Something was said about SUVs and size and that's why people drive idiotically. Please join me in my daily hate-a-thon against the drivers of mini-coopers and freaking scooters. These fuckers drive by me every motherlovin' , close enough for me to reach out and touch them, buzz me, gun their engines (both illegal), and speed up upon approach. Yes, I'm generalizing. But something about the fuckers who drive these vehicles - something in their personality that makes them buy a mini cooper? - whatever it is, these fuckers hate on cyclists for some strange reason.
One quibble with an earlier statement you made earlier Michael -- though I'm thinking that you wouldn't disagree and perhaps may have meant to say what I'm riffing on from Vanderbilt's work. It's not that the bike lanes, etc. are designed to allow cars to travel faster. Rather, it is that lanes and signage, traffic signals, cautions, warning, flashing yellows, traffic calming devices are about safety, presumably getting drivers to slow down, obey the laws, pay attention to their environment.
Thing is: they don't work. Basically, Vanderbilt draws on evidence from Europe and the States to show that, basically, the safer we think the streets are, the worse we drive. We think streets are safe when we do our due diligance to sign the hell out of it, install stop signs, traffic lights, lower speed limits, etc. All this shit that neighborhood activists want to slow traffic down and increase safety - the speed bumps, the 'deaf child area' signs, the sharrows, the bike lanes -- all become so much noise ignored by drivers.
People drive best when they think the road's dangerous. Which is why, as you and your friend say, the best way to increase cyclist safety is to increase the number of cyclists who are traffic, not merely in traffic. When car drivers expect them, and look for them, then safety actually increases for everyone.
I laughed and though, "Give it up buddy. Let a few people get hit by the
damn thing and that will
At 05:16 PM 5/10/2012, Michael Smith wrote:
>On Thu, 10 May 2012 16:05:39 -0400
>Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > On May 10, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> >
> > > This is my attitude as well. I hate nearly all bike lanes
>
> > I quoted your comments to Charlie Komanoff (who says hi! and had many
> > nice things to say about you, but didn't know you were the the critic
> > I was quoting until after he wrote this), who responds:
> >
> > > S/he may have been ignorantly riffing off a reed-thin
> > > 1970s meme that had more crashing [but far less serious-
> > > injury crashing -- they never bring that up] on separated
> > > bike paths, i.e., recreational paths that sent cyclists
> > > tumbling over tree roots, that kind of thing. It's
> > > totally obsolete.
>
>Charlie & I have discussed the matter a good deal; probably
>if you had mentioned that it was me he wouldn't have barked up
>this particular tree. Not the one I was perched in, as it happens.
>
>I was thinking mostly of the derisory 'bike lanes' we have in
>New York, which place the cyclist squarely in the door zone and
>leave him far less room to manoeuvre than he would have if he
>claimed the midline of a car lane (which is what I do). Then
>of course the lanes are blocked every hundred feet or so --
>usually by a police car -- so you have to merge out into a
>car lane. You would have been safer being there in the
>first place.
>
> > > Your pal probably is unaware of safety-in-numbers:
> > > the more cyclists there are in a domain, the fewer
> > > crashes (w/ cars) suffered per cyclist. If bike
> > > lanes engender more cycling ... and they do ...
> > > then s-i-n alone would make it safer.
>
>CK and I have co-written a number of essays on this
>very topic, safety in numbers. Well aware of it. The
>effect arises precisely where drivers *do* have to
>share the road with cyclists, not where cyclists are cordoned
>off in free-biking zones. Charlie seems to be arguing here, if
>I read him right, that bike lanes engender more cycling
>in general and then as a consequence there's a spillover
>of more cyclists into mixed-use streets, with a consequent
>SIN effect. Maybe that's true to some extent.
>
>I don't think Charlie would disagree with the
>fundamental point that shag & I have been arguing here,
>namely that car privilege and drivers' sense of entitlement
>lie at the heart of the problem. If drivers were as culturally
>conditioned to respect other road users as they are now
>conditioned to resent and despise them, you wouldn't *need*
>bike lanes, except maybe along high-speed limited-access
>highways.
>
>--
>--
>
>Michael J. Smith
>mjs at smithbowen.net
>
>http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
>http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
>http://cars-suck.org
>
>When one does a foolish thing, it is right to
>do it handsomely.
>
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