Commute Orlando » Motorist Education

Too Complicated

Eric — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:21:02 +0000

I think I am on pretty safe ground when I say that eleven pages shouldn’t be necessary to explain a single, tiny aspect of traffic design to drivers.

Yet, that is exactly how many pages the City of Minneapolis used when they published “Bike Lane Basics” complete with diagrams just in case the text doesn’t do it for you. Here are all the different types of bike lanes a driver is likely to encounter in Minneapolis.

Nine different types of lanes. Nine different rules. Tons of ways to get a ticket.

It gets better. At intersections, they have something called “shared space” where the cars are supposed to yield to a cylist on his right when making a turn. Yet, the cyclist is instructed to, “use caution and assume turning or merging motorists
do not see you.”

Gee, I wonder why they wouldn’t see you. After all, you are in the bike lane which is supposed to make you safe from those evil cars that are trying to kill you.

I can assure you that motorists have absolutely no trouble seeing me when I am in the middle of the lane and crossing the intersection with the cars rather than staying way over to the right.

There is more to this publication, but you really have to read it to believe how complicated trying to comply with the law gets and how hard it will be to educate drivers and cyclists on how to use these things. We can’t even get cars to use all-way stop signs properly, but drivers are supposed to learn that,

Before turning across a cycle track, look over your right shoulder
and check for bicyclists approaching the intersection. If a bicyclist
is approaching the intersection, you must yield and let them pass
before turning. Bicyclists may be more difficult to see because they
could be coming from behind parked cars.

Emphasis mine.

Who Wooda Thunkit?

Eric — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:53:07 +0000

So I open my Google News this morning and this headline catches my eye.

Matt Reed: It’s time to let cyclists join traffic on Pineda Causeway

A bicyclist braves traffic on the Pineda Causeway. The state's two-year pilot project to test the feasibility of bike crossings might start later this year, at the soonest. / Photo by Malcolm Denemark

I don’t think I have ever read anything like this in a newspaper before.

Lacking a reasonable alternate route over the Indian River Lagoon, they risk tickets by disregarding a few small white signs that warn of a ban that makes no sense.

Total bicycle fatalities on the four-mile span during 10 years, according to the state Department of Transportation: One (1).

In 2002, a pair of 14-year-old boys were riding to the beach before dawn when they were run over by a drunken driver in a pickup truck.

and . . .

To the press, people act like it doesn’t happen. But I watch it daily. The safety records say as much about today’s levelheaded drivers as it does the safe bicyclists.

“We really don’t have any record of bike accidents on the Pineda,” said Leigh Holt, Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization program manager.

So, by all means, let’s get on with a pilot project we already know will work.

Did I get that right? Did he actually say that riding on a highway wasn’t as dangerous as people think it is? I don’t think he convinced whomever writes the photo captions.

Illinois to start tracking bicycle ‘dooring’ collisions

Eric — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:34:08 +0000

From the Chicago Trib:

Quinn sought the change after reading a March 21 Chicago Tribune story. The article reported on a long-standing IDOT policy to exclude dooring crashes from annual state traffic accident statistics because the motor vehicles involved in such collisions are not moving.

I don’t know if Florida even has a policy one way or the other.

IDOT officials expressed concerns that such a requirement would burden police with additional paperwork and that there were few complaints from the public about doorings.

Uhhhmm. So which is it?

“We hope to use the data to obtain funding for education safety so drivers as well as bicyclists know what the risks are and what the factors are to create safer roadways,” said Dan Persky, director of education at the alliance.

Talk to me! I know how to avoid getting doored.

Why Anti-Car Measures Keep Failing

Eric — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:04:35 +0000

Bureaucrats can’t change the way we drive … but they keep trying

By: Fred Barnes
Weekly Standard

For most Americans—make that most of mankind—the car is an instrument of mobility, flexibility, and speed. Yet officials in Washington, transportation experts, state and local functionaries, planners, and transit officials are puzzled why their efforts to lure people from their cars continue to fail.

