Attention pushers of the “War on Cars” meme: It’s not just Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn who’s siding with urban bikers these days. The rot goes all the way to the top!
WASHINGTON—U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood signaled on Tuesday that his department would be looking into measures to encourage automobile drivers to observe better safety standards when it came to bicyclists cohabiting the roadways.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, the Illinois Republican praised various cities for restructuring transportation policy around cleaner forms of transit, singling out the construction of bike lanes to encourage biking as particularly effective. But with additional bikers on the road come additional risks. And as head of the Department of Transportation, LaHood noted his “concern” over the “way that bikers are treated when they are on streets.”
Naturally, the Huffington Post asked the obvious follow-up question: Secretary LaHood, are you a hipster?
His response: “I don’t even know what that term means.”
Question, why is driving a car an earned privilege, but biking is some kind of automatic right?
Another question, why do drivers have to obey the laws, but bikers don’t?
You and me both, LaHood.
1&2 how dense must you be? Why do you need a special license to drive a large vehicle like a semi?
@ 4: Stop means stop, asshole.
Dear Slog,
Please follow convention and refer to riders of human powered, pedal driven vehicles as CYCLISTS. Bikers are people who ride motorcycles. The two groups DO NOT like to be mistaken for the other.
Tom
Biker and Cyclist.
Oh please, I have living near NYC my whole life, and the number of times I have seen a cyclist stop for a red light I can count on the fingers of one hand. They DON’T obey traffic laws and auto drivers are the villians? Until the day comes that they OBEY traffic, I will have little sympathy for them.
Words are cheap, LaHood. That’s great you’re concerned for cyclist safety, but how about increasing federal funding for bike infrastructure (which right now is miniscule).
I’ve almost hit my share of cyclists running reds in Ballard, Wallingford, Greenlake – for the entire 10 years I’ve lived in Seattle. And not for want of care. I know plenty of good friends and family members that bike to work, so I pay a lot of attention to these issues.
It is a problem of accountability, really. But the idea of licensing cyclists just sounds silly. So what is the solution?
@7 NYC bicyclists blowing red lights (by which I mean treating them like stop signs, not sailing through them) keeps us out of the flow of traffic and thus out of your hair. Would you rather we hang around next to you while you try to accelerate/turn? Admit it: the only reason this bothers you is because we’re faster than you in heavy traffic.
@1 Because it’s a lot harder to accidentally kill someone with a bicycle.
@4
Answer the question. I really dont understand (maybe because I dont own a car or even hold a license to drive one) how a driver needs insurance, drivers test, emmissions test, tabs, tolls, tickets in addition to regular maintinence.
But a cyclist can use something that doesnt even look road worthy. No license, no road test, no helmet, no tabs, no insurance, no problem! You can litterally have no idea what youre doing and be allowed access to the road. As a life long pedestrian, I have a big problem with that.
@2 and @9, It is already just as illegal (in WA, anyway) for cyclists to run stop signs and red lights as it is for a car to do so. Conscientious and safety-minded cyclists won’t do it, but those that do face a ticket and fines just like a driver would.
But this is far from a problem with just cyclists – while driving, I’ve had close calls with other drivers running red lights and stop signs. Drivers speed all the time. It’s not that “drivers have to follow the law, and cyclists don’t”. It’s that everyone breaks the law, and only a small fraction get caught at it.
@10 “Because it’s a lot harder to accidentally kill someone with a bicycle.”
But it can be done and cyclists betting their lives against a car does happen and the bike often loses while the owner gets sued by the widow for doing nothing wrong. Bikes can easily be the cause of an accident and if a bike hits you, sure doesnt do much damage to your car, but maybe the car had to swerve out of the way and as such, it hits a utility pole. Its enough to say “I wish you had collision insurance to pay for this, so I guess I have to sue you out of house and home”.
@11: Yours is a total straw man argument. People who don’t know how to ride on the streets, don’t ride on the streets (with occasional exceptions due to mental illness and/or inebriation).
The dude @10 is correct: the laws you see cyclists “break” are often done for the sake of keeping traffic flowing and cyclist safety. When the choice is to either get squeezed between a line of moving and parked cars or to run a red light to get ahead of traffic, I will run the red light every time.
this thread devolved into hater cliches on the 1st post.
