Almost hit twice

[pinkfootedgoose]

I am a decently experienced rider. I commute to work every day – rain or shine – and ride a road bike in the evenings for exercise. One evening last week during my 2 mile commute from work, I almost got hit twice – both times by bicycles! When I commute, I adhere to traffic signals rather obsessively, but I do so consciously as to make my trip mindless. While I understand the reasoning of the experienced riders who choose to go through red lights – because they know what they are doing, I worry that as more people take up bicycling, they also take up this practice – and blow through red lights without experience. I fear this may become a serious problem. No longer is it one, experienced cyclist who chooses to go through a red light knowing the risk and looking for cars and cyclists, now it is an inexperienced rider on a Bikeshare with headphones on blindly riding through a red light on Pennsylvania Ave. It is unrealistic to expect others to take up my “stop for every single red light” approach, but something needs to be done to encourage safe riding.

[drevil]

@pinkfootedgoose 85074 wrote:

…now it is an inexperienced rider on a Bikeshare with headphones on blindly riding through a red light on Pennsylvania Ave…

One hit and they’ll learn their lesson

[PotomacCyclist]

Like others, I’ve seen some cyclists ignore traffic laws. It’s a problem. But the biggest problem? No, I don’t think so. I’ll always have to go back to all the surveys and personal experience of so many car drivers speeding, running red lights (they do that too), texting while driving, tailgating cyclists and flat-out trying to run over pedestrians in crosswalks. At the same time, a lot of pedestrians behave badly too.

My two biggest transportation behavior complaints overall? Distracted/aggressive drivers and jaywalking pedestrians. I notice the distracted/aggressive drivers primarily when I am a pedestrian. I’ve had a few near misses when I was walking in a crosswalk, having waited for the WALK signal and looked both ways for approaching traffic. I still nearly got hit by car drivers.

I notice the jaywalking pedestrians while I’m cycling. Many will step out into the road in the middle of a block and expect all car drivers and cyclists to stop suddenly. Yes, pedestrians have right of way in a crosswalk and everyone should avoid an accident when possible. But it’s very difficult when someone steps out right in front of you while jaywalking. I haven’t run into anyone yet, but I’ve had a few near misses in this category too, and not because I was trying to run anyone down.

As for cyclists, I’m more concerned about some of the aggressive cyclists on trails like the Mt. Vernon Trail who insist on passing when two-way bike/pedestrian traffic meets. That is, two or more parties meet while heading in opposite directions. Then some people will try to pass, squeezing in between the two traffic flows while riding on the center dividing line, or even crossing the line and forcing others in the other lane to veer out of the way to avoid an accident. That should never happen, especially at higher speeds. I also started a thread last week about someone passing while heading into a blind turn on the trail. That was completely irresponsible. If another cyclist had been approaching at that moment, an accident would have been unavoidable.

I’ve seen a few cyclists who appear to be bike messengers (the few who are left) make very daring runs through busy intersections, weaving back and forth to avoid car traffic in multiple directions. That is truly crazy, but I don’t see it happen too often. I remember each instance, but when I think about it objectively, I realize that I don’t see it as much as all of the other traffic infractions (from drivers, cyclists and pedestrians). Maybe it’s because I don’t ride on certain streets that much.

[mstone]

My biggest safety concern is speeding drivers. We’re currently working through the Fairfax county traffic calming BS in my neighborhood, and just got the traffic survey results: 80% of drivers are speeding, as much as 57MPH in a 25MPH zone. This is on a road in a residential neighborhood adjacent to an elementary school.

Scofflaw cyclists my ass–I don’t even want to hear anything about how cyclists are the danger on the roads.

[APKhaos]

While I’ve managed to stay safe, I talked to a guy at Gravelly Point recently who had a gnarly story to tell. He was riding on the WOD westbound. At one of the [many] road crossings he was riding in his lane when a rider coming the other way swooped down the hill to the crossing and cut hard to join the road, right into my guy. He woke up in the hospital a day later with significant injuries. The helmet he was wearing was shattered. He’s now fine, and riding a sweet new Scott. His story stuck with me and has made me much more cautious about what can happen when rogue riders cross our path.

