bill@utastro.UUCP (10/12/83)
I apologize for the length of this response to pyuxqq!fmc, which
was necessary because of the large number of important points he
brings up.
Note: All MY statements below refer to SLOW moving bicycles.
Understood.
utastro!bill quotes an article saying that riding a bicycle on a
sidewalk increases the accident rate. He then
mentions a cyclist killed riding on a sidewalk over a bridge.
I dont see how riding in the roadway would have made any difference
if the vehicle was so out of control that it climbed the sidewalk.
The facts of the accident are these: The woman was on a sidewalk that was
raised above the main roadway by about 5 inches. For whatever reason
(avoiding a pedestrian or obstacle possibly, it's not readily available
to me) her front wheel overlapped the edge of the sidewalk, and she
lost control, fell into the path of an oncoming car, which could not
avoid her, and was killed. If she had been walking her bike across
that bridge, the accident would not have happened. If she had been
riding in the roadway, the car would have passed her in the other
lane (there are two lanes each way), she would not have lost control,
and the accident would not have happened.
He goes on the say that only a few percent of cyclists ride
facing traffic. Where does he get that value?
Personal observation. I have been riding "seriously" (commuting or
touring) for 27 years. Every once in a while I take informal
statistics on how many cyclists I see going the right way
versus how many I see going the wrong way. Based on this
experience, I estimate that far fewer than 10% of the time
is a cyclist that I observe going the wrong way.
If we adopt 10% as a very conservative figure, and estimate 20% as
the proportion of accidents which are attributable to wrong-way
riding, then this says that only 10% of the cyclists are having
*all* of this particular type of accident; this marks the practice
of wrong-way riding as particularly dangerous. (20% is a good mean
of the figures from the studies I cited in my first article).
I rode my bike to school for 4 years, putting
over 1000 miles on it, MOST OF THAT FACING TRAFFIC. MANY TIMES I HAD TO
QUICKLY GET OFF THE ROAD CAUSE ON-COMING TRAFFIC (which I could
fortunately
see) WAS NOT LEAVING ME ENOUGH ROOM ON ONE ESPECIALLY NARROW ROAD.
I don't doubt it. In my article I did not mention the fact that
conflicts of this kind are guaranteed if you ride on the wrong side
of the road. Since both you and the car are using the same lane, but
in opposite directions, you have no place to go but into the bushes. :-(
If the road is that narrow you have several choices: (1) Ride with traffic,
take the center of the lane and thus force the cars following you to
pass you when it is safe. Believe it or not, it really works! (2) Walk
your bike on the side of the road (that is, turn yourself into a
real pedestrian). This choice is appropriate if you are a relatively
slow cyclist and the stretch of narrow road is long, since it is
important to be courteous to motorists. (3) Find another route. This is
often the best solution, but alternative routes are not always available.
Not knowing the actual circumstances, I can't say which would have been
the best, but I am sure that any of them would have been better than
riding against traffic.
He claims that the real danger in riding facing traffic is the vehicles
entering from the left. I solved this problem completely by simply
yielding to the entering vehicle.
That's fine, if you are able and willing to do it at every *driveway* as
well as every intersection. By "yielding" I assume that you mean
you made a complete stop, looked for traffic and only crossed
when it was completely safe. But I doubt that most wrong-way
cyclists would take the trouble to do this even if they were aware
of the dangers. The accidents that I have witnessed of this type
would seem to bear this out.
The law says a pedestrian should face traffic. Thus I assume
its safer for a pedestrian that way. Now if I am running along
holding my bike, I am a pedestrian and should face traffic. Yet
if I get on the bike AND GO AT THE SAME RATE OF SPEED, then I
am a "vehicle" and have to put my back to the traffic. Isn't this
inconsistent? A slow-moving bike is far more like a
pedestrian than a vehicle in size, speed, and weight. I feel its
far safer for a careful cyclist (one who yields to left-entering
traffic, etc.) to ride facing traffic.
Intuitive feelings about what is safe and what is not safe are not a reliable
guide in this case. Every study of bike accidents shows this clearly.
