Lucky White Girl

U.S. behind the curve on bicycle commuting

"Germans are 10 times more likely than Americans to ride a bike and three times less likely to get hurt while doing so"

Why?  Because in the United States "car-centric transportation policies and suburban sprawl continue to make bicycle commuting rare, arduous and dangerous"

That's from a great front page article in the Washington Post today on the decline and rise of bicycle commuting in various countries.

*** Watch the REALLY COOL VIDEO of the robotic bike parking facility at one of Tokyo's busiest train stations! ***

While I think it's always a good idea to do more to make bicycling in the city safer, as someone who has been a bicycle commuter most of her adult life in a variety of cities, I want to stress that, overall, commuting by bike is rarely arduous and not as dangerous as people tend to think. 

I've never had an accident.  Partly that's due to luck but partly it's also due to hyper-vigilance while biking and not being afraid to look silly or uncool by wearing things to make me more visible to drivers.  My current get up includes a yellow jersey, blue helmet with flashing red light on top and probably my best safety device is one of those cheap plastic pinwheels attached to the rear of my bike.  You can pick one up for $1 at a dollar store (grab a few for backups because if you leave your bike locked outside in public areas, kids are tempted to snatch them off).

But there's only so much a cyclist can control.  The margin of error is really narrow.  Often I've made a miscalculation trying to get through a particularly difficult intersection and it was only luck that saved me.  It seems sometimes the last thing on the minds of urban planners --far behind cars and pedestrians-- are cyclists.  There are places in my commute that are just impossible for a bicycle to maneuver safely without breaking a traffic law.  These are things that could be easily improved often sometimes with simple road markings but the political will is just absent in this country.

The article says that when cities do start putting the effort into incorporating bicycles into mass transportation plans they see "an almost instantaneous surge in cycling".  Britain has done some quick infrastructure fixes to encourage the use of bicycles.  Charging a $16 "congestion charge" for cars driving into the city and saw an increase in bicycle commuters of 25% within a year.  They increased city spending on bike lanes by 10% and cycling in London doubled.

In Europe where they've been doing these sorts of things for three decades, you get results like that statistic cited above: they have the highest per capita cycling rates in the "developed" world and the lowest rates of cycling accidents (don't know if the article's authors consider China "developed" yet or not but they do talk about how spurts of economic growth in previously poor countries can spur a decline in cycling as people understandably associate cycling with poverty and cars with prosperity).

I like buses and trains but nothing is as convenient as my bike.  Maybe that's because I grew up in this country and have that streak of "American independence" that means I like to have complete freedom to leave whenever I want and go wherever I want by whatever route I want.  I love bicycle commuting and I can't wait for the rest of the country to figure it out!

Life's easier on two wheels

I bought a new bike trailer today!  I haven't had one since I purged my old B.O.B. trailer before I went to Colombia a few years ago. I loved my B.O.B. trailer.  I had the one that looked like a cooler on wheels.  It's like having a trunk but it had two drawbacks. 

One is a design flaw that's common to a lot of trailers actually and really it's only a design flaw from a certain point of view.  It attached to the rear axle of the bike.  Axles are not designed to pull weight and I ended up breaking a few pulling heavy things.  It's okay if you don't plan on hauling a lot but I almost always push the limits on what I want to transport with my bike: 40lb bags of dog food; piles of compost, bricks.   So this time I wanted a trailer that attached to the frame.  The frame is stronger.

Also, you couldn't lock the lid down which was a definite drawback if you live in a big city and people tend to strip your bike of anything not locked down.  I could have relatively easily rigged it up to take a lock but never got around to it.

So my new trailer is every bit as good as my old B.O.B. trailer, which they seem to have stopped making (not all B.O.B. trailers, just the cooler-looking one) and it actually improves on the old one in these two important ways: It has an option of attaching to the frame instead of to the axle and it's lockable! oh and it also has 2 wheels to the B.O.B. trailers one which makes it more stable but less maneuverable. (I'm okay with that)

I rarely miss owning a car and I miss it even less when I have a bike trailer.  They just make life so much easier.   Hauling rock salt this winter? No problem!  Want a watermelon at the farmer's market?  No problem!  Take yer dog to the vet?  No problem!  You can do anything with a bike trailer!

Oh the best part? It's only $199.

Cyclist killed in DC

I'm so angry!  This is so unfair!  Cycling is such a beautiful gentle way of moving through the world.  It makes me really, really angry when CARS run us over! 

I just found out that a girl was killed this morning biking to work (she worked at a non-profit --I would've liked her).  A fucking garbage truck ran her over.

This blogger reflects my sentiments exactly and turned me on to this site: Yield to Life.  We have to do more to raise awareness of non-cars on our nation's roadways. Tell. Everyone.  The cyclist you save might be someone you know!

Great idea for cities to improve bike safety

Portland has come up with the idea of clearly marked "bike boxes" at intersections which cars must stop behind

By allowing cyclists to wait in front of motorized traffic, the bike boxes are intended chiefly to reduce the risk of “right hook” collisions, the kind most frequently reported in Portland, in which a driver makes a right turn without seeing a cyclist who is in his path.

We should have a national campaign to ensure that every city does this.  It's literally a matter of life and death.