[krazygl00]

@pinkfootedgoose 85074 wrote:

I am a decently experienced rider. I commute to work every day – rain or shine – and ride a road bike in the evenings for exercise. One evening last week during my 2 mile commute from work, I almost got hit twice – both times by bicycles! When I commute, I adhere to traffic signals rather obsessively, but I do so consciously as to make my trip mindless. While I understand the reasoning of the experienced riders who choose to go through red lights – because they know what they are doing, I worry that as more people take up bicycling, they also take up this practice – and blow through red lights without experience. I fear this may become a serious problem. No longer is it one, experienced cyclist who chooses to go through a red light knowing the risk and looking for cars and cyclists, now it is an inexperienced rider on a Bikeshare with headphones on blindly riding through a red light on Pennsylvania Ave. It is unrealistic to expect others to take up my “stop for every single red light” approach, but something needs to be done to encourage safe riding.

I think it is a stretch to try to find a hypothetical causal link between the lone, experienced rider blowing a red light and CaBi riders blithely gliding through them because they saw someone else do it. Of course if this becomes the case we will quickly see Darwin in action.

There is the old idea that a person is not stupid but people are. Still while this is an interesting concept in describing crowd behavior, it improperly and unfairly aggregates the mind of the individual. Even the vast throng of “inexperienced riders” is comprised of thinking individuals. When viewed from afar the throng appears mindless, but its behavior is governed by thousands of individual decisions. To say each of these riders will make the decision to simply ignore red lights is like saying they’ll each decide to start juggling chainsaws. Well, that analogy’s been done…

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5583[/ATTACH]

[lordofthemark]

As I have said before, one reason to keep pushing hard on Predictable Alert and Lawful, even for those who are pro-Idaho Stop, is that properly using the Idaho Stop requires a certain level of knowledge/experience/awareness that many newbies don’t have. That said, I think the principle problems from newbies, CaBi riders, etc is not running reds, so much as doing some other improper things, like excessive sidewalk riding in areas with lots of pedestrians for example. The best way to address that is probably supporting the efforts of WaBa in bike education. Of course to the extent CaBi riders are tourists, we depend on the efforts of folks in other cities. Improving bike education in our public schools would probably help.

[Terpfan]

@PotomacCyclist 85100 wrote:

Like others, I’ve seen some cyclists ignore traffic laws. It’s a problem. But the biggest problem? No, I don’t think so. I’ll always have to go back to all the surveys and personal experience of so many car drivers speeding, running red lights (they do that too), texting while driving, tailgating cyclists and flat-out trying to run over pedestrians in crosswalks. At the same time, a lot of pedestrians behave badly too.

My two biggest transportation behavior complaints overall? Distracted/aggressive drivers and jaywalking pedestrians. I notice the distracted/aggressive drivers primarily when I am a pedestrian. I’ve had a few near misses when I was walking in a crosswalk, having waited for the WALK signal and looked both ways for approaching traffic. I still nearly got hit by car drivers.

I notice the jaywalking pedestrians while I’m cycling. Many will step out into the road in the middle of a block and expect all car drivers and cyclists to stop suddenly. Yes, pedestrians have right of way in a crosswalk and everyone should avoid an accident when possible. But it’s very difficult when someone steps out right in front of you while jaywalking. I haven’t run into anyone yet, but I’ve had a few near misses in this category too, and not because I was trying to run anyone down.

As for cyclists, I’m more concerned about some of the aggressive cyclists on trails like the Mt. Vernon Trail who insist on passing when two-way bike/pedestrian traffic meets. That is, two or more parties meet while heading in opposite directions. Then some people will try to pass, squeezing in between the two traffic flows while riding on the center dividing line, or even crossing the line and forcing others in the other lane to veer out of the way to avoid an accident. That should never happen, especially at higher speeds. I also started a thread last week about someone passing while heading into a blind turn on the trail. That was completely irresponsible. If another cyclist had been approaching at that moment, an accident would have been unavoidable.

I’ve seen a few cyclists who appear to be bike messengers (the few who are left) make very daring runs through busy intersections, weaving back and forth to avoid car traffic in multiple directions. That is truly crazy, but I don’t see it happen too often. I remember each instance, but when I think about it objectively, I realize that I don’t see it as much as all of the other traffic infractions (from drivers, cyclists and pedestrians). Maybe it’s because I don’t ride on certain streets that much.

100% on the money.

[creadinger]

@pinkfootedgoose 85074 wrote:

It is unrealistic to expect others to take up my “stop for every single red light” approach, but something needs to be done to encourage safe riding.

