From: JForester@cup.portal.com (John - Forester)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.soc
Subject: Safety and Bikeways
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 07:57:20 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

   Kevin Karplus expresses the dilemma that many bicycle advocates
feel when he says that while bike lane stripes do not reduce
accidents to cyclists the political appeal of bike-safety produced by
bike lanes is the easiest way to get sufficiently wide outside lanes
and to remove the hazard of parked cars, the latter of which would
reduce accidents. (Kevin's math is not quite right; he forgot to
multiply his 5% by 18%, which would reduce it to 1%, but his argument
does not depend on that.) Kevin also deplores the fact that American
society does not support proper cyclist training, which he knows
would be a far better way to both reduce accidents to cyclists and to
encourage cycling.

   While Kevin has diagnosed the problem, he has not developed the
courage to see the solution. The political appeal of bikeways depends
utterly upon the public's entirely erroneous belief that most
accidents to cyclists are caused by overtaking motorists. That is the
cyclist inferiority superstition. Every time that any one uses that
superstition to get bikeways increases the strength of that
superstition. Every time that a government adopts a bikeway program,
more people are persuaded that bikeways are the proper method of
producing "bike safety" and that the proper method of cycling is the
bikeway method, staying out of the way of the cars. The cyclist
inferiority superstition is our greatest enemy; we must overcome it
before we can expect to get reasonable programs for cyclists. Doing
anything that strengthens that superstition is doing exactly the
wrong thing, while fighting that superstition, even though that
reduces support for current cycling programs, is exactly the proper
action.

   If on-street parking is so much of a hazard to cyclists that it is
worth removing, then that should be argued directly on the merits of
the case, not as a byproduct of getting bike lanes. 

   Kevin's description of the status of the Effective Cycling Program
as preaching to the choir misses an important point. While things
would be much better if American society supported the teachings of
Effective Cycling, things would never get to that point if Effective
Cycling waited until society was ready for it. Effective Cycling, if
properly taught, teaches not only particular cycling skills but a new
(new in America, old elsewhere) attitude toward cycling. That is why
some bicycle activists and even some instructors don't like its
political implications, wish they weren't there and try to ignore
them. But even learning that the skills work and that other cyclists
use and believe in them changes the student's perception of cycling
reality. If EC is properly taught, the students don't have to work
out for themselves that the superstition by which society thinks
cyclists should operate and bicycle programs should be organized is
all wrong, and that, instead, cyclists fare best when they act and
are treated as drivers of vehicles and if government wants to do good
for cyclists its programs must be reorganized according to this
vehicular-cycling principle. The dissemination of this way of
thinking about cycling is, for the moment, at least as important as
the skills that EC teaches to individuals. 

JForester@cup.portal.com               John Forester
                                       726 Madrone Ave
408-734-9426                           Sunnyvale CA 94086 USA
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.soc