The Obama administration is only the latest to be bewildered. It has proposed every alternative it can think of to the car – high-speed rail, light rail, mass transit in general, bikeways, bus lanes, walking paths, the return of streetcars. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has embraced the “livability” movement, which is anti-car.

Those are just the positive attractions. There are punitive policies, too, both active and passive. Urban growth boundaries have put a virtual wall around cities like Portland, Oregon, to prevent sprawl and the cars that come with it. Limits in many locations on parking lots and on-street parking discourage the use of cars.

Refusal to ease traffic congestion by building more roads and inertia in the face of rising gasoline prices make driving a car less appealing, even if those policies are not pursued with that purpose in mind. Restricted lanes for buses and bikes often infuriate urban drivers.

President Obama and LaHood have also tried persuasion and hype. In his State of the Union, Obama touted high-speed trains accessible to 80 percent of Americans, as if the country should be clamoring for them. LaHood envisions soothingly “livable” neighborhoods with “affordable housing next to walking paths and biking paths.”

None of this has worked. Nor did President George W. Bush’s warning about a nation “addicted to oil” or the Clinton administration’s support of technology-driven ideas like “smart highways,” which became a code for building fewer roads or lanes.

The simple fact is most people prefer to travel by car because it’s convenient, which mass transit rarely is. They can go from place to place directly, choosing their own route and schedule. They can do so day and night. They can stop as frequently as they wish for any reason (do errands, drop off kids, etc.). This phenomenon has a name: freedom.

Subways made sense decades ago—in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago—when jobs were concentrated downtown. Now 90 percent of jobs are outside the downtown in the top 50 urban areas, where mass transit can’t compete with cars. Now the average commute by car takes half the time of mass transit. And the supposed cost benefits of mass transit, based on the old center city model, aren’t applicable to decentralized metropolitan areas.

Since 1982, when the Highway Trust Fund began to pay for non-highway projects, more than $200 billion in federal dollars has been spent on urban mass transit. Total spending at all levels of government has reached $1 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars).

The result: Transit’s market share of urban passenger miles has fallen from 2.5 percent to 1.6 percent. In Los Angeles—where two subway lines, three light rail lines, and one busway have been built—the ridership on mass transit is lower than it was in 1985.

The story is similar in Washington, Baltimore, and San Francisco, each having built a modern, high-quality rail system in the 1970s and ’80s. Here again, the share of passengers on mass transit in those metropolitan areas has declined.

Washington is a special case. Roughly 19 percent of the jobs in the Washington urban area are downtown. Not surprisingly, the Metro rail system experiences high ridership and, according to transportation consultant Wendell Cox, “represents transit’s best chance for removing cars from the road.” Despite massive traffic congestion, few have been.

But Metro isn’t at fault. The transportation plan for the Washington area, drafted in the 1960s, called for one or two more beltways outside the one that was built. They would have diverted traffic on I-95, the major artery along the East Coast, from merging with Washington traffic. Opponents insisted the beltways would lead to development in pristine rural areas. Neither of the outer beltways was ever built. The development occurred anyway.

More broadly, there’s no evidence anywhere in the United States—or the world, for that matter—that investment in mass transit in recent decades has reduced congestion. At the same time, the price of mass transit goes up.

The price tag on the proposed high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles has risen from $43 billion to $65 billion over the past two years. No wonder three governors—Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Scott of Florida—have cancelled high-speed train projects.

So who’s to blame for the overwhelming preference for automobiles over mass transit? Do Americans have an irrational love affair with cars? No. A car not only saves time, it’s safe, increasingly fuel efficient, and less polluting than ever. True, emission standards are a government intrusion loathed by conservatives. But they work.

Cars and drivers, sad to say, don’t function in a free market world. Both are highly regulated, sometimes for good, sometimes not. If the law of supply and demand were operative, we’d see a smarter approach to improving transportation in America.

