Bob Sutterfield has written an excellent letter to his local paper about the problem of motorists passing into oncoming traffic. This is the only regular problem I have with car drivers. I rarely experience close passing. Harassment comes from significantly less than 1% of drivers I encounter. I almost never have conflicts or scary moments with crossing and turning cars. But way too often, I witness oncoming drivers having to brake or take evasive action because a passing driver did not slow down and assess the situation before passing me.

In his letter, Bob writes:

Earlier this week my wife was caught in such a situation on Quito; thankfully she maneuvered skillfully and avoided injury. But then the woman driving the oncoming car shouted out her window as she passed, “Get off the road!” That admonition was misdirected at my wife, rather than at the overtaking driver who had driven unlawfully and created the perilous situation.

If the motoring public harbors such misunderstandings regarding our shared responsibility to obey the ordinary rules of the road, it’s a good opportunity for focused enforcement and education. Read the whole letter.

That’s happened to me, too. This misunderstanding is one of the most frustrating aspects of the behavior. I’ve actually seen newspaper comments stating that “cyclists are endangering motorists by making us pass into oncoming traffic.” How twisted is our culture that someone could think that, let alone say it? The responsibility for safe passing is unequivocally on the overtaking driver and it always has been! There is no right of speed or right to pass. If you can’t pass safely, you may not pass. Period.

FS 316.083 – Overtaking and Passing a Vehicle

The following rules shall govern the overtaking and passing of vehicles proceeding in the same direction …

(1)  The driver of a vehicle overtaking another vehicle proceeding in the same direction shall … pass to the left thereof at a safe distance, and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken vehicle.  The driver of a vehicle overtaking a bicycle or other non-motorized vehicle must pass the bicycle or non-motorized vehicle at a safe distance of not less than 3 feet between the vehicle and the bicycle or other non-motorized vehicle.

FS 316.085 – Limitations on Overtaking, Passing, Changing Lanes and Changing Course

(1) No vehicle shall be driven to the left of the center of the roadway … clearly visible and is free of oncoming traffic … without interfering with … any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction … return to an authorized lane of travel … before coming within 200 feet of any approaching vehicle.

from Florida Bicycle Law

Must Pass the Cyclist

The problem is, there is no logic to this behavior. Waiting to pass safely only takes a few insignificant seconds. Many times there isn’t any need to pass at all. Motorists pass and then turn off the road a block later, or pass on approach to a red light or stop sign. I have lost count of the number of times a motorist has stopped at a stop sign in the oncoming lane because there was no way s/he could get around me in the short distance available.

I wonder, does the belief that the cyclist doesn’t belong there worsen the sense of entitlement to pass? Are they acting out or is this just mindless stupidity? I would love to do a study where the perpetrators were stopped and surveyed (in lieu of a ticket) to determine the thinking, or lack-thereof, behind their behavior. I wonder if they even know. I want to show these people the big picture of the 2 seconds they saved in getting to that red light 500ft away vs the potential devastation they could have caused. But as a cyclist, it does no good for me to confront them. The response isn’t introspection, it’s knee-jerk finger-pointing: “you shouldn’t be on the road.”

Mr. Sutterfield is right, this is an issue that needs a high-visibility enforcement campaign. In my experience, this is far more common than close passing. Doing a sting on this behavior would be easier and yield more results than a sting on passing clearance. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel on a lot of our 2-lane roads!

But I suspect it will take some real leadership from public officials and a direct confrontation with the entitlement to speed before we’ll find the political will to enforce the law. Such an initiative would probably even mark a sea change in the effort to promote bicycling as a real alternative. If we want to get serious about equity and access, this is a good place to start challenging the culture of speed and its degradation of our communities.

Bike/Walk Central Florida is collecting stories from Central Florida bicyclists who have had close encounters of the bad kind with “bollards,” those wacky, tacky, uh-oh… smacky posts used to keep cars off of trails. Based on feedback we have received from area cyclists, we are planning to work with Orange and Seminole counties to have these hazards removed from our trails. Our initial contact with Orange County was rebuffed, on the grounds that they’ve had an “insignificant” number of complaints … and yet, we all seem to know someone who has hit a bollard.

If you struck a bollard in Central Florida, please fill out the form below. If you are part of a cycling club or community, please poll your members/email lists and forward to any other groups/shops you can think of, and ask them to send me their stories.

Thank you!

Many readers of CommuteOrlando are from other states and countries, but we still want to hear your stories. If you hit a bollard somewhere outside Central Florida, please tell your story in the comments section of this post.

