The city council in Virginia Beach recently discussed adding bike lanes to new and existing roads within the city. Nothing will probably come of this, but it would sure be nice to see something on Shore Drive. The prevailing attitude against cyclists is too great for the city to provide any bike-friendly infrastructure. Infrastructure, as in bike lanes and traffic sensors that can detect bikes on the road, not debris-strewn, manhole-pocked “bike paths” separated from the road. Not to mention that such paths are usually filled with pedestrians and no self-respecting cyclist would risk hitting one at 20+ mph by using the path instead of the road.
The prevailing attitude of drivers comes in two flavors. First, they argue that the speed differential is too great to make cycling safe. This may be true, but shouldn’t drivers be paying enough attention to deal with any potential obstacles? Any driver should prepare to see a downed tree around the next corner or be aware that an oncoming car could turn left in front of him. As a cyclist and driver, I think about these things constantly on the road, but it seems that most drivers do not. Despite being the most dangerous method of transportation, most drivers think that accidents happen to other people but not to them.
The second argument is that cyclists do not obey the traffic laws. Several of the comments in the above article whine about cyclists blowing through lights and turning in front of cars. I admit I started out as one of the cyclist mavericks drivers complain about. It wasn’t long before I realized that if I wanted to stay alive, I couldn’t just go through a light despite the lack of cross traffic. A car I couldn’t see would more than likely appear out of nowhere. Even as I follow the rules, plenty of cars come out of nowhere and now I pretty much expect oncoming cars to turn in front of me and to pull out in front of me when I approach an intersection.
There seems to be a double standard when it comes to drivers and cyclists. If I so much as tear through a yellow light, someone will yell or honk. I could almost guarantee that driver probably blew through several red lights himself in the past week. Just sit at a busy intersection in Virginia Beach and just count the cars that go through red lights, turn right on red without stopping, or don’t use their turn signal. I’ll bet that within a few minutes there would be more violations than those performed by all cyclists in the city for that day.
An ad-hoc report linked from the Freakonomics blog seems to back this up: in studying over 2,500 cyclist-involved accident reports, vehicles were at fault more than 90 percent of the time. Most cases occurred when a car stopped at a stop sign or red light would pull out in front of a cyclist who had the right of way. This happens to me at least several times per week. The study was performed by a Canadian physician and the police reports were from Toronto, so I could only imagine the situation is worse in the United States. The report goes on to say that Toronto cyclists are six times more likely to die than a cyclist in the Netherlands. It also reports that despite the existence of poor weather, Ontario non-cyclists are most discouraged from getting on their bikes due to the lack of bike-friendly infrastructure and antagonistic drivers. Lastly, the report cites evidence linking the lack of cycling to an increase in health problems and obesity.
Of course, the study was performed by a cyclist, posted on a cycling team website, and was not peer reviewed. The statistics may be an upper bound for the number of driver-induced accidents. There is also the DOT-endorsed Hurt Report, which was a similar study involving motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. In the Hurt Report, drivers were at fault 66 percent of the time in motorcycle-involved accidents. In this case, all of the investigators just to happened to be motorcyclists, so it also may be difficult to draw valid conclusions.
Regardless of whether or not the statistics are valid, it pays to be extra careful when cycling in the age of texting and driving. As drivers have become more distracted over the past years, I definitely have experienced more near misses. The extra vigilance I have gained while on the bike has also been a significant help as a driver. If today’s antagonistic drivers had spent more time on their bikes as kids, they probably would make the roads a much safer place.
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