I feel your pain. It’s pretty insane when stopping for red lights becomes a cause. Who in their right mind doesn’t stop for red lights?! Maybe it is sometimes ok to go through AFTER you have stopped, but come on….

[creadinger]

@krazygl00 85116 wrote:

I think it is a stretch to try to find a hypothetical causal link between the lone, experienced rider blowing a red light and CaBi riders blithely gliding through them because they saw someone else do it. Of course if this becomes the case we will quickly see Darwin in action.

I disagree. Humans are no smarter than cows or sheep when it comes to groups of us. Get us in a herd and we’ll just do what the guy in front does. Ever seen video of those black Friday mob scenes? The question is how big does a herd have to be to influence your decisions? Is one person going through a light enough? Or maybe it would take the 4 CaBis in front of you going on red to decide, “Well they did it, so can I.” Every time I see a few CaBis in a group, I can’t help but think they all look like a small herd of something anyway. It’s weird.

[brendan]

@creadinger 85134 wrote:

I disagree. Humans are no smarter than cows or sheep when it comes to groups of us. Get us in a herd and we’ll just do what the guy in front does. Ever seen video of those black Friday mob scenes?

Or any medium to large group social ride in DC?

B

[Brendan von Buckingham]

There’s plenty of times when it’s not insane to not stop for a red light. Any right on red situation with no pedestrians present, for instance. My commute has three or four of those each way. The traffic regulation paradigm is broken beyond recognition. Cyclists are on their own.

[PotomacCyclist]

Safe behavior is one element of overall safety. So is bike infrastructure. In the case of CaBi, bike design has proven to be a significant element too. There is now plenty of data re CaBi — millions of trips over the past 4 years, so a very large sample size. Even though most CaBi users don’t wear helmets, and even though many CaBi riders are beginner cyclists, and even though many CaBi riders are out-of-town visitors with little familiarity with the D.C. area, there just hasn’t been an epidemic of serious injuries and accidents among CaBi riders.

Sure, there have been some accidents and even a limited amount of injuries. But I believe the overall injury rate has been reported to be very low, much lower than typical for all cyclists in general. There have been almost no serious head injuries. The last report I heard, there hadn’t been a single serious head injury. I haven’t heard of any such injuries since that point. And since the few CaBi accidents tend to get quite a bit of press (partly because of the detractors out there, some of whom might be secretly hoping for such bad news, as evil as that is), I have to think that if there aren’t reports about such accidents, they aren’t happening (or they are happening very rarely). The last time I heard about a CaBi accident, the story was picked up by nearly all of the local media: W. Post, WTOP, GGW, DCist, City Paper, et al.

It makes sense. The bikes really are like mini-tanks. They are heavy and slow. They have a low center of mass and are very stable. More stable than any other standard type of bike. I probably do more than half of my riding on CaBi bikes (along with some rides on a mountain bike and a triathlon bike). I’ve been using the CaBi bikes since the first week or two that the system has been available. I’ve run into a few obstacles and conditions where I know I would have fallen off of or flipped over if I had been riding one of my own bikes. I’ve dropped down into fairly deep unmarked ditches on sidewalks and roads, some as deep as 3 to 4 inches (which is pretty deep to a cyclist). Those certainly woke me up, but I didn’t fall. I didn’t even come close to falling. That’s due to the heavy weight, the low center of mass and the slower speeds on a CaBi bike.

Those slower speeds also make it easier (but not impossible) for others to avoid accidents with a CaBi user. Speed and the combined speed of all parties at a near collision or actual collision play a role in whether an accident occurs and also in the severity of the accident. It’s going to be easier for a driver or other cyclist to avoid a CaBi user riding at 10 mph than to avoid a cyclist who is riding at 18-25 mph. No matter how fit a cyclist is, he/she will always ride slower at a given effort level on a CaBi bike than on a lighter road or hybrid bike. This is partly why I like riding CaBi (in addition to the convenience and the lack of worry about having a personal bike stolen while it’s locked up outside). I use CaBi not just for commuting and errands, but also for many casual rides and even some fitness workouts. I can get a similar workout (especially for general aerobic fitness) while riding at slower speeds and on a more stable platform than on a tri or MTB. Distance doesn’t make one fit. Duration and effort do. (For example, one can get quite a good workout on a stationary or spin bike, but you don’t cover any distance at all. But if you ride 100 miles on a bike, you’re definitely getting a challenging workout.)