View Larger <— it’s much easier to read!

The left cross is the crash type we bicyclists have most in common with motorcyclists. The techniques for preventing it are the same as those taught in motorcycle school. Of course, it’s much easier to learn in motorcycle school because there is no baggage of taboo or fear surrounding operating a motorcycle away from the curb. And our culture doesn’t build special motorcycle facilities that violate the principles of normal traffic movements. But we can overcome that.

“I didn’t see you”

One of the primary factors in bicyclist left cross crashes really is a lack of visibility. Bicyclists have been taught, bullied or forced by law to operate on the margins of the road. A motorist’s focus area is on the center of the travel lane, where he expects a large, fast-moving vehicle (IOW, a threat to him) to be. Anything on the periphery (edge of the road, bike lane or sidewalk) is often not noticed. This is especially true if a motorist is shooting for a gap to turn left from a multi-lane road. I almost hit a sidewalk cyclist on Colonial once as I was making an unprotected left into a shopping center entrance. I waited and waited for there to be a big enough gap in all three lanes, then I hit the gas. I didn’t see the cyclist until I was almost across the road.

For the purpose of this post and the above animation, I’m focusing on roadway cyclists. Keep in mind that the center of the lane is the most-visible and risk-free place to be, anything father right adds risk, increasing with distance from the center. So the sidewalk is the least visible place to ride.

Underestimated

I’ve experienced a lot of left-cross conflicts in my years of riding. The most frightening have been when descending a hill (not in Florida). Those are the most similar to motorcycle crashes in that I’m totally visible in the center of the lane, but the motorist turns anyway. They see me, but discount my speed. This has happened to me on a flat road while hammering, too. They just don’t realize how fast we can ride. Downhills and tailwinds make all cyclists fast. I can effortlessly get close to 30mph with a strong tailwind.

Of course, I’ve also had a few that seemed less an innocent mistake than an act of complete disrespect. On Virgina, a driver turned his Mustang in front of me, then slowed to a near stop—blocking my lane—so he wouldn’t scrape his precious air dam on the gutter. It was one of those rare days I was in a hurry, and it’s slightly downhill, so I was moving fast. I was able to brake enough for the car behind him to clear, then go into the empty oncoming lane to pass him. I probably would not have had the room to do that had I not already been in the middle of the lane. I might have had enough room to do a quickstop, but I’m not sure.

A cyclist who is moving fast (for a cyclist, that’s ≥18mph) needs to ride farther out into the lane, no matter the lane width. This has nothing to do with your speed relative to overtaking traffic, it has to do with your ability to react to pavement obstructions or cars which might suddenly enter your path. With the exception of winding mountain descents, cyclists on an open road will usually be slower than motor traffic. That’s OK. It is the responsibility of overtaking traffic to yield (first come, first served) and pass safely. You have a responsibility to yourself to be visible, predictable and have room to maneuver.

The moving screen

Operating alongside the flow of traffic creates a perfect set-up for the left cross. The passing traffic screens the cyclist from left-turning motorists. If you are operating to the right of traffic (in a wide lane or bike lane) and are being passed by a line of cars, be aware of any gaps. When the last one passes you, any cars waiting to turn left will be ready to jump. This can happen at any intersection or driveway. I’ve experienced this more times than I can count on Edgewater Drive. It’s VERY common at the entrance to Publix in College Park.

The moving screen can be a problem in a narrow lane, too. If you stop on the right behind cars, you will be hidden. As the cars in front of you pull away, they’ll form a gap for a left-turning driver who cannot see you. When stopped at a traffic light, you should be positioned behind the left side of the car in front of you. Ride through the intersection on the left side of the lane so you can see, and are visible to, the driver of any car waiting to turn left. Here’s what that looks like from the cyclist’s view:

An invitation to get hit

Passing a queue of cars on the right is a high risk activity, in most cases. The above photo is the scene every day on Edgewater Drive at lunchtime and rush hour (at lunchtime the parking spaces are full). My first response to this situation was, “Oh good! they’re stuck and I have a clear lane!” I was disabused of that notion by the front quarter panel of a Jeep Cherokee.

Between getting hit and other constant conflicts, I learned to ride slowly (6-8mph) when passing the queued cars, and to be prepared to stop any time there was a car-length gap between 2 cars. A gap often indicates a good-Samaritan is letting another driver turn left. Even so, the blocks between Yale and Vassar are so conflict-ridden, it’s easier and safer to wait in the queue than to try to pass it. Even when traffic is moving, I usually avoid the bike lane there.

