“What Cyclists Neglect” New Article In Globe: Well Intentioned Poorly Executed

Doug Most wrote an article in last Sundays Globe Magazine.

I suggest that before you read any further you go and read his article (here), as I am going to be breaking it down point by point and I don’t want you to be confused by my ramblings.

The author would have you believe that this cyclists is being an arrogant lawbreaker, but if you look closely at the picture you will see that the law breaking is rampant from all user groups. Why then is the article singling out cyclists?

Let us tackle his arguments one at a time.

Argument 1: If cyclists want to be respected as vehicles they have to follow the rules.

While Most doesn’t come right out and say it, he is making this argument throughout the article. I agree fully. As cyclostat put it very elegantly in his recent blog post “As much as I hate to say it, it’s shit like running red lights that is going to make the difference in the end. Heart and minds, you assholes. That’s what we need.” I think Most is spot on with this and I personally have written at length on the subject (1,2) It is the rest of the article that I disagree with.

Argument 2: If you don’t wear a helmet you are at best stupid and at fault in a crash.

Most writes the following:

When I heard about Hunt’s death, my heart went out to his family, and to the bus driver. Then I had one question, which was answered by this line in the April 9 Globe story: “Hunt, who was not wearing a helmet. . . .”

Not wearing a helmet? While cycling on Huntington Avenue, alongside trolleys, buses, cars, and those treacherous tracks?

His focus on the status of helmet use is the flaw here. He seems to be implying (very strongly) that if you are not wearing a helmet and you get hit by a car somehow it is your fault. While I agree fully with his point that every rider should wear a helmet, and I do think it is stupid to not wear one, the law in this state says that after you turn 17 you no longer have to wear a helmet. If a driver does something illegal and runs you down weather or not you had a helmet on does not make that act more or less illegal.

The author admits that no one really knows what happened in the accident (or at least no one knows yet), so what is his point? If the bus driver did something illegal then the status of Eric’s helmet use is irrelevant. Is he trying to say that Eric was somehow at fault because he didn’t have a helmet on? Was he saying that by not having a helmet on Eric was asking for it? I really can’t see the logic in his argument. The operator of every kind of vehicle (including bicycles) has a duty toward being safe around the others using the road, the amount of safety equipment that that other users have does not change that duty.

This point can be illustrated perfectly with a little critical thinking. Lets say you are in a car and you run a red light and hit a pedestrian, was that pedestrian somehow at fault because he wasn’t wearing full hockey pads? What if a semi-truck fails to stop at a stop sign and hits a car, was that car driver more at fault because they didn’t have side impact air bags? You see my point. It is strange that we have this double standard for bicycles.

He also goes on to say the following:

Wear a helmet. You don’t look cooler without it. It’s $50. Are you worried about hat head? Plus, and I say this as a driver, drivers will be less inclined to be angry at you if they think you actually care about safety. A helmetless rider is an arrogant rider.

(i added the bold)

Really? You think people will treat you better if you have a helmet on, and you think not wearing one is arrogant. Wouldn’t a better argument be “lets treat everyone with respect, and follow the rules” (an argument he seems to be trying to make, I say “seems” because I had to work hard to pluck any sort of cogent arguments from this article). Again the foolishness of this argument can be examined by changing the user group. Are drivers arrogant when they don’t wear a seat belt? Are walkers arrogant because they don’t wear armor? Of course not.

They might not be adopting every method they could to stay safe but they are not arrogant. I would say that they are being ignorant, or foolish, but not arrogant. Arrogant implies that that they see themselves as better than others. I don’t care how snotty someone is acting, you still have to follow the laws, you can’t run them over because you think they are being uppity.

Even implying that this might be a reason why someone is getting run over is mind boggling. This line of thinking boils down to “she was wearing a short skirt, so she had it coming.”

Argument 3: Cyclists should by default give larger vehicles the right of way.

Most says that:

I bike a lot, on some bad roads – Columbia Road in Dorchester, Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, Mass. Ave. And I do stupid things on my bike. I’ve gone through red lights after looking both ways, biked the wrong way up one-way streets, biked on sidewalks.

But when I see a bus ahead, I slow and wait or ride up on the curb to get around it. And if I’m on a narrow or crowded street, I stay far right or even pull over to let it pass. What I don’t do is assume the bus driver sees me, assume he’ll wait, or assume she’ll let me pass.

(again I added the bold)

First, if you want to convince people of your argument don’t admit that you don’t follow any of your own advice, second what? Is Most saying that as a biker every time a vehicle that is larger than a cyclist (which is by default almost all of them) wants to use the road the cyclist should pull over and let them pass? Or that cyclists should ride up on the sidewalk/curb to get out of their way? Most spends a lot of the article talking about how bikes should follow all the same rules as cars, and then instructs people to NOT follow the rules with regards to the flow of traffic. It can’t be both ways.

