What does this chart tell you?

This rider doesn’t start out against traffic, but he swoops to the opposing lane just before the intersection. He is lucky the car entering the intersection from his left was not turning right, or it is likely he would have been hit.

Riding against traffic accounts for 45% of bike-v-car crashes in Orlando. The majority of those are intersection crashes because the bicyclist comes from an unexpected direction. Wrong-way riding is a bad decision caused by incorrect mapping of cause and effect. Despite the numerous conflicts people experience from this behavior, they don’t connect the dots. Why?

And how to we change that?

Go grab your copy! It’s a collector’s item, you know. If you just can’t wait another second. You can read it online.

Asked about how to counter the fear and scary statistics, Mighk said:

Quite frankly, the best way to convince people is to get them out riding on the road and get them riding the right way, and then they find out that, hey, this works.

And so, Mighk took Orlando Weekly reporter, Lindy Shepherd for a ride through downtown.

Here she is having a great time on Robinson, in the rain, no less:

And grooving down Orange Avenue:

And I couldn’t resist this shot of Mighk posing for the cover photo:

The title is the conclusion from a study.
Until we get the media on board they will undo anything we try to do.

Title and abstract follows.

Newspaper framing of fatal motor vehicle crashes in four Midwestern cities in the United States, 1999–2000

S Connor and K WesolowskiDepartment of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University and Community Safety and Resource Center, Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Email: smc3@cwru.edu

As I swerved to miss the pedestrian — who had stopped, started, turned, and then walked backwards at the intersection all without seeing me approach — I had all my attention on making sure I did not startle (or hit!) the person right in front of me.

What I forgot was to watch for turning cars.  And there was one.  Since both of us (the car driver and me) were watching the wayward pedestrian, we both didn’t see each other entering the intersection.  Thankfully, we both were operating at such slow speeds that each was able to stop way before any crash would have occurred.

But this event triggered a thought in my head:  I didn’t see the car because all my attention was on the pedestrian.  I wonder how many crashes are due to situations where there are more than two events happening at the same time?

Crash Statistics

Mighk has presented us with some wonderful crash statistics that breaks down bicycle crashes into nice categories.  But the categories are one-event situations (ie riding without lights, riding on the wrong side of the road).  I’m guessing (I hope Mighk will chime in on this) that it’s difficult to present this data when multiple events are the reason for a crash.  But, it shouldn’t be to hard for us to imagine some combination events — for example, riding on the wrong side of the road at night without lights.  And I bet if we could dig deeper, we’d uncover many other crashes where if there had not been a certain combination of events, it’s possible there would not have been a crash.

Situational Awareness

I recall Keri talking about her training as an aircraft pilot …. that as part of their training, they look at airplane crashes and break down the events or actions that led up to the crash.  Typically, it was not one single event or action that led to the crash, but rather a combination of situations and mis-steps — a chain of events.  If any link of the chain could be removed, in most cases, there probably would not have been a crash.

Their training was to drill into their minds that even while dealing with an immediate event, it was critical not to lose what aviation trainers call “situational awareness” — awareness of everything else still going on around them.  If the focus is entirely on the situation (crisis) at hand, you might miss out on a new (important) development, or you might not fully realize how your actions dealing with this one situation might place you into another.

How to use

This seems like a good lesson for all of us who cycle to keep in mind.  Many of us are experienced enough that we can recognize developing situations and take appropriate actions to avoid an incident.  However, if our focus is strictly on the one situation in front of us, we might be missing out on something else developing around us.

One way this can happen is when something out-of-the-ordinary takes you out of your normal cycling mental state.  That’s what happened to me when the pedestrian started acting funny.  I was mesmerized by the person’s “dance” on the sidewalk as I was approaching them.  What I needed to do was while keeping an eye on the pedestrian to continue to scan around me and prepare for the upcoming intersection.

One technique I know about (used by some motorcyclists) is to talk out loud (but quietly) to yourself about what is happening around you.  Like this: “… ok, coming up to intersection, light is green for me but is a bit stale. Car behind me but I will clear intersection before they arrive … car on right side is stopped but has his turn signal on; make sure he doesn’t pull out in front of me … going through light, all ok, car on right sees me, ahead all is OK except for that car parked on the side of the road, watch out can’t see through his windshield to see if he is in there or not, might open door or pull out … car that was behind me turned off … ok, all clear until I get to the next light …”

I know that this seems over-burdensome to talk out loud, but many of you do this sub-consciously anyway.  It’s a drill to try, and see if it makes you more situationally aware.

