1. Me traveling along Cherry east-bound at MSU. Girl pulls out of sorority parking lot on bicycle, also heading east. Me traveling in a commanding lane position 5 feet from curb roughly right-center in the lane. She riding along the face of the gutter. Car approaches from behind and passes me by pulling into the west-bound lane (no oncoming traffic). Just ahead — 40 yards maybe — the car pulls back into the lane and passes the girl — a couple of feet to spare — in the 10-foot lane.

2. Me stopped at the 4-way at Walnut and South — south-bound on South and signaling a left onto Walnut. Guy on a bicycle behind me passes me on the right and runs the stop sign. As I begin my left turn, he makes the same left across my path from the extreme right. He then skims along the parked cars rather than controlling the narrow, 20-mph lane.

3. Me traveling south on Fremont after having made the turn from Cherry. Car parked on the left. Car approaching on the left. And a bicyclist approaching me against traffic. The squeeze play is on. I take a position in the center. Car coming north waits behind parked car. I signal to the offending bicyclist to drive on the right. He ignores me.

UPDATE: A cogent, nutshell response from Keri Caffrey (from the comments, but deserves play out front, emphasis added):

Problem with bicycling: Perception that it is dangerous

Contributing factor: pervasive high-risk behavior

Reason for behavior: dysfunctional beliefs

Feedback loop: results of behavior confirm beliefs of bicyclists and everyone who encounters them, feeding the core problem

Needed solution: belief correction through good education, social marketing and community-building

Non-solution being implemented to the exclusion of real solutions: bike lanes and cycletracks (which reinforce beliefs and do nothing to correct behavior).

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle safety, cycling, traffic

Oooops. You watched them, didn’t you? And after I told you not to.

So, is it clear why theses are bad videos?

Here’s a hint: lane positioning.

It simply cannot be that these videos are a mistake and that Andy Clarke, president of the LAB, isn’t entirely aware of what these videos show. Therefore, it is my entirely reasonable conclusion that he hasn’t a clue about proper, safe lane positioning.

IMO, lane positioning (including following the rules and general traffic awareness) — not bright colors and helmets — is what keeps you safe on the road. But, I suppose wearing bright colors and helmets helps the bicyclists in these videos, seeing as how they have put themselves in danger by riding too far to the right. So yeah, better wear the Day-glo and helmet.

UPDATE: Check out the chatter on the LAB website.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle education, bicycle safety, cycling, traffic

Walking home yesterday — all of 3/4 mile — I saw five separate incidents of people being silly on the streets. Upon seeing the first one, I thought: Oh, good blog post! Then the silliness just kept coming to the point where I thought: Oh, different blog post! And the silliness continued this morning — the last incident being a guy who tried to squeeze me at a stop sign and then ran the sign.

So here’s my upshot: Cars and bicycles, as media that allow us to write and interpret a text called the street, are separated by massive differences but share at least one uncomfortable trait: both moving machines encourage humans to understand convenience as a primary value of writing the text of the street. Within this similarity in an important difference — perhaps only of scale.

Author Robert Pirsig once wrote that riding in a car was “just more TV” because one experiences the world through a screen. Indeed, one is separated from the world by the screen in a way similar to the separation TV creates. This situation encourages people to understand other street users as objects.

The bicycle has no screen. One of its greatest strengths as a mode of transportation, however, is also a problem: Bicycles are fun to ride and encourage us to move, and keep moving, based on the sheer joy of ease of movement and maneuverability. How can this be bad? Well, just hang out for a few minutes at the 4-way stop at Hammons and Cherry. (There are actually people who argue that stopping at stop signs is difficult because — and this is just a head-scratcher  – getting moving again is somehow inefficient and difficult.)

Both sources of bad behavior are equally self-righteous, and, therefore, utterly galling.

Among the silly incidents I saw yesterday was the near collision of a bicycle and a car at National and Grand in which both parties were displaying, in the particular ways of their given media, a self-righteous disregard for other road users.

We have a cultural problem on our streets that finds its expression in the media of bicycles and cars: lack of courtesy, civility, care — take your pick. To the extent that these qualities are lacking in the driver (of any vehicle and for whatever reason) is the extent that our streets are sites of fear and danger instead of a commons where we all benefit from our collective investment.

Now you’re ready to listen to my recent interview on KSMU. I used my grumpy voice.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle safety, car culture, crazy drivers, cycling, pedestrian safety, traffic law, transportation, walking

An idea for discussing lane control with non-cyclists (and perhaps even cyclists): I’ve tried this a couple times and it certainly gets people thinking.

I either show them an image or video of a lane-controlling cyclist on a high-speed arterial, or just describe it, then ask: “If you saw that, what would you think?”

Of course, the usual answer includes terms like “crazy” and/or “dangerous.”

Then I ask: “What if you saw this once a month?”
“Once a week?”
“Once a day?”
“Every hour?”
“Every ten minutes?” (pause and let them think/answer after each)

It gets them to realize that perhaps their perception of what is PROPER is based on what they believe is NORMAL, and not based on the law, data or reasoning.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle education, bicycle safety, cycling, traffic

The proposed reflective vest bill (HB 1937) solves no problem that exists on Missouri’s state highways. Bicyclists are not suffering deaths or injuries comparable to people in cars.

Perhaps we ought to require all cars to be painted day-glo and use headlights whenever the motor is running. And perhaps car drivers ought to honk at each curve and hill. Oh, and stiff fines (percentage of annual salary) for breaking traffic regulations. How about tax incentives for not driving? Why does no safety-conscious legislator suggest any of this?

(Literacy alert: That’s a (snarky) rhetorical question.)

Here’s a video I made yesterday that illustrates the power of lane position. I had not intended to use this video in this particular post — it’s a Sunday afternoon ride, so traffic is not heavy. But you’ll get the idea. The roads involved are Seminole and Fremont. The travel lane widths in most areas are not sharable (< 14 feet). Two things to note: 1) My position throughout this video is in the middle of the right tire track to the middle of the road. At no time am I closer to the road edge than 4 feet, and 2) You’ll see a motorcyclist buzz me (2:45). He is being an asshole (note that there was no on-coming traffic). I did not feel unsafe because he saw me; he did it on purpose. A driver who sees you is unlikely to hit you — even if they are being a jerk.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, traffic law, transportation