The supply of cars would create a demand for more roads and bridges to accommodate them, just as food lines outside a grocery store create demand for more grocery stores. Instead we get more mass transit, demand for which is imperceptible, and fresh rounds of confusion among officials whose plans are destined to come to naught.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

The Value of Training

Eric — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:37:30 +0000

Today’s newspaper brings us a story about a helicopter that landed safely after suffering from complete engine failure. Neither the pilot, nor the passengers were injured. More remarkably, the helicopter was at 200 feet of altitude when the engine quit. The pilot, without thinking much about it, executed something called “auto-rotation” which means that the main propeller is purposefully disconnected from the gearing which cause the main rotor to spin freely and the helicopter floats down, much like a maple tree seed.

At 200 feet, this pilot didn’t have much time to think. Hesitation would have meant death and not just for him, and not just for his passengers, but also for anyone on the ground. It’s not as though helicopters can glide for a while and decisions can be thought through. It has to be instinctive and to make something instinctive, takes forethought and planning.

Twenty years ago, rather than having a happy ending with a busted tail rotor, this story would have ended very differently. The change in the last 20 years is because of improved training. Now, pilots don’t just receive chalk talks and flight time, but by using computer aided flight simulators, dangers can be simulated and training can reduce or eliminate a potential catastrophe.

Helicopters and automobiles share something in common: they both crash — a lot. Yet, while helicopter and aircraft training has improved dramatically in the last 20 years, automobile training has declined to the point that a Georgia legislator has suggested that licensing is no longer necessary. Drivers no longer have to take any classes and the driving test has been made easier. No more parallel parking.

In fact, drivers have so little experience and training that they no longer know what to do when their Ford suffers a rear wheel blowout of a Firestone tire.

Yet, a Google search about Motorist Education turns up numerous links going to cycling websites, but few to cites that talk about motorist concerns. Seems that cyclists are the only ones concerned about it. Motorists think they are doing a fine job.

The Media

Eric — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:41:08 +0000

I keep reading and seeing things about the Florida laws that I am pretty sure are wrong. Made worse is that the media quotes people — “authorities” — who are also wrong. So the the wrong statements get amplified.

Here are two things I saw just in the last week that made my jaw drop.

From The Suncoast News titled NPR police targeting jaywalkers to reduce carnage

During two enforcement sweeps in January along U.S. 19, officers wrote 34 citations to pedestrian violators, five warnings, six moving violations and one nonmoving violation, according to a report from Sgt. Erik Jay, the department’s traffic supervisor. . . .

Most citations were handed out to pedestrians who failed to cross at marked crosswalks. If a pedestrian safety brochure doesn’t convince violators to change their habits, $62.50 traffic tickets might persuade them. . . .

The worst spot for pedestrians seems to be U.S. 19 at Green Key Road, Pascalli said while watching the intersection from an unmarked Dodge Charger. Walkers tend to dart among the U.S. 19 traffic, about a block north of Main Street, to get to restaurants and a small motel. . . .

“People don’t understand that’s a violation,” Pascalli said about jaywalking. “A lot of people don’t understand the law.” Pedestrians usually tell an officer that they have to walk too far out of the way to get to a marked crosswalk. . . .

I don’t know if the reporter blew the quotes or the police don’t understand the law.

Then, there is this one from a Tampa TV station where an attorney redefines where cyclists must ride. I’ll give you a hint. It is not “possible.” He has made up a new one that I’d not heard before.

Florida is a dangerous place to ride a bicycle. Dr. Robert Niedbalec was just killed riding his, along Fletcher Avenue.

His death marks the 12th since last July, of cyclists killed on our roads. Niedbalec was apparently doing everything right; he was in the bike lane, and going with traffic.

His death brings more questions and frustrations. Attorney Brian Harrington joined Good Day to discuss what can be done to make roads safer. Harrington is also the former president of USA Triathlon.

The best part is at the end, where the reporter, in incredulous voice asks him point blank what motorists are to do about these obvious scofflaws.

Wasn’t there anyone from the FBA in that area available to appear on TV?

It doesn’t take a lot of work to see many more examples, but the question is what can be done about it?

“They’ll Do It Every Time”*

Eric — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:46:20 +0000

I’m not anti-bike, but

followed by some cockamamie statistic and then some dreadful interpretation of the motor vehicle laws.

