There’s no need to take sides
Over the weekend, there was a situation between cyclists and a driver that resulted in many citizens taking sides, making unreasonable demands, and multiple misunderstandings. From 300 miles away, I could see the tensions rising through blog posts, editorials, and biased articles in the daily papers. This situation will not go away overnight, but will linger for months it not longer. I spoke with a few folks in Eugene, OR on my visit there and they expressed shock and amazement that such an incident happened. Eugene demonstrates how cyclists and drivers can work together to make the road safe for almost everyone.
This morning, I rode my bicycle down the backside of Capitol Hill to the UW. Traveling at 30mph (the speed limit down the hill), I need to focus ahead to ensure that I don’t jam my tire into a rut or misalignment in the pavement while also keeping an eye on cross-traffic and pedestrians. A driver traveling in the left lane rolled down his window and screamed at me “GET OFF THE STREET B***H!” without provocation. I was shocked. Did this stem from the Critical Mass situation?
Regardless of which side you choose, bicycles and driver will have to continue to share the road. There are a few things that we as a whole can do to make this easier for everyone. The main one is to be considerate of others.
Cyclists: ride as predictable as possible. Use hand signals, don’t swerve between cars, pull to the side if you’re holding up traffic, and stop blowing through red lights. Sidewalk riding is legal, but yield to pedestrians and ride at a low level of speed (3-7mph is usually what I ride at).
Drivers: cyclists are aware that you are right next to them so act predictable. Don’t blow your horn or yell, it could cause an accident. If the bicycle is moving slower than the flow of traffic, pass when it is safe to do so. There is no need to punch the gas pedal, race ahead, then slam on the brakes to prove a point.
My rule of thumb has been the same for the 2 1/2 years that I have been biking around Seattle: bikes vs cars in an accident results in the car winning almost every time. It’s not worth my life. It’s also not worth aggravation/impatience/high blood pressure when a car or a bicycle delays my trip for a few minutes. If everyone cooperated together, respected each other, and became aware of one another, these kinds of incidents wouldn’t happen nearly as often. I am not taking sides here, I am making a stand to continue sharing the road whether I am the driver or riding my bicycle.
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good post, unfortunately there are too many people out in the world that are only concerned with themselves. and if you get in their way, no matter if you have the right of way, it’s like you shat in their corn flakes.
some people just have no concept of sharing; it’s all about them. this goes for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
Unfortunately zeebleoop is right. Even though I bike, I can say that at least half of the bikers I see do trememdously stupid things — like blowing red lights, passing on the right on an uphill blind curve, weaving in and out of traffic, and hitting high speeds on occupied sidewalks, to name a few — so I can understand some of why drivers are not as sympathetic to cyclists as we could wish.
On the other hand, I’ve also received the kind of treatment you just did, for no reason except that I was on a bike. Unfortunately I think there are a lot of people out there in cars with a huge amount of rage in them — just look at any of the comments on the Slog or PI items about the incident — and who have always despised cyclists because of the seconds of inconvenience being behind a biker can cause. These folks take the incident on Capital Hill as an excuse to vent their spleens at any cyclist they see. (Because apparently every cyclist in Seattle rides in CM — who knew?)
I do wish we could all get along. But between the arrogance of some cyclists and the hatred carried by some drivers, I don’t know if it’s possible. I mean, if you look at the article referenced on Digg about the NYC CM cop attack, every single comment is from someone who watched the video, saw the cop stiff arm the cyclist off his bike for no apparent reason, and read the article about how the cop brought up bogus charges. But in the Seattle PI, many respondents to the article said, "Yay! A cop smashed one of those stupid cyclists I hate so much! He must have deserved it because I hate cyclists!" Argh. Who says Seattle is liberal?
I only bike occasionally but my wife commutes nearly everyday on a bike. She tells me all kinds of stories similar to what you describe, but I have yet to have this kind of thing happen to me. (Just the usual passing too close, getting cut off, etc.) I wonder if there’s some kind of sexism involved as well? I get the impression this kind of treatment is much more common for women than men.
Great post wesa.
To me the whole thing just highlights the stupidity in design of the American transportation system in general as a whole. We don’t design roads correctly, we don’t design rail correctly, we don’t design bike lanes correctly. I don’t really think it’s a motorists vs. cyclist debate. If cyclists had something like in Holland (bike lane separated from the main road by a curb) I doubt we would even be having this conversation.
One example that helped me shift my thinking from us vs. them was what would happen if a car was going as slow as a bike. People would be pissed off and the motorist would probably get a ticket for going to slow and impeding traffic (and yelled at, flipped off, etc). I think that’s part of the crux. People will get pissed off at anyone impeding their way to where they are trying to get to. It’s rare that anyone is driving for no purpose, you drive to get somewhere and when you are being slowed down it just makes you angry whether it’s another motorist or a cyclist. So the obvious solution would be to give cyclists their own space that won’t impede upon drivers. It’s a pretty simple idea, just a complicated and expensive solution.
So that leaves with how do we solve the problem since the chances of a dedicated bike lane separated by a curb are nil. Do we just have to resign ourselves that there is always going to be a large amount of tension between motorists and cyclists?