Even a slow bicyclist is considerably faster than an average
pedestrian. If it were otherwise, there would be no point in
riding a bike, right? This extra speed gives both you and the car
less time to react to dangerous situations than if you
were walking at the standard pedestrian speed. Furthermore,
you are less maneuverable on a bike than a pedestrian would be
(even a running one, such as a jogger). Therefore your range
of possible evasive actions is more limited.
The problem is compounded if you are on the sidewalk, because
visibility is poorer. Buildings, walls and shrubbery make you less
visible to the car, and cars less visible to you. Moreover,
drivers of cars don't look out for relatively fast traffic
on the sidewalk since it's not supposed to be there.
The reason why riding in
the proper direction, on the roadway, is generally safer is that
you are where drivers of other vehicles expect you to be,
behaving the way other vehicles are expected to behave, which
gives both you and them the ability to react in the way that
drivers are conditioned to react. Make no mistake about it;
dirvers of cars spend most of their time interacting with
other cars, and their automatic responses to traffic conflicts are
geared to this reality. If bicycles obeyed different rules
than cars, the probability is high that the driver of an
automobile would react automatically and *incorrectly* in a
conflict with a bicycle, to the certain detriment of the cyclist.
Over and over again, all of the studies of bike accidents make this
fact abundantly clear.
Since many cyclists don't share my beliefs, I solve the problem
on bike trips by simply letting those who believe in riding with
their backs to traffic bring up the rear. That way, if a drunk
driver comes along and doesn't leave space for the cyclists, I can
hear the screams and crunching metal behind me and get off the
road before the drunk gets up to me.
Again, intuition is not a reliable guide. Most inexperienced bikers
(and I would add that only 1000 miles in 4 years would certainly
put one in that category) fear most an accident where someone hits
them from behind. Certainly, accidents like that do happen. And
certainly, drunk drivers are a big problem for cyclists too. But
the statistics of actual bike accidents show that such
accidents are exceedingly rare, under 5% in the city. 80% of
accidents take place at intersections and other places where
traffic enters or leaves the roadway (e.g., driveways). (The
proportion of rear-end accidents *is* much higher in rural areas,
but this is probably due to fewer "intersections" rather than
to an actual increased risk of rear-end collision). [The statistics
are from the study by Kenneth Cross, referenced in my earlier
article.]
Bikers would do much better for themselves if they educated themselves
about the actual risks and learned to avoid them, rather than by
adopting riding habits (such as sidewalk riding and riding against
traffic) that superficially appear to be risk-avoiding, but which
are actually, and documentably, risk-increasing. Again I urge
that people contact their local bike club, or the League of
American Wheelmen and arm themselves with facts. That would be
much better than believing bicycling myths and acting on them.
Bill Jefferys 8-%
Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (Snail)
ihnp4!{kpno,ut-sally}!utastro!bill (uucp)
utastro!bill@utexas-11 (ARPA)israel@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/18/83)
There is another major reason that a biker wants to ride with the
traffic besides against it. That reason is relative speeds (I always
considered this the main reason).
Lets say I bike down a road at an average speed of 12 mph (I've timed
myself going at an enjoyable rate (i.e. not rushing along) and 12 mph
is approximately my cruising speed, but then I'm a fairly slow rider)
and a car is going 30 mph.
If I ride against the traffic (going towards him), then we are
approaching each other at a speed of 42 mph. If I ride with the
traffic, then he is gaining on me at a speed of 18 mph.
I would much rather get hit by a car going 18 mph, than one going 42
mph!!! (I would much rather not get hit at all, but it these two were
my only options then I'd obviously choose the slower car). Also,
the car coming up behind you, because its relatively slower, has
more time to see you and react and take appropriate action.
Another justification for riding with traffic is curves on roads. If
we are heading towards each other with a curve in between us, then you
can guarantee that he does not know I'm there until he's on top of
me (in a manner of speaking, hopefully). If I'm riding with traffic
and there is a curve between me and the car behind me, then he still
might not know that I'm there, but he might know because I was on
his side of the curve earlier, and if there was a straight-away before
it, he would've had a chance to see me.
--
~~~ Bruce ~~~
Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland
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