[NOTE: At some point, if someone is training for a specific race and a different bike will be used, road or tri bike, it becomes necessary to put more time on the race bike, especially in the last few months before the race. Several months before any such goal race, it’s not quite as important to be precise about using the race bike. It’s even less important for a non-competitive amateur athlete like me.

I do notice that my cadence tends to be a little lower on CaBi. I make an effort to maintain a higher cadence, but CaBi bikes only have 3 gears.]

Anyway, my personal experience has been that CaBi bikes are more stable and sturdy than typical bikes. I’ve found it harder to fall off them. I ran over a large screw once while on CaBi. I didn’t even notice it at first. The back tire slowly became unresponsive and heavy. When I stopped to check it out, I saw that the 1/2″ screw had gone completely through the tire and was still stuck there. But I could still ride without any problems until the air leak made the tire too flat to ride normally. If I had ridden over that screw and had it embedded in a road or cyclocross tire, I would have noticed it right away. I might have fallen over too. (It’s possible that the heavy weight of the CaBi bike caused the screw to get embedded in the tire. On a lighter tri bike, I might have just bounced over the screw. I say that because I’ve never had a flat on the tri bike, despite riding over broken glass and gravel patches on several occasions. Even so, the CaBi bike did not tip over or become unstable, even with a screw stuck through the tire.)

The data also shows that CaBi bikes tend to be safer than standard bikes, even with all of the inexperienced cyclists riding them.

I agree that it would be good if more CaBi users followed all traffic guidelines and safety practices, but I just don’t see it as a primary concern, not when looking at traffic and transportation as a whole, or even when just looking at cycling practices and cyclist behavior specifically.

[PotomacCyclist]

Meanwhile, local jurisdictions and groups have been encouraging safe riding practices among CaBi users and all cyclists in general. BikeArlington has the Predictable, Alert, Lawful (Be a PAL) campaign. Capital Bikeshare added safety notes on the handlebars of every bike. The large-type messages point out different situations and recommended practices (such as not weaving between lanes). There are safety announcements throughout the year, in advertisements and email newsletters.

I think they are making a reasonable, good-faith effort to improve cyclist behavior. It won’t reach every person though, just as driver education clearly does not reach all drivers. It doesn’t reach most of them, if you look at typical driver behavior. Most drivers break multiple traffic laws every day, according to surveys, police stings and my personal observation. Survey after survey shows that a majority of drivers drive while distracted at least some of the time. My observation has been that about 20-30% are texting/websurfing while driving. Whenever I see a driver trying to pull into traffic from a parking garage or lot, I know that it’s more likely than not that the driver won’t look for cross traffic, cyclist or car. When the expected happens and they do pull into the road, I look to see if the driver is texting/websurfing. I’d say that more than half the time, maybe 2/3s or 3/4s, that they are texting/web browsing. Because I expect such behavior, I slow up in advance and I can easily avoid a collision. I shouldn’t have to do this, but I’d rather be healthy than prove a point about a driver causing yet another collision.

On many streets and roads, a majority of drivers are speeding, well in excess of the posted speed limits. Police stings reveal that most drivers will not yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk at certain non-signalized crossings. One sting found that almost all of the drivers tried to run down the pedestrians in the crosswalk. The only drivers who didn’t do this were those who saw another driver getting pulled over by police at that moment.

[Birdstrike]

@PotomacCyclist 85100 wrote:

…I notice the jaywalking pedestrians while I’m cycling. Many will step out into the road in the middle of a block and expect all car drivers and cyclists to stop suddenly. Yes, pedestrians have right of way in a crosswalk and everyone should avoid an accident when possible. But it’s very difficult when someone steps out right in front of you while jaywalking. I haven’t run into anyone yet, but I’ve had a few near misses in this category too, and not because I was trying to run anyone down.

Yep, I’ve experienced this a lot on the L St. bike lane lately. I’ll see a ped approaching from the left, perpendicular to the lane, head down of course, engrossed in their handheld ED. They’re not thinking about crossing the street yet without looking up, but they don’t even think twice about stepping off the curb to get in position to cross without so much as a side-ward glance. I’ve got a bell but they don’t seem to react to it. So now when I see them coming I just yell loudly, “Look UP!!” It’s a problem.

[Author]

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