It’s a pattern we have all seen far too many times. And here it is again, all in one paragraph, from a fellow applauding the new NYPD crackdown on cyclists. But in a way, his complaint about cyclists not riding on streets that have bike lanes makes perfect sense . . . it is another logical conclusion to painting lines and requiring cyclists to stay on one side of the painted line.

*thanks, with a tip of the hat, to Jimmy Hatlo

When people ask me why I’m for the NYPD’s new bicycle safety enforcement initiative that’s poised to start, I have a very straightforward answer for them: It’s going to save lives, period.

As president of the 84th Precinct Community Council, I talk to cops all the time. Just the other day I was asked to come over to the station house on Gold Street to address the 20 new cops we’ve received. I told these young officers flat out that they shouldn’t be shy about giving out tickets, because sanctioning people with tickets will ultimately save someone’s life.

I’m not anti-bike, but I follow police statistics: About 90 percent of the bicyclists killed in this city died, in part, because they were not following the rules of the road. Obviously, these deaths were tragedies and they never should have happened. But in many of these cases the bicyclists were violating the rules in some way. They were either on roads without bike lanes, going through a red light or riding the wrong way down the street. The “ghost bikes” you see in the different neighborhoods that honor these fallen bicyclists only tell half the story.

When a cop pulls a car over and gives a motorist a ticket for driving while holding his cellphone to his ear, the cop’s not being petty or cruel. He or she probably saved that person’s life because the driver won’t be so fast to talk on a cellphone the next time he or she gets behind the wheel.

The same thing pertains to bicyclists. A neighbor of mine once complained to me that he got a ticket for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk on his own block. All I could tell him was, “I don’t think you’re going to do that again.”

And it was true, he had already taken the lesson to heart — he walked his bike down the street to complain to me about the ticket!

Every single day, I drive to Borough Hall and every single day I see both motorists and bicyclists breaking one rule or another.

Often I see a bicyclist with three toddlers sitting on the back of his bike. Now, when the light is red, he waits at the crosswalk, but as soon as he feels that he’s not going to get squashed, he zips into the street — with three little babies in tow! If that’s not playing with fire, I don’t know what is.

But I bet if he got a ticket, he would think twice about jumping the light again. That’s because in the end, proper enforcement saves lives, no matter if you’re a bicyclist, a motorist or a pedestrian.

Leslie Lewis is president of the 84th Precinct Community Council.

EDITOR’S NOTE: It is not illegal to cycle on a road without a bike lane, but we made a conscious decision not to alter Lewis’s opinion piece.

Helping Motorists With Lane Positioning

Mighk — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:08:26 +0000

“‘I’ll see it when I believe it’ is more accurate than ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’”

– Social psychologist Karl Weick

Regular readers of this blog know we recommend an assertive lane position when the lane is too narrow to share. Our rationale was initially that when a cyclist is in the right wheel track, some motorists will still attempt to squeeze past within the lane instead of making a full lane change. That’s still true. But we’ve also observed that a more assertive lane position — either in the center of the lane or just left of center — gets motorists to change lanes earlier on roads with more than one lane in each direction.

Our hypothesis was that from a significant distance, a cyclist in the right wheel track (where the League of American Bicyclists has long recommended cyclists travel if the lane is too narrow to share) looks like he or she is on the edge line, so the motorist stays in that lane until he or she gets close enough to realize there’s not really adequate width for safe passing. By then the opportunity for changing lanes may have closed. The motorist then either waits and stews, or “shoves” his way through between the cyclist and the traffic in the next lane.

When the cyclist is in the center of the lane, it’s immediately clear to the motorist that passing within the lane is impossible, so the driver changes lanes at the earliest opportunity.

The added benefit we’ve discovered using a video camera on the dashboard of a following car is that drivers farther back are alerted to the situation by the lane changers ahead of them, and get to see the cyclist themselves at an earlier opportunity.

Watch the video a couple times. Notice how relatively empty the right lane is when I’m in the more assertive position, and how there are more cars passing closer and staying in my lane longer when I’m in the right tire track.

In the above image: The Lane Control run was westbound on University. (1) marks the camera car position when the driver spots the cyclist, (2) is the cyclist’s position when spotted, the red line indicates the distance needed to slow from 45mph (speed limit) to 15mph (cyclist’s speed), (3) marks where the camera car passes the cyclist. The Right Tire Track run was eastbound. (4) marks the camera car position when the driver spots the cyclist, (5) is the cyclist’s position when spotted. Note: the cars were slowed well below the speed limit by the indecision of earlier drivers and lack of visibility for following drivers.

This is of course only a pair of runs down this road. In order to get truly sound data we’d need many more runs.

If all we wished to do was keep motorists happy we’d ride on the sidewalks, but that subjects us to many more conflicts and hazards.

Imagine if we could help motorists see that the assertive cyclist lane position actually makes their job easier and reduces delay.

Video Notes

These runs were chosen for this video because they had virtually the same traffic count (35 for the Lane Control run and 36 for the Right Tire Track run).

In the Lane Control run 13 vehicles were originally in the right lane, 12 made a complete lane change, 1 made a right turn. There were 22 vehicles in other lanes.

In the Right Tire Track run 17 vehicles were originally in the right lane, 10 did not make a complete lane change (only 3 of those had vehicles near them in the center lane). There were 19 vehicles in the other lanes. Take a look at that last line of vehicles that remained in the right lane. The other 2 lanes were almost completely open. Had they all changed lanes when they spotted the cyclist, they would have been past him 1/4 mile from the intersection and would not have had to slow down.

To see Lane Control in action with much higher traffic counts, see this video of the UCF Bike Bus.

Crosswalk Workshop II – October 31st

Bill — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:49:07 +0000

Hot on the heels of our first Crosswalk Workshop is the upcoming Crosswalk Workshop II on Sunday, October 31st. We plan to work the crosswalk on Edgewater Drive at Shady Lane Drive at the 7-11 convenience store.

Please plan to join us between 3:00 and 5:00 PM to meet with local pedestrians, explain to them the proper use of the crosswalk, hand out brochures, and to exercise the crosswalk to instruct motorists on the need to yield.

If you want a T-shirt, you can order them from Big Frog in Winter Park, 321-972-8879. Just ask for the I Stop 4 Pedestrians shirt (in the Bike/Walk Central Florida file).

Since it will be Halloween, costumes are optional. What would really be great is to have someone dressed up as the Chicken That Crossed The Road! Let me know if you’re interested in this very prestigious position.

Contact me at wbcarpenter5@att.net, 407-504-2455, or leave a reply to this post with any questions or for more information.

Check out video from a previous visit to this crosswalk:

There’s work to be done! See you there!

Take Back Our Streets – Crosswalk Workshop

Bill — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:18:19 +0000

Kasön Bailey’s tragic death can become another traffic death statistic or a springboard for bringing greater safety and convenience to Metro Orlando’s streets for pedestrians and bicyclists. I’m choosing to pursue the latter.

On Sunday, October 17th at 3:00 pm, the first Crosswalk Workshop will be held just 100 yards from the site of the crash that killed Kasön. Keri and I hope to get together a group of six to twelve participants who will demonstrate the proper use of the crosswalk and talk to local residents about the importance of proper crosswalk use. We’ll have brochures to hand out, and Keri has done a T-shirt design that you will be able to purchase from Big Frog tomorrow or Saturday.

We’ll take a couple of hours to meet with local residents who are out walking, explain to them what we’re doing, and demonstrate for them the proper use of the crosswalk. We anticipate that the residents we contact will spread the word and encourage others to use the crosswalk properly. By pedestrians using the crosswalk assertively, motorists will learn to respect the crosswalk, which will encourage more pedestrians to use the crosswalk instead of crossing at random points, which will get more motorist compliance, and so on.

Please call (407-504-2455), e-mail me (wbcarpenter5@att.net), or leave a comment if you are interested in participating. Let me know if you would like to purchase a T-shirt. And thanks!