Perhaps some of you have other techniques you use, I’d love to hear what they are.

Anyway, as has been pointed out numerous time here, riding a bike is safe.  Safer than almost any other form of transportation.  But accidents (crashes) can happen, and it’s always good to know why.  As we get more experienced in our riding, we learn to eliminate the “one issue” causes of a crash.  But remember that a crash can be a sum or combination of several issues … and thus it helps if we can remain situationally aware even while dealing with what’s right in front of us.

Cite a study saying cyclists are only responsible for 10% of crashes and you might as well light a match to a field of tinder. The bike-advocacy community wants nothing more than to prove motorists are the culprits most of the time. A recent article regarding a Toronto crash “study” has ignited a new wildfire of exuberant victim-hood. Despite a correction printed on the original article, the misinformation continues to be spread as validation of what most cyclists desperately want to believe.

Ed CycleDog Wagner has done some digging to find the source of the dubious information. Please read his article in the Examiner, and pass it on.

Komanoff’s study – if that’s the right word for it – is available on the Cars Suck website. A reasonable person would be hard pressed to expect unbiased, objective information from an organization with such a name, and in fact, Komanoff’s study is little more than an anti-motoring diatribe laced with emotionally loaded phrases. For that matter, the study itself is called Killed by Automobile. If you really want to read it, follow this link to Cars Suck, then click on Research/Killed by Automobile. Please wash your hands afterward. This is a raw exercise in fear mongering, as in riding-a-bike-is-a-horribly-dangerous-experience, and as any rational, experienced cyclist knows, it’s totally wrong.

What’s also interesting about the spread of this misinformation is that there was one piece of useful info in the original article. As far as I’ve seen, Andy at Carbon Trace is the only blogger to pick up on the tips offered for staying safe. Those tips are actually pretty good and worth repeating. But validation of victimhood is so much more compelling.

Yeah, I get it.

I understand the desire to believe that motorists are at fault most of the time. When I started on this advocacy journey, I wanted to believe that, too. I can tell you exactly why. It wasn’t because I hated cars. It was because the way I was riding made me invisible and unpredictable to motorists. As a result, I had frequent conflicts with them, which I naturally assumed were 100% their fault. Plus, it doesn’t take too much observation of mindless motoring behavior to see we have a problem.

We have lots of discussion about personal responsibility here — for both motorists and bicyclists. We write a lot about irresponsible, aggressive and distracted driving because our traffic culture IS in need of improvement. But no amount of finger-pointing and blame-shifting will change the facts on the ground. Consistently, half of crashes involving roadway cyclists are caused by illegal cycling behavior — wrong-way riding, ninja riding and right-of-way violations. Additionally, the majority of motorist-caused crashes are avoidable by smarter cycling practices. Many crashes involve sidewalk cyclists, and most roadway cyclists expose themselves to increased crash risk by hugging the edge of the road. A simple observation of cycling behavior in most U.S. cities will corroborate crash study findings. Mindless (or childish) cycling behavior is epidemic.

But it’s not effective.

It’s very convenient to blame the bullies in the big scary cars, but cyclists have way more control over their safety than most of them employ. Every time people grab onto something that allows them to think it’s someone else’s fault, they get distracted from fixing the things over which they DO have control. Doesn’t it make so much more sense to change the things we can, first? Then go after the external problems. As with any other aspect of life, once we solve our self-created problems, we have a much clearer view of the big picture. A clear view is essential to effective problem-solving!

So, as Ed says, don’t fall for it this.

[It's] not advocating for better conditions for cyclists. It’s political gamesmanship and nakedly partisan. This does nothing to improve conditions on our roads. It merely serves to increase conflicts.

There are better ways to change the traffic culture.

Let’s remove the victim-advocates’ fuel by promoting empowerment-based advocacy and empowered cycling. Really, this should be easy. These are the two basic paradigms being offered:

1. Cycling is safe. With a few simple skills, cyclists can be empowered to control their environment and operate efficiently and safely on any road to reach any destination. Most motorists and traffic movements are predictable, so operating according to the rules of that system allows for safe and efficient travel, regardless of speed. Most motorists are cooperative and courteous of a confident, predictable cyclist. What they need from others is equity, tolerance and the support of law enforcement and the justice system to curb aggressive behavior and keep reckless drivers out of the system. A little intelligent infrastructure here and there enhances our access and enjoyment.
2. Cycling is dangerous. Cyclists are helpless, vulnerable and at the mercy of motorists who are mostly reckless, incompetent and unpredictable. Cyclists need expensive, special infrastructure to go anywhere safely. Most destinations are inaccessible by bike.

