http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_11314635
By Wynn Kageyama
My Word
Posted: 12/29/2008 12:01:00 AM PST
I READ with interest the Dec. 12 article “Memorial Ride” and offer my comments. There is no shortage of faulty bicycle facilities, due mostly to lack of bicycle transportation engineering knowledge and direct cycling experience by the designers of these facilities. You and I pay for these inadequately designed systems in the form of deaths, injuries, delays getting to your destination, higher emergency service expenses, higher medical insurance premiums and lost wages. The big problem is that the best solutions are counterintuitive and contrary to what many of us are taught.
Cycling education, in its most basic form, is the learning of new behaviors, and for adults the unlearning of outdated and harmful habits. Unfortunately, eliminating bad habits is the most difficult to do and comes mostly with education, followed by repetition and coaching over many weeks. The alternative is to learn through trial and error, which takes years to achieve and guarantees painful lessons through crashing and falling.
There is only one cyclist education program that meets this goal — the League of American Bicyclists’ Smart Cycling program. The public thinks that if one learns how to balance and operate the brakes and gears, that’s all they need to cycle safely. Few people are even willing to spend an hour to learn even the fundamentals of cycling. They think there is nothing to learn and that they are all “above-average
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bicyclists.”
It is a myth that the most common bike-car crash is being hit from behind, known as “fear from the rear.” Several studies show that 95 out of 100 crashes are caused by things in front of you, or coming toward you from the front or sides. The well-trained bicyclist following good positioning knows this and focuses on what’s coming up in front, with awareness of what’s behind. This is exactly what you do when you drive a car.
Transportation in the U.S. has historically been based upon integration, meaning motorists and cyclists share the same road, follow the same rules and have the same rights. This is the law in all 50 states. I remember this as “cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.”
The concept of separation produces a superior and inferior class of transportation, with cyclists being treated as inferior. There are side effects of this, as proven in Europe and parts of the U.S. that have tried it: pedestrian methods resulting in cyclists being in unexpected and dangerous places, encouraging unpredictable movements on the roadway and discouraging safe road skills. It encourages violation of traffic laws. Some bike lanes encourage hazardous passing on right and filtering (by moving up on the right side of a line of stopped or slow-moving motor vehicles). Even more dangerous are the multi-use paths where no traffic rules exist and the crash rates are the highest per mile of travel.
For the past 120 years, knowledgeable cyclists have been using the Roadway Integration Principle because it works. It gets them to their destination in the most direct route, it gives you the right to use those roads to travel and you follow the same traffic rules, which provides safe predictable movements. The basic rules of the road in all states are consistent with Roadway Integration Principle.
Wynn Kageyama is a 20-year resident of Fremont, a product developer in resource conservation technology, and a consultant in computer system support to small businesses. He is also a league cycling instructor and bike education committee chair for the Fremont Freewheelers Bicycle Club.