Shared-use facilities, like bike lanes, require a higher level of care from all users of the facility to avoid accidents. This is most easily understood in terms of lane width, although it also applies to behavior. A bike lane will allow the cyclist less space than they would get on a sidestreet or recreational path, and the adjacent auto lane will also afford motorists less space than they are used to. Both cyclists and motorists need to act more carefully to ensure safety in such environments.

The expansion of Truman Parkway in Savannah should not necessarily include a motorist safety campaign, but the installation of bike lanes on city streets SHOULD, for cyclists AND motorists.

I don’t think it’s disingenuous at all for city leadership to consider issues of safe cycling, especially considering that most places have no safety programs and no enforcement for cycling behavior, whereas motorists have billboards and signs everywhere encouraging safe behavior, and plenty of cops to bust them when they don’t drive safely. The double standard cuts both ways… if cyclists want the facilities that motorists get, they should be willing to put up with an equivalent set of safety measures.

This is just a small example of a way to curb the bias.

It’s important for everyone using the roadways (and sidewalks) to use common sense and follow the rules whether on a recumbent or in a SUV.

When was the last time you saw people regularly driving down the sidewalk? When was the last time you nearly got clobbered by a bicycle while walking on a sidewalk? Driving while talking on a mobile phone is illegal in many localities, yet you only need to look through the (recent) streetsblog archives to see bicycle riders advocating for their right to use a bicycle and talk on the phone at the same time.

In fact, if you go back and read through that article you’ll find comments about how setting up a sting to ticket bicycle riders who run red lights is persecution. Yet nobody blinks an eye when cops set up DUI checkpoints or stings. In fact, when was the last time you saw a car pulled over? How about a bicycle?

Where I work I regularly see bicycle riders weave in and out of pedestrians in a crosswalk so that they, the bicycle rider, can run the red light or navigate to the front of the queue. Yet the cars manage to remain in a relatively orderly queue.

It’s not an either or issue of bicycle vs automobile safety, and as long as bicycle advocates and users continue to shift responsibility for their own behaviour away from themselves, they’ll be met with disdain. It’s that simple.

P.S. From the looks of it, collecting data about cell phone related vehicle wrecks will soon be a prerequisite for federal road funding. So, yes, safety *is* a part of the discourse surrounding new automobile infrastructure. http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html

But if we could locate them, that would stop the “cyclist don’t obey the law” red herring.

Depending on how lazy my Sunday gets, I’ll try and ferret them out and share with the group.

Contrast driving “requirements” to those of maintaining my private pilot’s license. Every two years I have to visit a doctor to verify my eyes, hearing, blood pressure, mental health, etc. Additionally every two years, I have to go through a flight review with another pilot, usually an instructor, who must put me through a set of required elements. (Usually, the review consists of one hour of ground instruction and one hour of flight.) If I want to fly a passenger, I must undertake at least three landings every ninety days. There are separate night-flying requirements as well.

It’s true that flying is considerable more complex than driving, but to have practically no continuing education requirements for drivers is just plain silly. We put each other in danger.

For (at least) 2 generations, we have put a priority on personal cars above all other uses for streets. Any threat to take away some of this allocation and re-purpose it for other users is met with predictable resistance from the current beneficiaries.

Everything else is a red herring, but these red herrings have been effective in diverting the terms of the debate away from the real issue. Drivers get the great majority of the space and the infrastructure. Bikers and pedestrians want more for themselves. This is not going to happen without a fight.

What we really need is better salesmen, when it comes to these types of infrastructure improvements, that can convince the public that adding bike lanes or whatever is actually going to benefit both cars and bicyclists. As a car driver, I’d rather have bikes in a bike lane, because at least then I have a pretty good idea about when and where to look for them. And even when you are slowing cars down, you can sell a project on the safety benefits and on being an overall improvement in travel time or fuel efficiency by retiming the lights. The key is not to allow argument to devolve into us vs. them, but to propose projects and improvements that are going to benefit everyone.

1. Drivers are not nice to each other. Remember what George Carlin said: anyone going slower than me is an idiot; anyone going faster than me is a maniac. Pretty much all drivers agree that the other guy sucks. If you want to see them come together, say ‘bikers.’ There is a double-standard because there are more of them (drivers) and going after the cyclists is a better answer (for them) then accepting some responsibility for their contribution to the safety problem.

When I am riding and someone yells at me, I don’t take it personally because I know that guy is probably going to cut off other drivers, and kick the dog when he gets home. He’s just an a–hole.

2. Bicyclists have done a terrible job of owning the safety issue. I work in bike advocacy and I’ve been in situations where I have argued for a bicycle facility, and I’ve been opposed by those saying ‘bikers never obey the law, so why should we invest in their safety.’

That is an unfair argument. I have also never won that argument by telling the person that drivers are far worse.

3. The “safety establishment” (NHTSA, insurance companies, state highway safety offices) has also done a terrible job of responding to the fundamental safety challenge of our transportation system: user behavior. The preferred response to saving lives is to build roads with clear zones, build stronger cars, (with intelligence cruise control, air bags aplenty, crumple zones, anti-roll protection, and stability control), and focus on drunks, car seats, and seat belts. These are all fine things to concentrate on… but what about stronger law enforcement, tougher driver testing, prosecution of homicidal drivers, and revoking the licenses of drivers who kill? Hell, we can barely get texting bans and hand-held cell phone bans passed in the states.

So the individuals blame each other and the agencies blame the roads and the vehicles. And nothing happens. This is not just about a double-standard for cyclists, this is about no standards at all for road safety.