Improving Bicycle-Car Safety: What’s The Problem?
15 Monday Sep 2014
Written by redqueeninla in Children's health, Transportation
Tags
3-foot bicyclist cushion, bicycling laws, cyclist safety, road rage, share the road, shared roadways
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What could possibly be controversial about giving a 3 foot berth to bicyclists?
At the very least, the new law protects even the motorist emotionally – could you live with yourself if you accidentally hit a cyclist? Obviously, the victim would be in bad shape physically, but the psychological life-scars for everyone would be just overwhelming too. So when I hear push-back from motorists about any issues regarding safety on the roads, I just have to shake my head in disbelief. It makes no sense to have progressed to a point socially where a human being operating one ton of metal machinery would begrudge a fellow citizen and taxpayer the air space for the flimsiest of safety-cushions to delineate a bicyclists’ turf.
Seemingly forgotten in the road wars as space becomes increasingly precious in LA, is that cyclists pay road taxes just as motorists do. There’s nothing inherently sacred about motorist’s use of the roadways that I’m aware of at least. They’re just bigger and heavier and more lethal and more numerous. They basically have more muscle, but I don’t see where they have more right.
It behooves everyone from every conceivable angle to open up availability of roadways for bicycles. And that means alleviating in some small measure the fear that justifiably envelopes anyone attempting to cycle on roadways shared with motor vehicles.
Beyond safety the benefits are manifest:
Environmentally: reduced air emissions is obviously a benefit to every citizen whether you locomote behind a wheel or on top of them. Every single engine-trip saved is that much less fossil fuel spent – in fact if like me, you are almost exclusively moving from inside of encased metal, you owe an especial debt to those willing to take on the roadways en plain air. Since everyone benefits from reduced emissions these cyclists gift motorists an overall average reduction in emissions from their effort alone, shared across all of society. If you like your gasoline cheap, you should thank a cyclist for conserving this non-renewable resource to your personal benefit.
Economically: Everyone’s health will improve from breathing less vile air (see “environmentally” benefits above), but the individual health benefits of exerting energy to get from point A to point B accrues not only to the cyclist but to all of society. The price of obesity is staggering. Truly, just about the only sensible response to a cyclist pedaling away virtuously and beneficially is ironic jealousy that we motorists haven’t managed to acquire equivalent personal benefits. But there’s plenty absorbed collectively in terms of public spending mitigated.
Socially: Why not embrace those of us in a society not insulated and isolated by car or technology? Cyclists are not cocooned inside a protected casing, they are out interacting with their voice and their own muscle-power. They communicate their presence with a bell or bellowed voice: “Look out on the LEFT“. And the only medium of protection they can utilize is a “bubble of space”. Seriously, is that the problem? Is this all just a personal boundary issue? It seems to me some of the same people offended by the nimble wheel-power of youth are sometimes critical of the extent of online and off-streets computerized social networking. This is a different face of social interaction; it’s hard to criticize the isolation of social media and the immediacy of “natural” commuting in the same “what’s-wrong-with-youth-these-days” breath.
Hopefully this new law is a harbinger of improved multi-modal streets use. I was surprised by the hostility toward what I thought was a fairly benign observation of increased bicycle use on roadways that necessitated increased respect for increased safety needs.
Because the very bottom line is this. As a parent who sends two children to school every morning along a very, very busy multi-lane urban state highway (located in the COLA), I am terrified of the danger to which they are exposed. How it could possibly make sense not to be ultra-vigilant about the safety of people on bicycles is simply at the end of the day, beyond any comprehension. There is actually no justification in any direction for not fostering, nurturing and fortifying the safety of bicycling citizens. We are they and they are us; safety is an urban improvement imperative for everyone. Safe and widespread bicycling is a cultural advancement to be sustained.