@13: Give me a break. “What about the widows?” Almost every cyclist death in Seattle recently has been caused by driver carelessness, while the cyclist has been obeying the rules of the road.
@12 – My problem is frequency. And yes, it’s anecdotal, but my experience has been more with cyclists running red lights than drivers. Maybe it bothers me more, because I don’t want to be a party to someone getting killed either hitting a car, or being hit by one.
If a car runs a red, the chances of death and serious injury to one of the parties is significantly lower. I don’t want to kill anyone just because a cyclist couldn’t wait a couple minutes.
I also don’t want to deal with insurance companies because a motorist couldn’t wait a couple minutes, but that would be annoying vs. traumatizing.
@15 – You’re right, and I fell right into it. *sigh*
SO. Rather than the “Cars do it too” argument, is there a solution to make the presence of cyclists on the road safer?
I’ll try to answer your question @1 & @4 with a straight face, although I still suspect you’re being disingenuous.
Cars are 3,000-pound-plus metal devices propelled forward with internal combustion engines, traveling at speeds up to 70 mph. Bikes are not. Any collision involving a car is likely to involve injuries and/or property damage. For that reason it is in everyone’s interest to guarantee a minimum amount of personal responsibility and insurance coverage when it comes to driving a car. The same is simply not true of a bicycle. Yes, a bike can hit a pedestrian, but the likelihood of truly grievous or expensive damage isn’t very high. Additionally, cars require a massive amount of subsidized infrastructure in order to function properly – Durable roads, lengthy highways, suspension bridges, gas stations, etc. Bikes can ride quite well on a greater variety of cheaply maintained surfaces. Riding a bicycle is simply orders of magnitude less costly in terms of personal injury, public investment, and property damage.
Is that clear?
@11 Seriously! And these punks in the CD think they can just cross the street at any time and not just at crosswalks. Some of these people aren’t even wearing shoes! There oughta be a law requiring proper footwear and pedestrian safety courses before people leave their houses!
BTW:
Red lights are for SUCKAS. Ha!
@21 – See? Not helpful. But expected. I’ll try to answer your question with a straight face, although I still suspect you’re being disingenuous.
Cars are 3,000-pound-plus metal devices propelled forward with internal combustion engines, traveling at speeds up to 70 mph. Bikes are not. Any collision involving a car is likely to involve injuries. For that reason it is in everyone’s interest to guarantee a minimum amount of personal responsibility.
Is that clear?
Last night, I saw a shaggy-haired smoking cyclist with no helmet blow through a red light in front of a guy who wanted to turn left.
My thought wasn’t “Holy hell, he’s going to get killed” but “How Seattle.”
And, @16 you’re totally inventing whatever you believe about recent cyclist death being the result of careless drivers. I’ve read just as many stories over the years of red light blowers and biking between lanes as I have about a car doing something dumb like turning right into a cyclist in a bike lane (who, incidentally, in most of those stories was coming up during a red light).
@23: You’re wrong.
Has anyone here ever jaywalked? I do it all the time – it’s actually safer than waiting for the light (since pedestrians assume the right of way then, yet a distracted driver is still just as deadly whatever the color of the light). Now imagine being able to jaywalk in half the time – that’s twice the safety!
I always stop or slow way down before running a red, but never feel the slightest bit in danger doing it (or I wouldn’t cross!).
Oh, and according to the state of Oregon’s bike riding manual, most injury causing accidents on bicycles don’t involve cars. The thing to be most careful about when riding a bicycle is riding the bicycle.
@10 ended the conversation. Any arguments against his logic are desperately pulling at loose threads.
I love driving, and I tolerate-enjoy cycling. The one thing that I have noticed as a regular bike commuter:
The vast majority of cyclists obey the law. They don’t blow through lights or stop signs, they wear helmets, they stay in their lane (if one is available), and stay hard left/right on the street.
Yeah, there are assholes who don’t, but as has been pointed out, the same is readily said about drivers. Yellow =/= speed up, yet many drivers do. A stop sign means stop, not slow down, yet many drivers just slow down. Turn signals are legally required…doesn’t mean everyone uses them.
And then there are pedestrians…
The fact is that there are assholes using every form of transportation (bus drivers and riders included), but the vast majority actually aim to be courteous and safe commuters.