Other factors

Low light conditions are always going to be an issue for visibility and speed-assessment. For the most part, I find motorists are more cautious at night. twilight conditions present problems for the human eye, it’s a good idea to have bright lights. A blinking light at dawn and dusk will get attention, but it also sends a subliminal message “slow vehicle.” In the dark, a blinking light makes your speed and location very difficult to assess—front blinkies should not be used in full dark. We tell our students to look like a bicycle (slow) from the rear and a motorcycle (fast) from the front. It’s especially critical if you are riding fast. Ahem. It’s particularly silly to use tiny “be seen” LEDs while riding 24mph on the way to an early morning club ride. Really, that extra few grams for a good headlight will make you stronger anyway.

Light triangulation can also help motorists assess your speed in the dark. If you have one on your helmet and one on the handlebars, a motorist can better tell when you are getting close and going fast.

The left cross is not your fault, but it is in your interest to prevent it

Even left cross crashes that occur when passing stopped traffic on the right are the legal fault of the motorist. But they are completely avoidable. Moving screen left cross crashes are avoidable, too, by making yourself visible. High-speed, left cross crashes are mostly discouraged with good lane position, but a high-speed cyclist must always be on guard for this, like a motorcyclist. If you see someone preparing to make a left turn, try to get their attention, keep pedaling (without pressure on the pedals) so you don’t give them the wrong idea, and prepare for an emergency maneuver. That is why we teach emergency maneuvers!

Understanding what causes crashes is the first step to preventing them. The frightening, unpreventable acts of gross negligence are the ones we hear about because our culture is addicted to stories that make us feel horrified and helpless. But the truth is, the majority of car-v-bicycle crashes (and scary moments) are common, predictable and preventable… even when they are the motorist’s fault.

A Bronx cyclist was killed in a freak accident yesterday when the driver of a parked car opened his door and knocked her into the path of a city bus, authorities said.

The 57-year-old woman, identified as Megan Charlop, from The Bronx, was riding on Crotona Avenue in East Tremont at about 8:30 a.m. when the driver of a parked Toyota opened his door into her path, police and witnesses said.

The cyclist hit the door and was bumped into the path of a BX17 bus, glancing off its front passenger side and falling beneath its rear wheels, witnesses said.

Read more:

The Alameda County coroner’s bureau has identified a 35-year-old man who was struck and killed by an Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District bus after being knocked from his bike into traffic in Oakland Wednesday afternoon.

Erik Fitzpatrick was riding his bike on MacArthur Boulevard near Patterson Avenue when a 42-year-old Manteca woman opened her car door, knocking him into traffic. Fitzpatrick was then struck by a Line NX bus and was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

We can cast blame where ever we like . . . But now it is time to make lemonade from lemons. I was thinking about this and something else that has been weighing heavily on my mind and wonder if they can’t be combined . . .

What’s been bothering me lately is that I am going to raise my hourly rates to a particular state school board because their Risk Management Office now requires higher coverage numbers on my insurance. This particular  state agency will now get a “special rate” which will be higher than what I charge everyone else because they are costing me more money.

I know that Florida cities (which are also state agencies) in general have no higher culpability than $200,000 (as of July1, it was $100,000) because of sovereign immunity, but some cities have “done the right thing” and purchased extra insurance. Winter Park is one of those cities, I don’t know about Orlando or Orange County.

I also know that one of the blocks to a lawsuit against a city or county is the fact that “notice” has to be made of the deficiency to the road that caused the crash. There are two types of notice, one is actual, where someone called in a problem and it was ignored and the other is constructive, which has to be based on all sorts of assumptions and what-not. Guess which type of notice plays better to the judge and jury?

Because pedestrians, by law, must use sidewalks  no matter how poorly the condition and now cyclists must also use a designated lane, my idea was to “actually notice” the deficiencies, by sending them a letter. I was think about setting up a website where people could submit info with pictures and then the info would be sent on.

There are several potential problems, but I think they could be overcome.

The idea is that the cities risk management office would be made aware of the situations and lean on the departments to either” fix” it or eliminate it, so lanes could go away.

Maybe by making things expensive, elimination would become the best option.

Prior to this change in the law, the cities could say “Well, they didn’t HAVE to use this unsafe lane.” but now things are different.

This could work to our advantage.