Bike safety

I don't think I mentioned here that last week another local cyclist was killed by an SUV Just a few months after this story ran in the Gainesville Sun.  Although I didn't know him personally, but he was a friend of several of my friends and the accident has everyone pretty shook up so we've been thinking a lot about bicycling and bicycle safety lately. 

Two notes:
1.) I believe we need a bicycle awareness campaign locally that would employ public service announcements to make motorists aware that bicycles belong on the road, not on sidewalks and that motorists should expect to see bicycles in the road as much as they might expect to see four way stop signs.  A bicycle in the road is not an exceptional thing that should cause one to lay on the horn as if you had just come across a stray cow or a go-cart.  Also under Florida law, vehicles are obligated to give a bicycle three feet of pavement whether or not there is a bike lane.  Three feet.  Not three inches.  That solid white line of paint along the edge of the road that is not the bike lane.  The gutter also is most certainly not the bike lane.  The bike lane is the same lane your car is in and if you cannot safely give the bicycle three feet of space then you SHOULD NOT PASS THE BICYCLE.  Most people do this but many do not and I believe it's because they've never given a second thought to bicycles.  There are lots of people to whom a bicycle is a kids' toy and nothing more.  That is not a safe attitude and we should be doing what we can to change it.

2.) Cyclists: you don't have to just pray that the cars might give you those three feet.  You can take steps to enforce your right to those three feet.  Take a short metal stick like an old car antenna or I used a wire hanger and attach it at a right angle to your bicycle so that it sticks out a couple of feet to the left.  Tie some red or flourescent tape to the end so cars can see it and see if they don't start giving you more space.  They might not care about killing you but they don't want to scratch their paint job. 

And finally here's a link to a video explaining the necessity of physically separated bike lanes in cities.

The lament of the Bicycle Commuter.

I have encountered such a number of motorists who appear to be ignorant of the rules of the road regarding bicyclists and feel free to run me off the road and threaten my life that I have decided to embark on a public education campaign by myself.  I am printing up the following flier and will hand it out to every motorist who yells at me to get off the road (I usually catch up to them at the traffic light.)  I feel that I fulfill my part by obeying traffic signals and other rules of the road; the least car-drivers can do is the same. 

Here's the flier:

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“In Florida, the bicycle is legally defined as a vehicle. Bicyclists have the same rights to the roadways and must obey the same traffic laws, as the operators of other vehicles [316.2065(1), Florida Statutes].... Motor vehicles are expected to share the roadway with bicyclists and yield the outer most right-hand edge of pavement to the bicyclists as a travel way. There is only one road that must be shared by bicyclists and motorists. Strict adherence to the law is the foundation for this respect. And it is up to the users to treat each other properly.” -City of Tampa Public Works Department

By riding my bicycle, I’m helping to reduce traffic and air pollution. 

If Tampa motorists continue to run me off the road, threaten me with their cars and make my bicycle commute more difficult and life-threatening, I will eventually have to get a car too and then you have one more car on the road to help congest the roadways and pollute the air and increase our dependence on foreign oil so we can go fight more wars and more of our soldiers will die.  I bet you really don’t want any of those things, do you?   It’s in your own self-interest to know the rules of the road and respect the rights of bicyclists!    P.S. If you threatened me with your vehicle, besides handing you this flier, I've already gotten your license tag and will be reporting you to the police.  Thanks!  Have a nice day!
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Here's a link to check out that might convince you of how easy it is to be a bicycle commuter and why I continue to do it despite all the idiotic motorists (there are lots of benefits): Bike to Work

And lest my ranting against morons armed in two tons of steel and glass threatening my 120 pounds of relatively unprotected perishable human tissue and bone make you hesitant to venture out onto the roads yourself, check out this site for some reassuring facts about the actual dangers of cycling: Ken Kifer's bike pages -Is cycling dangerous?  He's got some excellent statistics there that say actually, it's really not.

I don't want to discourage anyone from riding a bicycle.  Remember "the more bicyclists people see the more they will look for them and the more they will believe that bicycling is a reasonable means of travel." --another Florida cyclist in his article, Freedom of Fear. 

Road Rage

I have a brush with death nearly every day.  This is turning me into a rather angry person.  I think I need to get out of the big city.  I ride a bike.  You'd think it was a criminal offense.   Either it's people leaning on their horns as they go by me trying to scare me off the road, or they yell out their windows telling me to get on the sidewalk (it's my understanding that it's illegal for bicycles to be on the sidewalks.  Sidewalks are for pedestrians.)  Several times cars have nearly run me off the road.  One stopped in the middle of their lane, apparently baffled to see a bicycle on the road.  A car behind them nearly rear-ended them.  I would request that this city educate its amazingly ingnorant citizens who keep telling me to 1.) break the law and ride on the sidewalk and 2.) physically threaten me with their cars when I don't.  Given how frequent this problem is I expect it's only a matter of time before I become one of Tampa's statistics that make this one of the deadliest cities for bicyclists and pedestrians in the country.  Until then I will leave a paper trail, writing to every possible city management office letting you know that this is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.  My last will and testament is that the city of Tampa instigate a massive publicity campaign to educate its citizenry about the laws regarding bicycles on public roads.