@17, 18 – I’m sorry you’ve had more than your fair of reckless cyclists (as @10 points out, not all cyclists who “run” reds or stops doing it recklessly). As a driver, a cyclist, and a pedestrian, I see people of all three types doing dumb shit all the time, and it’s irritating every time. But it’s a bit unfair to say that rampant disregard for safety/the law is a problem that cyclists have, when really it’s individuals of all transportation persuasions that have a problem.
My point wasn’t just that “drivers do it too, so stop ragging on cyclists”. I could have been clearer, but another part of what I was trying to say is that, with all the licensing and insurance etc that drivers are put through, they still drive recklessly and break laws and many times, they don’t get caught either. You seem to be looking for a “cyclist accountability solution” and I’m saying there just isn’t one that will work as perfectly as you want it to.
@14, @21, FUCK YOU! If a car blew through a red light and missed a bike by a foot, you’d be screaming. When you blow through a red and miss me by a foot as I walk in the crosswalk, how is that any different? If you want to use the road, you have to follow the rules. If you can’t be bothered to follow traffic laws, then take the bus.
@29, That may be the case. I think the frustration drivers have is that there really isn’t much accountability at all, and there is a constant din of “Drivers are going to kill us! You guys are evil!”. To which I throw up my hands and say “I’m trying not to! But don’t make it more difficult. . .”
I haven’t heard of any cyclist getting a ticket for running a red light, even though I know they are supposed to. Maybe that’s because the cyclists I know don’t. 😛
I don’t know what you can do as long as there aren’t viable alternatives to the roads for cyclists. And I can’t imagine what that would be in a hilly city like Seattle. Maybe it’s a problem without a solution. I certainly don’t have one.
Historically, we have optimized our streets for cars at the expense of cyclists and only recently have we started improving the local infrastructure to accommodate both modes. The whole idea that cyclists break more laws or in the realm of “as-dangerous-as-cars” is plain stupid.
I find that people who make these kinds of statements against cyclists are usually disgruntled older folks or overweight people who secretly hate themselves for sitting in traffic for 2 hours every day. All that rage that boils up inside you while you are sitting in a long line of cars… it has to be directed somewhere, so why not at the cyclist who cruising past? The smiles, the exercise, the fresh air, they must be doing something evil. you poor bastards.
Hi kids, let’s see some numbers!
@14,
I see those kinds of laws being broken and I understand it. I advocate the same thing for pedestrians. But, there are at least as many bicyclists who choose to be vehicles when it suits them (like when they want to make a left turn) and choose to be pedestrians when it suits them (like when they want to blow through a stop sign without yielding to other vehicles that have the right of way). Those cyclists get no sympathy from me, even when they wind up dead.
Look, as a cyclist have I blown through a stop sign or two when the sign was at the bottom of a hill and I wanted to keep a little momentum to get to the top? Sure. Just like I routinely speed when driving on the Interstate. We all make judgment calls about which laws we observe.
But the real problem I see that keeps cars and bicycles from happily coexisting is precisely the one that LaHood mentioned: there’s no designated space for bikes on a lot of roads.
Case in point: I live in Denver, which has been blessed with a lot of semi-major streets that are wider because they used to have streetcar lines back in the day. These make for perfect bike routes: there’s just one lane of traffic each way and plenty more space for cars to pass me on a bike.
But I’m also near the border of the city. And there, I’m frequently obliged to use major thoroughfares to cross some barrier, like a nearby Interstate highway. And out in the burbs, the city planners seem to resent any mode of transportation that isn’t a car. To the suburban mind, bicycles are recreation, period, not a serious means of getting around.
I rode out to a nearby Home Depot to pick up a few odds and ends yesterday and felt like I was taking my life in my hands, even though I followed all traffic laws to the letter. Having a designated space for bikes would have made a huge difference. Even better if that designated space was off the road completely so I could be completely out of the car drivers’ hair. But for the last part of my ride, that space didn’t exist.
Trust me: I don’t want to be around cars on the road any more than cars want me around. We’re often forced into the same space by shitty planning that considers bikes as an afterthought (and usually not even that). LaHood is suggesting changing that.
@35 Blowing through a stop sign and taking someone else’s right of way is one thing, but the bit about left turn comment is strange. How do you want us to make a left turn?
It always amazes me that conversations about bike policy always devolve instantly to “a guy was rude to me once.”. Grow up.
So, then according to his reply… Secretary LaHood is, in fact, a hipster.