If you want to learn to ride a bicycle in traffic with ease and confidence, this is a great place to start. I hope this site becomes the beginning of the cure for bicycle-lane fever — the false assumption that bicyclists are safer riding in what amounts to the gutter.

Great stuff. Please check it out.

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

The chatter in the comments has been interesting so far — most concerned with bicyclists following traffic laws.

I think it is clear that (in the American context as it now stands) riding in traffic as traffic is the safest way to ride a bicycle. A little respect all around would go a long way toward making all our experiences on Springfield’s streets safe and pleasant.

I do not believe, however, that all of the grousing about, say, bicyclists running stop signs has much to do with safety or traffic flow or rules following. I think there are many car drivers out there who resent any slow road users (including “slow” drivers who drive the speed limit).

We are people, not objects.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle education, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, traffic law

A significant contributor in crashes between cars and bikes is poor lane positioning by the cyclist. Riding too far right makes the cyclist hard to see and encourages motorists to squeeze past—dangerously close—in narrow lanes. In an effort to increase cycling safety and decrease crashes between bikes and cars, cycling educators are teaching cyclists to ride assertively on our roads.

Keri’s graphic illustrates the point. Riding too far to the right puts you in danger. But, you may be asking, what about the Missouri law that says bicycles must ride to the right? Here’s what the law (307.190) says:

Every person operating a bicycle or motorized bicycle at less than the posted speed or slower than the flow of traffic upon a street or highway shall ride as near to the right side of the roadway as safe, exercising due care when passing a standing vehicle or one proceeding in the same direction, except when making a left turn, when avoiding hazardous conditions, when the lane is too narrow to share with another vehicle, or when on a one-way street. Bicyclists may ride abreast when not impeding other vehicles.

Notice the qualifiers. You must ride “to the right side of the roadway.” The gutter is not the roadway. So you are not required to ride in it. On roads without gutters, there is usually a gutter area (sometimes marked with a white line). You are not required to ride in the gutter area. I consider the right side of the roadway on most urban lanes to be the area generally where a car’s right tires would likely run (an area that’s actually quite easy to see in most cases due to the tremendous wear-n-tear cars put on roads).

Bicyclists may command lanes that are too narrow to share — generally lane <12 feet wide. Lanes at least 14 feet wide are considered shareable, i.e. there is room for the bicyclist to ride to the right (not in the gutter) and for cars to pass at a safe distance (depending upon the speed limit).

The roads throughout much of Springfield’s urban core are narrow enough, and the speed limits slow enough, to make commanding the lane natural and expected.

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

I don’t want this to be seen as a League-bashing exercise.  I’ve been wondering if I should even post this.  Still, I feel the need to express my discontent in a meaningful manner.   Some have been working to “reform” the League, but I see that as a huge time-sink.  I’d rather focus on bringing forward new ways to teach and encourage people to be better cyclists.

I have to ask where my strongest loyalty rests.  It rests with bicyclists, far more than with bikeway proponents.  The League’s loyalty seems more strongly tied to bikeways than to bicyclists.  I am feeling dispossessed from the League, so I must leave.

As Carbon Trace readers are aware, I’m not a fan of vehicular cycling (I prefer the Hurst variation) in large part because I’m not a fan of John Forrester and his book — both of which are too grumpy for my tastes. It’s not that I disagree with VC or EC principles, I simply think much of the program comes with a certain amount of grumpy baggage (and mouth-foaming in some cases) that is thoroughly unproductive.

I also do not have a knee-jerk aversion to properly-designed bikeways (as opposed to lanes) that give bicyclists priority over cars.

OK, let’s get back to Mighk’s post. I rode with Mighk and shared beers with him during my trip to Orlando in January. He’s out there making things better for bicyclists. And one of the ways he’s doing that is resisting the urge to throw paint on the roads. The key, as you’ll see in his post and from the numerous comments, is education.

I’m particularly excited by the education program Keri Caffrey, of Commute Orlando, is designing. I’ll have more to say about this as soon as she tells me it’s time. A big part of her program is building confidence on the road.

Now it is true that a lot of novices (and even a few roadies) are frightened by the idea of riding a bicycle in traffic. How do you overcome this? One answer: Paint bicycle lanes. As I have been discovering, however, such lanes usually cause more problems than they solve. Further, poor designs can get you killed.

What I believe today: Painted bicycle lanes cannot be made safe; bikeways can be made safe if properly designed.

Since we are not going to build Dutch-like bikeways in this country, we are left with only one answer that I can think of to the novice question: Education for roadway confidence (especially starting in grade school, which, BTW, they do in the Netherlands).

This is where the loylaity thing Mighk is talking about kicks in: What are you going to do to help people choose bicycles? I have a suggestion: Take personal responsibility for helping people learn. Take your friends and neighbors riding. Show a co-working that riding to work is not only fairly easy in many cases, but better than driving. Stop and talk to other bicyclists. Learn their stories. Be visible. Demonstrate how normal it is to ride a bicycle for basic transportation. Ride like you mean it.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle education, bicycle infrastructure, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, utility cycling

Getting a precise breakdown of the actual risks per mile is a bit more difficult, but a rough analysis of 2005 fatalities would suggest that riders are between three and 10 times more likely to die per mile traveled than are drivers.

Sounds scary.

I prefer my figures a bit more precise. That’s why I often refer people to this article examining bicycle safety. And to this listing of surveys and studies. All of this material is worth your time to consider carefully. (Sadly, Ken Kifer, the author of “Is Cycling Dangerous?”, was killed by a drunk driver in 2003.)

One thing is clear to me, however, from the preponderance of studies and surveys that I have seen: You’re more likely to die in a bicycle crash with and automobile under these circumstances:

• you are a teenager or younger
• you are riding at night without lights or reflective gear
• you are failing to follow traffic laws
• you are riding in inappropriate places (e.g. a sidewalk)

Here’s what Ken Kifer said about lifetime risk:

Whichever set of figures we use, we discover a very low danger from cycling. Let’s say the a cyclist rides 250 hours per year, say 3,000 miles, somewhat higher than the amount for a regular cyclist. And we’ll say that this person rides 60 out of the normal 75 years of life, or 15,000 hours and 180,000 miles total. Using the Failure Associates figures, this person is going to have to have a 1/256 chance of getting killed while cycling during his lifetime. Using The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking figures and using the mileage data from 1997, the cyclists has a 1/142 chance of getting killed while cycling during a lifetime. Using the Johns Hopkins figures, we can suppose our cyclist makes 250 bike trips a year for those 60 years; that’s 15,000 trips. Then he has a 1/133 chance of dying with his bike shoes on. Compare these with the lifetime risk of dying in a motor vehicle of 1/60 and 1/83, which I calculated above.

However, these figures assume that this cyclist is no safer than any other cyclist. In truth, anyone who rides this much is going to have to acquire real cycling and traffic skills; it’s the children and the child-like riders who are more likely to bite the dust.

I’m happy to take my chances on a bicycle. It makes me healthier and happier. And it’s good for my community. The rewards easily outweigh the risks.

What are the rewards of driving that make it worth the risk?

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