Some people are going to read the first sentence of the next paragraph and decide they have better ways to spend their time.  But the subject isn’t my preferred mode of exercise and recreation.  It’s life and death.  It involves the expenditure of billions of dollars, private and public.  It’s about a public policy, as boring as that is, that could have an outsized impact on communities large and small.  So, because it’s your money and your community and perhaps your life or the life a loved one at stake, please read a little further before making up your mind.

I’m a road cyclist.  I love riding our quiet back roads, many of which seem to have been conceived just for us; well-paved, if sometimes narrow; little traffic and most of that local people who are pretty good-natured about cyclists; and stunning mountain and valley views that take your breath away when the long, steep climbs don’t.

So it’s a shame that motorists and bicyclists so often hate each other.   Two anecdotes may help explain why.

Anecdote One.  Several years ago while riding on Powder Branch Road near Happy Valley High School, I was hit by a hit-and run driver.  No damage done, luckily, as it was only a slight glancing blow.  I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s the gist of it:  A young woman so stupid she probably shouldn’t have had a driver’s license, who was knowingly driving an unsafe vehicle, who was driving on a wide road with excellent sight lines and almost no traffic, nonetheless managed to hit a cyclist (me) dressed in fluorescent yellow.  Then, frightened out of what little wits she had, she ran from the “accident”.  And the result – she was charged with FAILURE TO YIELD RIGHT OF WAY.  If she had swerved one more inch – and that’s not an exaggeration – I would have been in the hospital or the morgue, and she was charged with failure to yield right of way.  Outrageous.

Anecdote Two.  On a recent trip to Boston I took an Uber downtown.  It was just after dark and the streets were clogged with rush hour traffic.  I was sitting on the right side in the back seat.  There being no place to pull to the curb, the driver stopped in the right-most lane, next to parked cars, to let me out.  I opened the door – and a bike messenger slammed into it.  He recovered and rode on without so much as a glance in my direction; just another day in the life, I guess.  No damage to the car, luckily.  To be clear, I wasn’t at fault.  The cyclist was illegally passing a stopped car on the right side.  I just opened the door; he ran into it.  I was mortified, but he was in the wrong.

Cyclists, who have exactly the same right to use the roads as motorists, have good reason to fear distracted and/or stupid drivers and the vehicles they incompetently operate.  Motorists have good reason to be contemptuous of cyclists, who have exactly the same responsibilities as motorists, but think they can pick and choose which traffic laws they will obey – arrogant scofflaws who get themselves and others hurt or killed while playing in traffic.

Which brings me to a new report by the National Transportation Safety Board, inspired by an alarming increase in the number of cycling fatalities in recent years.  In 2018, 857 cyclists were killed, primarily in collisions with cars or trucks.  It’s the highest number in 30 years, and if something doesn’t change, it’s going to get worse.  Bicycles are becoming ever-more popular, particularly in traffic-clogged city centers where owning a car is often too expensive and/or impractical.  It also brings me to the response of Bicycling Magazine, which, I’m sorry to say, is not likely to improve motorists’ opinion of cyclists.

You’ll find the abstract of the report at NTSB’s website here (PDF), and Bicyling’s response here.  The NTSB report is a mixture of pragmatic common sense and overweening nanny-statism in the finest bureaucratese.  Bicycling’s response is to whine that NTSB actually expects cyclists to take responsibility for their own safety when it’s the big, bad, carbon-belching cars and their stupid drivers that cause all the problems, and it’s just not fair.

Sigh.  I’m a guy who likes his bikes and his carbon-belching SUV, and has no use for nanny-staters or whiners.  Which, I’m pretty sure, makes me an average guy in those respects.  I see both sides of it, and both sides have fair points.  Correctly, they share the concern that a lot of cyclists are dying needlessly, know that the problem isn’t going to go away on its own, and agree that something must be done.  After that, please, spare us the sanctimony.  This is a practical problem that needs practical solutions, even if it’s the “fate of the planet” that’s at stake.  Not to mention a lot of lives.

First, the most important point of agreement:  The best way to prevent car-bike accidents is to separate cars and bikes.  That means separate lanes or paths for bikes, preferably with physical barriers like median strips or bollards.  This really isn’t arguable, and no one is arguing it.  The problems are cost (always) and practicality (quite often).  Bike fanatics wave away these problems, of course, but reasonable people can’t and don’t.  It costs a lot of money to add bike lanes to a street, and that’s assuming there is room to do it.  Paths are even more of a problem, as aesthetically pleasing as they are. (Wouldn’t you love to have a Tweetsie Trail alongside every main thoroughfare?  I would.)  Some reasonable people who know that money isn’t infinite and strongly object to the trivial use of tax dollars argue that bike lanes and paths are usually a waste.  I don’t share that opinion, but would prefer a case-by-case consideration rather than a blanket mandate, with a requirement that bikes be accommodated unless there is a good reason not to.