Not only is this suggestion of giving buses the right of way against the law in regards to road sharing, it can also be dangerous. If you are hugging the curb, and pulling over regularly to let vehicles (even buses) pass you you are going to be putting yourself into a lot of bad situations. You could get tangled in road cracks, pop a tire on debris, get squeezed by right turning vehicles, get doored, hit a pedestrian leaving the sidewalk, etc. etc. Not only that but you will also be forced to re-merge with traffic after every right hand pull over.

Bicycles are vehicles, if a bus is behind one they have to wait! Road users are forced to wait for things all day long (red lights, stop signs, pedestrians, other cars, ambulances, trains) they need to mentally include cyclists in that list of things that they “don’t honk at when it is in front of me”.

Argument 4: Biking is so dangerous that you had better be dressed like a disco and fear for your life every day you ride.

I fully agree that a good set of lights and some nice visible clothing is going to go a long way towards letting motorists know where you are, and I also agree you shouldn’t be wearing headphones or sandals when ridding your bike. However, the way Most describes it if you don’t armor yourself with every safety device known to humanity you are asking to be run over and killed.

Again I think this boils down to the “short skirt” argument. Somehow implying that if you don’t use every safety device that is available to you, you are somehow asking to be run over. It is the law in Massachusetts that you have to have a white front light and a red back light when you ride your bicycle. If a cyclist doesn’t also choose to wear a neon green safety vest, they are not asking to be run down.

Road users (ALL OF THEM) have a responsibility to NOT RUN OVER other road users. From pedestrians to cyclists, to dump truck drivers, all road users are tasked with the responsibility of following the rules of the road. You don’t get to stop following the rules if someone else is not using side impact air bags, or wearing a safety vest.

Conclusion

I think Most is very well intentioned. He is saying a lot of things I agree with. He is trying to get cyclists to take a greater responsibility for their own actions (IE. red lights). He is trying to get people to wear helmets, he is also trying to offer general safety practices regarding driving a bike in the city (he just happens to be wrong). The problem is that he continually puts the responsibility of safety solely on the cyclists. That’s simply not how our system works. Road users have the responsibility of safety for other users. Every time a car doesn’t cross over the white line to smash into oncoming traffic they are acting responsibly. When you use the road you put your safety in the hands of every other person out there.

If you fail to wear a helmet, but still follow the law, it is NOT your fault if someone hits you. You did not ask for it, you did not somehow put yourself in more danger by failing to use every kind of safety device available. This might sound crazy, but think about it. If you have a helmet on and are following the law are you somehow making people less likely to break the law? Does wearing a helmet make other road users behave themselves? Will a drunk driver stop drunk driving because he knows that cyclists will be wearing helmets? Of course not.

What you are doing when you wear a helmet is preparing for the event of a crash. You are taking a precaution to ward off the possibility of injury. You are in a way anticipating that others will break the law. You are NOT however giving other road users permission to break the law. Not wearing a helmet decreases your ability to ward off injury, but in the exact same way doesn’t give other road users permission to break the law.

This article was well intentioned, but poorly thought out, and generally misguided. I also felt it was a bit condescending. It is clear from both statistical studies and general observation that all road user groups are breaking the law in a rampant manner. Singling out cyclists to heap warnings and condemnation on doesn’t help.

The subheading of the article is “After a fatal crash, they want more respect on the road. They need to earn it.” (“they” meaning cyclists) If everyone is breaking the law why do cyclists need to “earn” respect? Why don’t car drivers and pedestrians have to “earn” respect?

Because that is not how our legal system works. Everyone has the full protection of the law at all times. You don’t loose that protection because you didn’t wear your helmet, you also don’t lose that protection if other people making the same transportation choice you are break the law. Car drivers don’t lose protection and respect because some of them don’t wear seat belts and run red lights, neither do cyclists.

The entire article starts off on the wrong logical footing, and just gets worse from there. The few good parts are lost in a sea of accusation and poor logic. Seems like the globe is bound and determined to have consistently poor bike coverage. (remember this and this?)

EDIT: Bike snob NYC agrees with me, this article is well intentioned but seriously flawed…

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David Filipov Covers Pedestrians

I think David Filipov is trying to prove me wrong, and I couldn’t be happier. I am glad he followed through on his insinuation that he would cover other road users groups. His recent article about pedestrians highlights the problem with j-walking in Boston, and by it existence (not that it implicitly says this in the article) seems to highlight that not ONLY bikers are to blame for the problems on our streets.

