And since the first human-like creature used the first tool there’s been no escaping the fact that our tools change us. Not just help us. Change us.

So I was interested to read What Drivers Really Thing About Bikers: The History And Psychology of Sharing the Road in Good.

Two things:

1. The article if full of troubling moments, e.g. citing safety data without the proper caveats.

2. The tool we call the bicycle also contributes to a particular psychology that doesn’t mix well with the motorist psychology mentioned in the article. For example, check out this video:

That’s way cool

But…

It’s also an excellent illustration of the psychology of bicycling. On a bicycle we are encouraged to think of the entire planet is a surface for us to ride on without hindrance or rules. Stop signs? Too much trouble. Parking lots? Short cuts. Sidewalks? Hey man, like, paved!

I think we need to bring the psychology of our own two feet more specifically to bear on our use of the public commons we call streets. Our feet have been with us since the beginning and, therefore, carry the evolutionary programming that dictates a particular kind of relationship with the environment and our fellow travelers.

When we move at speeds beyond what we can walk, we seem to lose ourselves in ourselves and lose a concept of others as fellow travelers who deserve our care and attention.

UPDATE: I saw aspect of the psychology of motoring just a few minutes ago while coming home from the store pulling a trailer full of groceries (at no time was I in danger). All of this tooks place in less than 100 yards: I was traveling south on Pickwick (a wide residential street). Up ahead was a car and a lawn-care truck parked on opposite sides of the street. My best action was to take the middle and split the vehicles. As I was doing so, a motorist approached from behind at a bit over the 25-mph speed limit (estimated 30 mph compared to my 12 mph). I pulled into a more normal lane position after I split the cars. The motorist, now hot on my tail, squeezes by me, leaving just a few feet to spare. The motorist “had” to do so (the quote marks do not indicate irony) because there was a small traffic island just ahead with a speed limit sign — a traffic calming device. After pulling quickly back to the right — still traveling an estimated 30 mph — the motorist proceeds to turn into a driveway just about 30 yards farther on. In other words, this motorist was seconds away from his/her destination but could not be bothered to follow me, which would have been the safest and most caring, courteous choice.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, cycling

We’ve re-designed and upgraded the former Drive Less, Live More booklet. It’s now called Bike Smart Springfield (note that the paper edition has a different cover). Click that link, and take a look. You’ll also find it linked on the Carbon Trace sidebar.

Be sure to visit the Let’s Go Smart website.

Also check out the Let’s Go Smart page on Facebook.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, Springfield Missouri, sustainability, transportation

Check out the article and comments on Bike Portland regarding the new edition of John Forester’s book. As you can imagine, the whole thing is quite spirited. I’ve discussed Forester and my emotional problems before. No need to go into it further. Well, OK, I will simply remind Carbon Trace readers that I 1) am fully able to separate the concept of vehicular bicycling from Forester’s (to be charitable) grumpy presentation and reliance on fallacious argument (see link above), and 2) am tickled by the idea, as often expressed in comments to posts about Forester, that he is an automobile industry plant

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

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

I’m not making any claims against other regions of the country.

I was lucky today, on this unluckiest of days, because of one component of the midwestern ethos — politeness, or, perhaps more specifically, the general concern for people that leads to a particular kind of politeness. It’s the kind that keeps these phrases ever on the breeze: “please,” “thank you,” “pardon me,” “may I help you.”

I was driving my bicycle back to campus on this blustery morning and arrived to discover my panniers had blown off the back of my bicycle (for reasons I’ll go into when I re-review them). In the pannier was my punk ukulele entitled “The P’Uke.” If you’re a Facebook friend, you know what I’m talking about. If not, well, I was one of the artists who took part in a recent painted ukulele show for the First Friday Art Walk (The P’Uke won 2nd place!). Here it is:

As you can see, you wouldn’t want to lose a thing like this!

Anyway, I retraced my path back to town hoping to find it. A guy I recognized from the student union coffee shop (he worked there last year) was driving the opposite direction in a car, saw me, and signaled for me to stop.

“Hey, did you lose a bike bag? It’s at Gailey’s”

“Thanks!”

And so I was re-united with The P’Uke.

Now I have to fix those panniers.

Technorati Tags: bicycle culture, cycling