Click this to make it bigger

As you can see, in some places, they are on the sidewalk and line entire streets. In other places, they start about 100 feet before major intersections and then curve around the corner with 15 feet wide “holes” so that pedestrians are forced to use the crosswalks.

The idea was to separate the dangerous cars from the pedestrians,  to keep pedestrians from crossing the street in the wrong places and to discourage illegal street parking because there was no access to the sidewalk.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, but, as usual, there were unintended consequences.  I’ll let this newspaper article from The Times explain it.

The article is well written and explains the decades long, painful process that lead to the realization that more was not better. Millions of pounds are at stake. It will be very expensive to right decades of wrongs.

Removal is not without controversy. There is one fellow in particular, Douglas Stewart, who thinks that removal is an awful idea and offers his patented guard rail as an option.

You can read a good discussion paper here.

For the most part, US engineers realized the shortcomings of these railings and didn’t fall for their mystique.  Too bad that they continue to adopt European ideas about sidepaths.

Shows Trail Stop Signs

It was constructed last year with a completely clean slate. Property was condemned, the old street was torn up and rerouted, new drainage piping and curbing was installed as well as a new drainage pond.  Trees were planted in the median as well as between the street and the sidewalks. The old name of the street was changed.

What they did for “us” was construct a wide sidewalk along one side the street. The City’s Bicycle Plan shows plans for this trail extending across Colonial Drive and along the perimeter of the airport.

This trail extension is 1/3 of a mile long, yet a cyclist riding either north or south, would be required to stop five times in that 1/3 mile as evidenced by miniature stop signs at every minor street except Hargrave Street.

Entrance to Futon Planet parking lot

There are even miniature stop signs where the traffic entering a parking lot crosses the trail, so someone wanting to buy a futon gets the right of way.

Yet, if a cyclist used the street (which now has choke points) she wouldn’t have to stop even once.

This is how the City plans to make their sidepaths safe. What they will do is use lots and lots of these miniature stop signs at every conceivable conflict point. This relieves them of liability and transfers all risk to the cyclist. They must know that cyclists will hold these stops signs in contempt, but that matters not. On the police report, it will say “failure to obey a traffic control device.”

The City has plans for many more sidepaths like this one. The City apparently knows that these sidepaths are inherently more dangerous than riding in the street, else the onus would be where it belongs, on the driver that is entering or leaving the minor street and there would no no need for miniature stop signs.

Use of these miniature stop signs also makes a clear statement where cyclists fit into the traffic scheme: Off to the side,  stopping every 150 feet and legally required to yield to all “real” traffic.

Motorist – "Hello, killed anything?" Sportsman – "No, have you?"

Found in the transportation section of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Display caption: Like railroads, trolleys, buggies, horses and ships, automobiles kill and injure people. In 1913, more than 4,000 people died in car accidents. But the 1930s, more than 30,000 people died every year. In an effort to lower accident and death rates, safety advocates stressed the Three Es: engineering, enforcement and education. Since most safety advocates—like most Americans—assumed that careless people were the cause of wrecks, early safety efforts focused on educating drivers and pedestrians, rather than designing and producing safer automobiles and highways.

FBA needs your help to continue efforts to veto HB 971.  A letter was sent to Governor Crist May 17  signed by FBA Board president David Henderson.  FBA representatives will be meeting with Chuck Drago, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, later this week to provide supporting arguments and local examples of why HB 971 is unsafe for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Read the FBA announcement here.

Last I heard, the governor had received about half the calls and letters needed to veto this bill. If you have not yet called or written Gov Crist, please do so now!

The Honorable Charlie Crist
Governor of Florida
The Capitol, Suite PL05
400 S. Monroe Street
Tallahassee FL 32399

fax: 850-487-0801
phone: 850-488-7146
email: Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

The FBA announcement does not reference the DUI issue. Frank V has posted a lot of good info about that in the comments of Mighk’s post. Here is a direct link to one of his comments. And a website with more info.

Source: Autoblog (see the rest of this graphic here)

“Accident” is a term we use to avoid responsibility for the behavior that causes crashes.

Drunk driving is not an accident. Cell phone use is not an accident. Distracted, aggressive and irresponsible operation of a vehicle is not an accident. Failure to use due care is not an accident.

Our cavalier attitude toward driving is not an accident. It is a direct result of our failure to take personal responsibility for the consequences of our actions and, likewise, to hold our peers accountable for theirs. It has been nurtured and reinforced through compensation for incompetence in road design and emphasis on engineering safety features in cars.

We are not helpless. We can change this if we want to.