Shortly after 11 a.m. on a sunny Thursday, a most astounding thing happened on the busy intersection of the Boston University Bridge and Commonwealth Avenue. Alexandra Slender, a BU sophomore, stopped at a crosswalk, waited for the white gleam of the “Walk’’ sign, and crossed.

It was a rare act of civil obedience for a pedestrian in Boston, repeated by almost no one else on this day at this intersection. Throngs of iPod-wearing, cellphone-texting walkers blew through the red “Don’t walk’’ signs, barely acknowledging the flustered drivers who slammed on the brakes and banged on their dashboards in futility.

He also seems to avoid the things that I thought he was guilty of in his first article. He makes it clear that the pedestrians j-walking are mostly endangering themselves, and stays away from junk statistics. He still makes it seem like only pedestrians are breaking the law, but in the context of the two articles together a grander picture is emerging. I doubt that people will look at both together, but at least both are there. I can only hope that the next group he tackles are motorists.

Thanks David, and if you do come out with an article highlighting the problem with motorists, or even better yet an article about motorists and then a follow up about ALL user groups and how they are ALL to blame, I would gladly eat crow and offer a public apology that I ever got snippy with you. Highlighting all of these problems will go a long way towards changing the culture of road use in the city, and allowing us all to get around safer and quicker.

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Monique Spencer Responds…Sorta

Remember a while back that absolutely off base op-ed in the globe about sneaking up on cyclists in a hybrid and scaring the crap out of them (it featured talking butts if that helps you remember), well I tried to contact the Author Monique Spencer to get her involved in a more productive dialog…and she responded…sorta. I have been waiting for weeks for her to get back to me so I thought perhaps I would publish our correspondence in the hopes that it gets her to respond.

I contacted her after tracking down her email on one of her blogs (she hadn’t provided a way in the original op-ed for people to get a hold of her)

Hello

I run BostonBiker.org. I read your recent Op-ed in the Boston Globe and frankly found it, well less than stellar. However in the interest of good will I would like to invite you on a bike ride through the city. It doesn’t have to be with me, it could be with anyone, but I think that after you ride around on a bike for a while you might see things from a different point of view. Plus it seems a shame you are forced to drive in this town, driving in Boston traffic seems like some sort of punishment, and you seem like a nice lady.

Anyway if you are interested in responding to my response to your op-ed it is here, and if you would like to discuss bike stuff more feel free to check out my website (it has most of my views on bikes and bike related things) and let me know what you think.

BostonBiker.org

After about a week and a half I get this (poor in my opinion) response.

Thanks for your note, and yes, I did read your piece. Unlike many cyclists, you did not threaten me or my family, which is not a terribly persuasive way to make a point!

Unfortunately my cycling days are over, along with horseback riding, both activities that have given me great joy. Otherwise I would happily accept your offer. It would be fun to cycle Boston with someone who knows what they’re doing. I have to restrict my exercise to water.

Thanks for writing. I had hoped to start the road to a fair ground for everybody but after receiving 90 percent extremely hateful comments it’s hard for me to imagine helping that effort.

I’m glad you wrote,
Monique Doyle Spencer

Frankly that sounded like a blow off to me, so I tried again with a longer more detailed response…

Hello Monique

I would never think of threatening anyone, as a cyclist on the streets of Boston I have been honked at, had things thrown at me, told to “get off the road”, had people threaten to kill me, had people bump into me with cars, had people run me off the side, etc. I know the terror of having a couple thousand pounds of car miss you by mere inches. These things were done mostly by people who are trying to get to the next red light several seconds faster. I would never wish that on anyone.

I have to point out that in your op-ed you stopped just short of threatening violence against cyclists, you may not have realized this, but that is how a lot of people saw it. If you take a slow rider, or an inexperienced rider and you sneak up on them, say in a prius, and honk the horn loudly behind them, they can lose control of their bicycle, fall under the wheel of the vehicle and have bones forcible broken, or die. Imagine for a moment what that would be like, and you will see that it was not funny at all. I am not sure you took that into account when you wrote your piece. Like you said threatening people is not a terribly effective way to make a point.

I don’t want to mince words with you, I found your op-ed pretty off-base. I thought you advocated a “me first” attitude that in no way will make anyone’s life better on the road, and as I stated above I think you feed into the “cyclists don’t belong on the street, lets harass them” mentality. Weather you did this by design, or by accident makes little difference to people who read it without knowing you personally. Perhaps the fact that you received 90% hateful responses would indicate that you were unsuccessful in starting a dialog.

