to think of it, I did it myself. The difference between "situation" and "design" is not an off/on switch. Not even a simple solid white line. Passing to the right of stopped traffic is risky regardless of why one does it and whether one is operating a bicyle or a Jaguar. Personally I don't favor the "poor victim of a bike lane designer" argument for a perfectly predictable situation. Now, if you'd instead noted this as a reason to take Cycling Savvy, I'd have nodded and smiled, even though they never covered this situation in the class I took.
"Now, if you'd instead noted this as a reason to take Cycling Savvy, I'd have nodded and smiled, even though they never covered this situation in the class I took."
YES WE DID! In two different sections.
I will defer to Keri's notes and charts over my fading memory. Certainly it is a basic operation principle, which are covered continually in CS. Had someone done something so silly in class, I'm CERTAIN we'd have been corrected. So take my previous comment and simply delete everything after "smiled."
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