So, to the bike fanatics – get over it.  There are an awful lot of places where bike lanes make no sense and won’t help “save the planet” or lives.  They’re just a waste of tax money.  And to the bike haters – you get over it, too.  Cycling is growing and will continue to grow; it’s a great sport and recreational activity for everyone, and particularly good for older people.  There is nothing better for cardiovascular fitness.  And, in some circumstances, bikes are practical transportation, too, although not so much in hilly and spread-out Northeast Tennessee.  Share the road, and quit complaining about reasonable, affordable accommodations.

Another point of agreement:  Although accidents at intersections are the most common type, they rarely cause serious injury or death because speeds are much lower and everyone is warier.  Crossing design and construction is sophisticated and effective, but can still be improved.  Here, I think the NTSB gets it right; what’s needed is more vigorous law enforcement and education for all involved, plus a little attention to better design.  Bicycling gets it mostly wrong.  Expecting cyclists to take responsibility for their own safety is not “victim blaming”; it’s plain common sense.  Motorists are constantly exhorted to drive defensively; it’s the same concept.  Motorists aren’t looking to mow down pedestrians or cyclists, but the simple fact is that they outweigh them by 20 to 400 times, and anyone who doesn’t treat vehicles with respect is asking to get hurt.  Where Bicycling gets it right is that a lot of accidents are caused by distracted drivers paying more attention to their phones or daydreams than to the road.  In this respect, perhaps Tennessee’s new law banning use of handheld phones will actually do some good.

And an area of disagreement:  NTSB is urging a nationwide helmet law.  Bicycling vehemently disagrees, a position it shares with most cycling advocates.  NTSB reasonably points out that a little more than half of all cyclists killed are not wearing a helmet, which shows the lethality of head injuries.  Bicycling counters that that means that about half of the people killed were wearing a helmet, and that experience in other countries proves that proper cycling infrastructure and culture are more important in preventing deaths.  Seems to me that NTSB has the stronger argument.  Head injuries are the leading cause of death, and helmet use does in fact reduce their severity.  Nor is experience in other countries necessarily relevant.  The U.S. is not the Netherlands, where a large part of the population commutes by bike and everyone is more cognizant of the interaction of cars and bikes through daily experience.  Different place, different circumstances, different results.

Nonetheless I come down with Bicycling on civil libertarian grounds.  Even though I won’t ride without a helmet and think it’s stupid not to, I figure that’s your business and none of mine.  If you want to take the risk, fine.  On the other hand, if we can find ways to incentivize helmet use, also fine.  Let health insurance companies reduce benefits for cyclists who weren’t wearing a helmet; let lack of a helmet be a mitigating factor in life insurance payouts and legal settlements.  That puts the onus on the parties directly involved rather than on police who have better things to do than play Helmet Nazi.  If not having “helmet hair” is important enough to risk your life, or you think it looks dorky, or it’s an uncomfortable aggravation you’d rather do without, as stupid as I think that is, it’s on you.

Another controversial topic is bike and rider “conspicuity”, which means making riders easier to see.  NTSB is all for it, and Bicycling isn’t.  NTSB has a good point; given that drivers aren’t looking for cyclists (even though they should), and that cyclists don’t always ride as safely as they should, making them highly visible is a smart thing to do.  Cycling advocates object to forcing people to dress in clown suits.  And while recreational cycling is one thing (bright is actually fashionable), people commuting to work are something else again (fluorescent orange in the office, anyone?).  This is a bit of nanny-statism I can do without.  Leave it to individuals and the fashion industry, which already markets good-looking, commuter-friendly cycling clothes; they will come up with plenty of solutions to the problem if the opportunity presents itself.  As for the bikes, LED lighting has made a huge difference in visibility.  Seems that, left to its own devices, the market will take care of things, no government intrusion required.

I doubt that NTSB really needed to stick its nose into this situation; a national response isn’t appropriate because every community’s circumstance is different and will require a local solution.  And we can do without their more intrusive suggestions.  Nonetheless, it has put a spotlight on a growing problem that states and localities need to address.  Bicycling, bless its heart, in spite of making some good points, winds up missing the target.  Bikes aren’t going to “save the planet”, and blaming cars while exonerating cyclists from taking responsibility for their own safety isn’t going to save anyone’s life.

Keep an eye on this.  Even if you don’t ride a bike (and why not?) the issue is going to impact you in the wallet; and the first time you attend the funeral of a friend killed in a cycling accident, as I have, it’s going to hit you much harder.

Kenneth D. Gough © 2019