If you take some time to read through my other opinion pieces on my site you will see that we actually share views (on laws, on how they should be enforced and other points), I would love to think that we could come to some sort of middle ground. Perhaps we could meet over coffee and talk about this, or perhaps we could simply dialog over email. I would be happy to chat, I would also like to offer you the chance to write a follow up on my site. I don’t think you are a bad person, I simply think that you might not have considered all the implications of your writing, especially when it is published in a nationwide newspaper.

Just remember every person on a bike is one less person in a car taking up space on the road, more bikers = less traffic 🙂

BostonBiker.org

The ball is in your court Monique, I would really like to further this dialog, and if you have enough get up and go to bother to publish an Op-ed in a national newspaper you should have the courage of your own convictions to respond to a critic.

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Boston Globe’s Latest Masterwork, A Triumph Of Meaningless Grandstanding

I read David Filipov’s newest article at the Globe with some amount of disgust this morning. For those who have yet to glance upon this masterwork of investigative journalism let me serve up some tasty snippets.

Boston has launched a high-profile campaign to become a friendlier city for cyclists. Now the question is whether bicyclists will become friendlier to Boston. On any hour of any day, Boston bicyclists routinely run red lights, ride the wrong way on one-way streets, zip along sidewalks, and cut off pedestrians crossing streets legally – even though bike riders are supposed to obey the same traffic laws as motorists. Sometimes, a bicyclist will do all of these things in one two-wheeled swoop. The city seems unable to stop it.

(emphasis mine)

Ahh yes, Boston cyclists scourge of the streets. I don’t actually disagree with the authors claims of wrong doing by cyclists. In fact I am just as annoyed and pissed off when I see cyclists running red lights (news flash, running red lights doesn’t make you faster…being faster makes you faster), mostly because I then have to pass their stupid asses as I take off after waiting at the red light, but also because I see them regularly muck up traffic, almost get run over, or fail to yield to pedestrians. In short the same numskulls who run red lights on their bikes, are the same people I worry about when in cars. So why might you ask was I so disgusted with this article?

In short the article is guilty of two things. One, it insinuated that only cyclists are breaking the law, and two, it tries very hard to neglect that different user groups produce different consequences when they break the law.

So to the first point, ‘only cyclists are bad’, lets take a look at some of the crack statistics work that the author did.

At that particular intersection, 12 out of 28 cyclists were observed ignoring the red light over the course of 45 minutes. Some cruised right through; others paused and then went forward. A dozen more rode along the narrow sidewalk, weaving their ways among joggers, people walking to work, and students toting instruments toward the Berklee College of Music. Four more cyclists rode the wrong way on Newbury Street, dodging oncoming vehicles.

…

On Wednesday, over the course of 40 minutes, 20 cyclists ran the light at Charles and Beacon streets; only one did not. Monday morning, over the course of 35 minutes at Copley Square, 12 cyclists sailed through red lights (five waited for green). Monday, during a half-hour at lunch time, 10 out of 23 cyclists ran the red light on Tremont Street at the beginning of Beacon Street, where tourists commingled with hurried business people. Ten more rode the wrong way on Tremont. Dozens more took the sidewalk, scattering walkers.

Nice, random sampling times, no methodology, no sampling of other user groups, tiny samples, in short these numbers mean nothing. They also fail to capture the entire picture. How many pedestrians walked out against the signal, how many cars failed to yield, how many cars failed to use turn signals, how many were speeding? I feel that a detailed multi-user group study of any intersection would show that every user group in Boston has a problem, and that problem is that they simply don’t give a fuck about anyone else.

If you are a pedestrian and you want to be “over there” and the little walk man isn’t showing what do you do? You look both ways (sometimes), if no one is coming (or often even if they are, cause ‘hey fuck it’ they will stop) and you step out into the street. You don’t care if you force the cyclist to move into heavy traffic to avoid you, you also don’t care if a bunch of cars have to suddenly stop to let you cross when you have absolutely no business being in the road at that time.

If you are a cyclist and you want to go through a red light, well ‘hey fuck it’, off you go. You have no regard for the fact that you might get run over, that you might hold up traffic, that you might strike a pedestrian that is crossing the street, that you might hit another cyclist that is following the law, that you might then cause a headache for the cyclists behind you who then have to deal with you when the light does turn green.

If you are a motorist and you feel like getting from point A to point B as fast as possible and you don’t feel like signaling, checking your mirrors, obeying the speed limit, looking before you open your door, yielding to pedestrians, giving cyclists room on the road, well ‘hey fuck it’ it’s your car and you will do what you want.

In short no user group is any more or less lawful than any other. They each break different laws in different frequency, but they are ALL breaking the law with great regularity and mostly because of the “hey fuck it” attitude that so many have in this city.

That brings me to point two. The consequences for different user groups breaking the law are not the same. When a car decides to run a red light, it carries a much greater risk than when a bike does. Similarly the danger to pedestrians who cross against the light are predominantly to themselves, with cyclists a close second, most motorists will not be physically harmed if they strike a pedestrian. All of these actions are illegal, and stupid, but the risk vs reward for each is different. If you are going to write an entire article about how unruly cyclists are, well then you should have lots of facts about how this behavior is dangerous to the public. Statistics showing the hundreds of deaths caused each year by cyclists running red lights, and the carnage caused by sidewalk riding. Don’t get me wrong, I think running red lights and riding on the side walk are stupid and shouldn’t be done, but in all honestly they don’t pose a major threat to public safety. However literally thousands of people are killed each year by or in cars. When a 4000 pound box of metal and glass gets going fast and doesn’t signal it’s turns, people die.

Publishing an entire article about one user group without putting it in context is disingenuous, and dishonest. There is already a strong pubic opinion that you “have to be crazy to ride a bike in Boston” or “bike riders are assholes.” Which is a horrible thing, biking in Boston can be a fun and relaxing activity. Bikers are not crazy, and biking doesn’t have to be a war of US v Them. The car lifestyle has brought us a lot of things, but the most obvious is obesity, congestion, pollution, sprawl , global warming, wars for oil, and as of late an economic crisis. People could do a fair amount of good by simply leaving the car in the driveway and taking the bike out for a spin.

This article was a simple attempt to get some ad revenue for the Globe, shallow sensational journalism lacking context or good research. But the fact still remains: Cyclists break the law, a lot. What can we do about that? The article itself, and the user comments are long on “this is the problem” and lacking completely the “this is the solution.” The solution seems to be two fold.

Education: You need to know what the laws are. This goes for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. You should have a deep understanding of what exactly you are supposed to be doing out there (check out MassBike’s website for a good run down of cycling laws if you are rusty, they just passed some new laws so it might be time for a refresher).

Attitude: Boston must put aside it’s “hey fuck it” (or even worse “hey fuck you”) attitude. What really keeps us all safe and happy out there is not the law, but the social trust. That little white line, or that little red/green/yellow light, isn’t what keeps you from getting run over by that truck. The trust you put into that truck driver to treat that light like it means something, or stay on one side of that white line is what keeps you safe. When you break the law what you are really doing is breaking the social trust that someone else put in you. You are saying to them “everything is chaotic you can’t count on anything” and that makes them mad, afraid and unsafe. If you are a cyclist you count on cars coming to a stop at red lights, otherwise you would never cross an intersection (imagine if cars ran reds with the frequency that bikes do). The entire system is based from the ground up on trust of strangers. Every time a cyclist runs a red light they are eroding that trust.

If each use group continues to erode the trust (by doing all the things mentioned above and more) then eventually the streets will be nothing more than a war zone, and whoever is fastest and toughest will get around, and everyone else will be road kill. Not a happy scenario, but also far from a likely one if some simple things are changed. But hey, at least we can count on the Boston Globe to provide us with poorly thought out, and poorly researched articles so that we can scape goat one group while ignoring the bigger problem. Thanks Boston Globe.

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Geekhouse Makes The Globe

Awww will you look at those smiling faces! How could you not want to buy a bicycle from this man. Marty is an amazing guy, and I suggest you all start saving up your money and get one of these bad ass bikes from him asap!

Read all about him and other cool local bike biz in the most recent article in the Globe.

It was late at night and I was riding home, tired. The mild slope of the Boston University Bridge seemed like a pothole-strewn mountain, and the curve of Putnam Street to Harvard Square, with nary an inch to spare for cyclists, took forever. Then at Mount Auburn and Massachusetts Avenue, I saw a flash. A cyclist flew by, and I got a jolt of adrenaline.

The bike was like a greyhound, narrow and forward-leaning, the essence of motion. Its rider had a U-lock stuck in his back pocket and a black T-shirt over his shoulders. He sat straight up in the saddle, easily smoking a cigarette. Though I’d stayed back, he’d sensed my presence, and the cranks started to churn. His bike – unencumbered by derailleurs, levers, or even conventional brakes – leapt forward. In a moment he was gone, and I was on my own again.

I’d just met a member of the fixed-gear tribe.

Hey I had no idea I was part of a tribe! Fellow tribal members, lets go ride bikes!

They also have some purty bikes in a gallery.

Here is a small taste.

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