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

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

Who: Joe Kurmaskie, The Metal Cowboy

What: A public talk about bicycling

When: 19 April at 7:00 p.m.

Where: City Utilities Auditorium, 301 E. Central

Click here for the official flyer.

Our new bicycling booklet will also be ready. Bike Smart Springfield replaces the old Drive Less, Live More. Please note, the .pdf linked here does not represent the printed version. The printed version may have minor changes, including a different cover photo. There are no substantive differences between the new printed version and the .pdf.

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

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

I had a close encounter with “other” this morning.

This “other” is actually a very old problem going back to the earliest days of automobile traffic in urban areas. It is well described in the book Fighting Traffic. This “other” was a real killer early in the last century — mowing down pedestrians and motorists alike. Before traffic controls and regulations, car drivers had a nasty habit of cutting corners when making left-hand turns.

This has now happened to me twice in the past few months — once at the intersection of Catalpa and Fremont and this morning — in the dark — at the intersection of Kickapoo and Grand (I had working front white and rear red lights on at the time). Take a look (click for larger image).

The yellow line is my path. The red line is the path of the car. The blue line in the second photo is how the car driver should have made the turn (please excuse the deficiencies of my crappy, free photo editing application).

In the early days of motoring, someone dreamed up the idea of placing a post in the center of city intersections and requiring motorists to pass around it to the outside in order to make a left turn.

Long story short: With my bicyclists’ modest speed and 360-degree awareness, I saw this coming and executed a dandy emergency stop (I wasn’t going very fast at that point, so it was not so dramatic). The motorist passed with about 18-to 24-inches of clearance. I was coming to a stop anyway because I had the stop sign. The contact point, however, would have been where I marked it — exactly where I would have normally, legally stopped.

So, yeah, the emergency stop (and the emergency turn) that we teach in CyclingSavvy can come in handy for mitigating that pesky 4 percent we call “other.”

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