6 Comments
Michael Cahn said:
March 20, 2015 at 11:52 pm
What’s the Problem? Why are there not better bike markings on Westwood Blvd? Well, the problem is this… the leaders of the homeowner associations around Westwood Blvd have decided that bike lanes are a bad idea. They are VERY afraid of change and they perceive a bit of paint on the road as threatening. They almost lose their humanity when they argue recklessly for unimpeded car circulation. They control the local neighborhood organisations, they control the council member (Koretz). http://bicycleacademy.blogspot.com/2015/02/westwood-boulevard-ucla-claims-its.html They socialize at the Rotary Club and they wish cycling on Westwood Blvd just goes away again. But now UCLA itself has taken a forward position, the student bodies have voted, the Sierra Club has resolved, and the Westwood Village Business Improvement District has voted in favor of bike lanes, now things are moving again.
A glimpse of the contorted mentality we encounter comes from a leader in the Comstock Hills Homeowners Association, also associated with the Westwood Community Council, who writes, a propos a pro bike statement by the deans of the UCLA medical school:
“Why in the world would Ralph’s decide to recreate its Westwood Village store to become the largest of its kind with pricey wine tasting and high end appeal? It seems UCLA only wants you to get there by bicycle. Heaven forbid you end up buying a bunch of groceries and then stop in at Target. It will have to all fit in your backpack. And as for you seniors, you better learn how to pedal again.” http://goo.gl/mCFwtH
That is the problem. The solution lies somewhere in the territory that the car-fixated leadership of these HOAs pretends to represent.
The Odd Duck said:
September 17, 2014 at 1:36 am
A thought just occurred to me as I watch an ADA wheelchair coming up a narrow bloc. If I am right the wording of the law only covers bicycles, which make tricycles and ADA wheelchairs fair game as the far as the right to be stupid while driving and riding is concerned. It’s interesting about this feel good law has unintentional consequence.
Franz Kafka Jr. said:
September 15, 2014 at 1:49 pm
The petition that Paved America
On September 20th, 1893, the Duryea Brothers road-tested the first gasoline-powered American-built automobile. Most people assume it was early cars such as these – and later ones from the likes of Ford and Buick – which paved America.
In fact, the impetus to create better roads didn’t come from the automobile industry, it came from cyclists. In February 1893, the Senate passed a law creating the Office of Road Inquiry. This office – charged with researching best-practice and learning what the Good Roads movement had spent the best part of 20 years lobbying for – later became the Federal Highways Administration.
The Good Roads movement had been started by cyclists. Soon after its formation in 1880, the League of American Wheelmen started to push for better roads. The League of American Wheelmen – and the Good Roads movement – were bankrolled by Albert Pope, a veteran of the Civil War and the manufacturer of Columbia bicycles, the leading brand of the day.
Almost from the founding of the United States, there had been a lack of clarity over the subject of roads and whether they should be paid for by the federal Government or by the States. To modern eyes it seems obvious that roads are nationally important. Or, at least, the strategically important highways ought to be considered so. But this was a minority view in the 19th Century.
Today’s libertarians feel that transport matters should devolve on the States, and in the 19th Century the majority of local and national legislators felt the same.
Roads were deemed to be local, not national, and in an era when railroads were the most important means of long-distance communication (and which had been privately funded) roads were neglected, with little public money spent on either building or repairing them.
Cyclists changed all this…
http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/the-petition-that-paved-america/
Franz Kafka Jr. said:
September 15, 2014 at 1:39 pm
Roads were not paved for the use of cars. They were originally paved for bicycles. In fact it was car drivers who objected the most vehemently to the paving roads. Pavement was hard on their horses. So it was the extraordinary, indefatigable efforts of cyclists that automobile drivers have to thank for pavement, rather than belittle them, much less threaten or intimidate, much less murder.
The next time you find yourself frustrated by a bicycle or a cyclist, thank the League of American Wheelmen (now the League of American Bicyclists) for the fact your expensive suspension system is not damaged beyond repair.
As for the perhaps irrevocable damage your are doing to our planet and its climate with your automobiles and SUV’s (you most likely are driving while alone)? That is on your conscience, not cyclists. Quite the contrary. You owe them a debt of gratitude to say the least. The VERY least.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads