Commute Orlando » Motorists

Want Respect on The Road? Ride a Recumbent

Bill — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:58:44 +0000

On The TerraTrike

I will preface my remarks by stating this is not a report on a scientifically proper experiment, but relating my person experience. In other words, strictly anecdotal evidence.

I recently had a total shoulder replacement, left side. Knowing I couldn’t ride my standard bike for a while, I looked into a recumbent to use while my shoulder mended. I found Suncoast Bicycles in Inverness had TerraTrikes for rent. As soon as I could drive, I went over and picked one up. I rented a TerraTrike Sport for one month. (Being the eternal optimist that I am, I feel assured I will be back on my regular bike by then.)

Riding the recumbent is a blast. It handles very well and it’s just fun riding so close to the ground. (Can you pick up the newspaper without dismounting?) And it’s pretty comfortable. The TerraTrike has single rear wheel drive with two wheels that steer in front. I find this configuration to be very stable and easy to maneuver, although the turning radius is large. I’m riding it everywhere I rode my standard bike. It’s a little less efficient than my standard bike with more moving parts, so it doesn’t go quite as fast. But not by much. Getting used to using a slightly different set of muscles took just a couple of days.

I was wary about riding in traffic. Being so low to the ground makes my visibility significantly different than when I’m on a standard bike. To help visibility I have an orange flag that sticks up about six feet and I wear a high visibility jacket or shirt, as well as having a red strobe light on the back of my helmet.

You may have heard me complain about the bad treatment I frequently get from motor vehicle drivers, especially on certain roads. Close passing, honking and various unfriendly verbal admonitions have been commonplace in the past.

Well, glory be! Not only have I not had any adverse reaction while riding the recumbent, but drivers give me wide berth, changing lanes to pass most of the time. If they do stay in my lane they slow way down and inch past. Even on the RBLR arterial. Many wave and smile at me. They wave me through intersections even though they have the right-of-way. I ride around with a big grin on my face most of the time, hardly believing my good fortune.

So why is this increase in respect happening? Here are the variables: Recumbent bike, trike, new beard (check picture). Could it be the novelty of the recumbent? Could it be my beard? (But drivers don’t see that when approaching from the rear.) Could it be the trike which apparently to the driver takes up more of the road than a regular bike? Could it be that because I’m closer the the ground they give wider berth since I’m less visible to them? Or finally, could it be what I call the “Crazy Unpredictability” (CU) factor, wherein drivers figure the sum total of what they see is far enough off the normal scale they are compelled to give it wide berth? And in connection with the CU factor they also smile and wave so I won’t do anything to harm or upset them. I personally think it’s the CU factor combined with decreased visibility. Drivers are thinking, “better stay well away from that thing”.

Admittedly this is only based on 11 days experience. But my experience has been so exceptional I had to give you all a report. I’ll be interested to learn any of your own experiences with recumbents. Enjoy your ride and stay safe.

Entitlement to Speed

Keri — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:53:30 +0000

Check out this news report from 1978.

When forced to go the speed limit, drivers became violent and dangerous. Wow!

As a single vehicle going the speed limit (which is now 70 in most places) on the highway, I’ve been bullied by other drivers.

Also, note the difference in fuel efficiency at 55 vs 65.

Thanks to Eliot, for sending the video!

Honesty takes a holiday

Eric — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:11:35 +0000

This case came across my radar today. It involves the case of a LEO driving a patrol car and striking a pedestrian. Apparently, Brevard County uses two people patrol cars and, well . . . I’ll let you read the rest and draw your own opinion.

County Judge Kelly McKibben acquitted a Brevard County sheriff’s deputy whose patrol car struck and killed a pedestrian last September.

In her seven-page judgment for acquittal, McKibben wrote the state could not prove Vincent Marino-Vitani was indeed the person driving the patrol car when it struck and killed 65-year-old Henrietta Strong on State Road 520 near Wilcox Avenue in Cocoa.

-MORE-

What this means is that a LEO refused to step up and take his or her medicine. It was a patrol car, so an LEO must have or should have been driving it.

Sidewalk Riders: Accept the Risk

Keri — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:02:05 +0000

I turn onto Maguire Blvd. from Woodcock or Lawton on a daily basis. Both intersections have obstructed sight lines such that you can’t see the much of the sidewalk or road from behind the stop bar. I’ve learned to stop first where I can see the sidewalk and look for cyclists before pulling forward to where I can see the road. This is self-preservation more than anything. I don’t want to be injured by a sidewalk cyclist blowing into the crosswalk. I’ve had enough close calls with sidewalk cyclists at both intersections that I’m sure I would have hit one already if it wasn’t for my vigilance.

Most people do not stop twice at a stop sign. They drive until the point they can see the road and stop there. Crosswalks and stop bars have become visual noise, many drivers don’t even see them. Part of that is general lack of driver education and awareness, but it’s also a natural response to ubiquitous sight line obstructions.

If you’re not accustomed to stopping at stop bars, take a ride around the city and make a conscious point of doing so at every stop sign. Notice how much mental energy it takes to deliberately stop ten or more feet from where you can actually see the cross street traffic. Also, take note of how often you have to block the crosswalk (or unmarked extension of the sidewalk) in order to see far enough down the street, and how far you have to pull into some crosswalks just to see down the sidewalk (you don’t need to look way down the sidewalk for a pedestrian, but you do for an insouciant bicyclist).

This morning I rode down to Target. The traffic light at Maguire and Woodcock was in blinky mode, so it was technically a stop sign. The SUV driver in front of me (who had passed me courteously) was turning right.

He rolled through the stop bar and stopped just ahead of the crosswalk, where he was able to see southbound traffic on Maguire. As I pulled up to the stop bar, a sidewalk cyclist (on a road bike, with her hands on the drops) rode into view and crossed behind the SUV. She looked at the vehicle, with its rear bumper protruding into the crosswalk, and muttered, “jerk.”

Since she only became visible to me as she was a few feet from the crosswalk, I don’t know how fast she had been going or if she had to slow down as the SUV crossed. The photo on the right shows the view I had of the sidewalk as I approached the stop bar. I was at this point when she became visible to me. The SUV had arrived a few seconds before and was already across the crosswalk. Because he was making a right, he was focused on the southbound lanes and may not have looked to the right at all. There was also a car waiting to turn left out of the mall.

The middle photo on the right is a northbound sidewalk rider’s view of the intersection. The bottom one is a driver’s view (or lack thereof) of the Maguire southbound lanes from the stop bar on Woodcock.

The grumbling sidewalk rider wasn’t unique. I’ve heard many a sidewalk rider complain bitterly about how oblivious motorists are and how they’re always pulling through the crosswalk or turning in front of them. Yet they’ll aggressively argue for their use of the sidewalk vs the road.

The complaint about motorists ignoring crosswalks is legitimate. It’s a problem. But it’s a more legitimate complaint for pedestrians to make than sidewalk bicyclists. Pedestrians are usually standing on the curb waiting to cross, while bicyclists are approaching the crosswalk at many times the speed of a pedestrian. It takes only a little bit of mindfulness to detect and yield to a pedestrian. It takes a conscious effort to search for and assess the speed of a sidewalk cyclist.

To follow the letter of the law, we should all stop at the stop bar and look both ways before inching forward to where we can see. I try to do it when driving my car and my bike and I find it takes quite a bit of mindfulness (a state that is easier to maintain on the bike than in the car). Do you do that at every intersection when you drive a car? Do you on a bicycle?

Part of coexisting on the roadway is understanding the physical and perceptual limitations of other drivers. Motorists are unlikely to give you comfortable passing clearance if you hug the curb and invite them to squeeze past in a narrow lane. And they’re unlikely to stop and look for you approaching on the sidewalk at ten times the speed of a pedestrian. Especially if you’re northbound on a southbound sidewalk and their focus area is the southbound travel lanes. Choosing to ride in a way that significantly increases risk and conflict by making yourself invisible or irrelevant and then getting mad at motorists is a like banging your head against a concrete wall and getting mad at the wall. If you’re going to ride on the sidewalk, know how the limitations of other drivers affect your safety and accept the risk.

Please don’t interpret this as an admonition against ever using the sidewalk. I will use a sidewalk once in a while if circumstances make it significantly more convenient. I accept the risk when I do it. I ride slowly, give way to any peds and approach driveways and intersections with extreme caution, prepared to stop (if I need to use a sidewalk downtown, I walk the bike). This isn’t a convenient way to travel significant distances, but it’s sometimes more convenient for a block or two than, say, turning left onto a busy multi-lane road and then left again off it 1,000 feet later. Especially if one or both left turns is lacking a traffic signal to facilitate the turn.

Being Irrelevant

Mighk — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:37:51 +0000

I experienced a superb example this morning of how bike lanes can make cyclists irrelevant.

Rosalind Avenue through downtown Orlando has a designated bike lane. While it’s next to on-street parking, it is wide enough for a cyclist to stay out of the door zone, and in the morning there are very few cars parked there anyway. Since Rosalind is one-way, there is no concern about left-cross conflicts and crashes.

Relatively few motorists make right turns from Rosalind in the morning, as most of the large office buildings are on the left. Still, I always keep an eye open for right-turners. I’d have a very tough time making the case to a police officer or judge that staying in the bike lane at that time and place would put me at risk, and of course we now have a mandatory use law…

As I approached Church Street this morning I saw a van coming up in my mirror, right turn signal flashing. Seeing we would be reaching the intersection at about the same time, I placed all my attention on that vehicle. The signal had been green a while, and wouldn’t be changing soon. Moving out of the bike lane was not an option; she was too close.

As we both came to the intersection, sure enough, the driver turned right across my path. A bit of braking on my part averted a collision, though at nowhere near the level of an emergency stop. I yelled out “Hey!,” but saw not the slightest hint of a reaction from the driver. She pulled into a parking garage and I figured it wasn’t worth my time to pursue her further.

There was no other traffic around for her to be concerned about. No pedestrians, no potential conflicts with other vehicles. It wasn’t even one of those situations in which the cyclist is going fast, the motorist passes, get well ahead, misjudges the cyclist’s speed, and assumes the cyclist is well behind. No, we reached the intersection at virtually the same time.

My presence was simply irrelevant to her intentions at that moment.

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.

$5 per Gallon by 2012

Mighk — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:05:50 +0000

From CBS News:

“John Hofmeister, an ex-president of Shell Oil, says we’re looking at $5 a gallon gas in 2012.”

From my observations, industry insiders tend to low-ball their price predictions. On the other hand, he’s calling for more drilling, so he may be inflating the number in order to scare people into supporting it.

If the latter is true, he’s being very deceitful. Our capacity to increase oil production is rather tiny compared to the amount of global production. And since oil is traded and priced at the global level, any increase in U.S. production would have no noticeable effect on the global price. The only ones to benefit from increased drilling in the U.S. would be the oil companies.

For solid information on oil supply, check out The Oil Drum.

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.

Assisting the Inattentive

Keri — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:53:03 +0000

Last night I clicked on a news video on the bbc, before a story, there was an ad for Mercedes Benz that got my attention. I’ve searched all over to find it and post it here, but have been unsuccessful. I did transcribe it. It consists of brief shots of the face of a driver telling a story with transitions to related roadway footage.

driver #1: “I was drifting into the other lane…
driver #2: “It got my attention, telling me that I wasn’t paying attention…
driver #3: I had no idea the guy in front of me had stopped short, but my car did…
driver #2: my Mercedes did.

Then the narrator comes on and talks about the car’s Attention-Assist system. I didn’t transcribe that part. But I did some googling.

I found this video:

And some articles:

Mercedes-Benz showcases technology that can predict — and avoid — crashes

I tried wandering out of my lane, and that triggered a system — available now on Benz cars — that jiggles the wheel to shake you awake. It’s effective. Then I tried getting all jerky in my driving movements, and that triggers a sensor that decides you’re too sleepy to drive: An image of a coffee cup appears, and a gentle suggestion to pull over and take a catnap.

I had great fun with a Volvo in Gothenburg years ago driving into an inflatable dummy of a car. A sensor in the wagon recognized the obstacle and slowed the car down: Even though we still hit the dummy, we hit it at about 30 percent of the speed we’d have done otherwise. Mercedes is working with a similar system, which recognizes objects 200 feet away and slows you down even if your foot is pressing the accelerator.

Car Safety Technology: Crash Avoidance

For most of the history of auto manufacturing, carmakers’ efforts in the area of safety have been devoted to developing “passive” safety features — seat belts, air bags, building a stronger frame for the cabin, side-impact door beams, etc. All those things help you stay safe once you are involved in an accident.

But just as advanced technology has changed almost every other industry, so too has it changed the automotive industry, leading to the design of more “active” safety features.

It started with now-common features like anti-lock brakes (ABS) and electronic stability control systems (ESC). But in recent years, engineers have taken safety technology to a new level. And these days, they spend more time and money researching and developing “crash avoidance” features and technologies. These computerized systems, instead of protecting you if a crash occurs, help you avoid accidents in the first place.

Ford announces new radar-based collision-avoidance system

Set for arrival in 2009, Ford has developed a new radar-based active collision avoidance system that combines auditory warnings with assisted braking to help reduce the incidence and severity of accidents. By pre-charging the brake system and engaging an electronic brake assist system, Ford hopes the new Brake Support feature will help more drivers to avoid rear-end accidents.

Ford is launching the new Collision Warning with Brake Support system across several vehicles in its lineup. Also featured as active safety devices will be the new for 2008 adaptive cruise control and Blind Spot Information System with Cross Traffic Alert, which will be new for 2009 alongside the new collision warning system. Also demonstrated recently was the Ford Smart Intersection, which allows cars and intersections to communicate key information. The package of features, taken together, is a multi-faceted attack on driver inattention.

Does simply paying attention while driving an automobile exceed human capability?

What do you think about this technology?

MO County Council Rejects Bicycle Ban

Eric — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 14:27:39 +0000

A Missouri County Council rejected a bicycle ban on state roads that don’t have paved shoulders 6-0. The member that sponsored the ordinance voted against it, but he claims the majority of his constituents support it.

Rolla Barr, of the Defiance area, supported the bike ban during public hearings.

“Anybody with any common sense can see there’s no room for bicyclists on these roads,” Barr said Thursday. He said when vehicles come from both directions on the shoulderless highways, there is no safe place for bicyclists.

“As far as I’m concerned, if you want to ride a bicycle, ride it on the trails or get out of St. Charles,” Barr said.

Can we say that the Central Florida drivers think differently?

When activists demand lanes and trails, thinking like this is the inevitable result. The ordinary motorists thinks “Why pay all that money from fuel taxes if the cyclists won’t get off the roads and use the trails?”