Why is #2 so much more appealing to bike advocates and so many cyclists?

But what I don’t think the NYC people knew or cared about was that the same TV stations that aired those PSA’s reached out a hundred miles in all directions  to  millions more people that didn’t live in NYC, and out in the hinterland of suburbia, in upper New York State, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut where green traffic lights (never mind pedestrian signals) were few and far between.

This gave license to motorists to mow down pedestrians by being able to say, “See, they didn’t walk the distance to the light (and that could be miles), so they are wrong to try and cross there. Walk at the green, not in between”

I am totally serious that this argument was and is still being  made. Even today you will hear “Cross at the green, not in between” used as a defense (or more likely as a taunt)  of crazy driving. It has become a bit of pop culture.

So now there is new PSA brought to us by a whole consortium of councils and associations about cycling. Tell me, does it “do” as little for you as it does for me?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COwwbhB4Yg

Rather than make a new post, I added to this one.

From Alaska, here is another one that makes me crazy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wks4kz1DR3s

“Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.”

Did you see the Weekly article “How I got Hit“? I’ve been meaning to get to this for 2 weeks, but I’ve been busy with work… and I was grumpy. I’m still busy and grumpy, but I can’t let this go any longer.

The quote above has been attributed to dozens of people. Whatever its origin, it is a quote that every pilot can recite.

I got my private pilot’s license in 1996. I worked at it harder than I did on my college degree, probably because it meant more to me than my college degree. More than any other education, flight school shaped my thinking about actions, reactions, judgment, consequences and personal responsibility.

One of the key things I learned in flight school is to identify the chain of events and decisions that lead to a crash. We would look at crashes and talk about how they happened and how they could have been avoided. It’s a whole lot less painful to learn from someone else’s judgment errors than your own!

The thing that is drilled into a pilot’s psyche is that the PIC (pilot in command) is responsible for EVERYTHING. You can’t pass the buck and there are no accidents. It sure would be nice if the rest of our society operated like that.

How I got Hit

I was naive. I shouldn’t have been. I’d been riding for 15 years. But I really didn’t understand the dynamics of bike lanes because I didn’t have much experience with them. What I saw was a line of backed up traffic and an inviting, reserved space just for me to pass all those stopped cars. Suckers. This, I thought, was the bicycle version of an HOV lane—my reward for driving a bicycle.

It was peak rush hour on Edgewater Drive. I sailed past the traffic. I vaguely knew to look for right turn signals. I kinda knew to look for cars turning left through gaps at intersections. But I had a whole lot more faith than was warranted… assuming others placed the same significance on that reserved bicycle space that I did.

As I approached the intersection at Harvard, there was a Lynx bus stopped in the lane. I could see the left-turn lane and it was clear. But as I passed the bus, the front end of a jeep was suddenly in my path. I had no time to react. I had not taken the Road I class, so I didn’t know any emergency maneuvers — like the Instant Turn or Quick Stop. I hit the front right side of the car and catapulted over the hood. I landed on my forehead (crushing the front of my helmet) and scraping my chin on the pavement. I was a little stunned, but intact. The bike’s front wheel was tacoed and I’d put a sizable dent in the jeep. I ended up with a crushed finger tip (smashed between the brake lever and the jeep), a sprained wrist, road rash on my chin and a nasty bruise on my ankle.

It turned out the motorist, a nice young man, had tried to make an illegal crossing of Edgewater. The streets are off-set and he had tried to make a left into the center lane, then cross in front of traffic to make a right onto Harvard. He couldn’t see the bike lane and I couldn’t see him coming from the other side of the bus.

OPD charged him with failure to yield. The crash was legally his fault.

But what did I learn?

I was riding in a sight-line shadow. I had a vague awareness of the dangers, but I really was operating too fast to react to them. I was giving more weight to my false sense of security than to the potential risks. The ability to pass stopped traffic is a great advantage to riding a bike, but it comes with risk. It must be done with caution, not speed.

I’m not much of a queue-jumper anymore. It makes me nervous. I tend to look for routes that avoid roads with lines of stopped traffic (ahem, motorists DELAYING EACH OTHER). In the rare instances that I do pass a queue, I do it very slowly and cautiously.

The amazing thing about cycling is that it is so incredibly safe when you understand where the conflict points are. With adjustments in speed, knowing where to look and knowing where to position yourself, you can ride hundreds of thousands of crash-free miles. It’s funny how idiotic and incompetent I used to think motorists were and then how dramatically smarter they got when I changed my behavior.

I was biking on the sidewalk when…

So, back to the Weekly article. Um, what was the freakin’ point? It begins with the typical anthropomorphized vehicles and the sensational crash rankings:

All too often in Florida, bicycles and automobiles don’t get along. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study released in April pegged the Sunshine State as the leader in “pedacyclist” fatalities: 119 deaths, more than California (109) and New York (51).

It glosses over Mighk’s statements, then gives us the first-person crash descriptions. Lots of drama. Few details. No introspection. No takeaways. There is nothing constructive about the article. There are some clues there, though. So, Dear Readers, have a look and tell us what we might learn from these crashes.

Reality check

Cycling is not dangerous! It is, in fact, safer than driving a car. Making it seem dangerous by exaggerating a few personal crash stories with no analysis does a huge disservice to cycling and cyclists. Some people may think they achieve something by whining about how dangerous it is, but it has negative consequences. What it does is further feed the belief that we do not belong on the road. It feeds a system of injustice that devalues our lives because we’re foolish and have a death wish to do something so dangerous.

Could motorists be more aware, cautious and courteous? Of course! We have work to do in improving motorist behavior and attitudes. But in spite of a traffic culture that is way less than perfect, cycling on the road is SAFE. When Mighk analyzed bicycle crash reports from 2003 and 2004, he found that of all the crashes only 8% of the cyclists were riding on the road, with the flow of traffic and obeying the rules. What does that tell you?

CommuteOrlando’s challenge to the Weekly

Want to do something R A D I C A L? Come ride with us. Let us show you the Dance. Let us take you on a road you think is scary and show you how not to be scared. Let us show you… then tell your readers how a bicyclist finds empowerment to THRIVE on the streets of Orlando.

A better term would be “risky,” but not for the reasons you might think. Risk is created by behavior. Some risk can come from the behavior of others. But  crash statistics support that the risk is often perpetuated by the behavior of the cyclists themselves. It’s about the people, not the roads.

A few weeks ago, Mighk Wilson surveyed a small group of vehicular cyclists about their mileage and number of crashes. In his post, he also calculated an estimate of how often a car might pass the cyclist.  His conclusion:  huge numbers of cars pass without incident or accident — your crash risk is quite low.  It’s valuable to note that most of the cyclists who responded feel comfortable and confident on their bikes, and have ridden many miles on roads that the average person might consider “unsafe” for cyclists. Other Internet research (for instance, here) concludes that, in general, riding a bike is much less risky than riding in a car. So overall, we could conclude that roads are not “unsafe” for bicycling.

Perhaps what some people call “unsafe” is really an issue of “unpleasant.”  Cycling down University Blvd. can be unpleasant, due to higher speeds and higher volumes of traffic.  But Keri has shown that it is not unsafe — quite the opposite.

Infrastructure can be held accountable for increasing risk — think of bike lanes painted next to street-parked cars (dooring), the abrupt ending of bike lanes at intersections,  high speed limits on roads with reduced sight lines, potholes in the road, steep-angled railroad tracks, etc.

But do these infrastructure faux pas alone raise the bar to declare a road as being “unsafe?”  Riskier — possibly yes, and maybe even riskier to inexperienced cyclists. But unsafe? I don’t think so.

OK, maybe I’ve climbed out too far on this “unsafe” limb to make a point.  But any discussion of  (road) cycling being “unsafe” brings up such negative connotations.  It discourages people from trying it, or worse, it may encourage them to ride in ways that increase their risk. It encourages some motorists to think we have a death wish (relieving them of responsibility to be courteous and careful). I think we should all try to de-emphasize the use of negative, scary words like “unsafe” and find ways to show that cyclists really have a lot of control over their own safety. And there are so many other positives that outweigh any cycling negatives.

Agree?

So I’ve put all my answers together in one place.  Point your browser to:

http://mighkwilson.com/benefits/why-bicyclists-use-roadways/

If you bookmark it you can then easily reference it and paste it into e-mails, forums, etc.