Yesterday I was riding my bike and passed a courier that had been rolled hard by a minivan. He foolishly didn’t have his lid on and his face was messed up pretty bad. From what I could see it looked like he was in the left lane and the minivan changed lanes without looking and BLAM courier soup. He was sitting up, and talking to the paramedics, but his bike was a mess, and it was clear he was going to be feeling it for a long time.
The strange thing was that because of the ensuing traffic snarl the only people moving were the people on bikes. There was like six of us, we all shot through the traffic like it was invisible and had the road to ourselves. We chatted about how much it sucked that the courier had been hit, about the general lack of care shown to bikers by cars, and how much we loved riding. The conversation moved to the topic of getting hit by cars, and almost every one of us had been struck by a car within the last three months. The guy to my left (another courier) had been hit just that morning. He said “I have been limping around all day” I guess when your job is to ride, if you don’t ride you don’t eat.
It was great to have the road to ourselves for once, and the girl on the city bike smiled as if to say “hey isn’t this cool we own the road”, but it got me to thinking if all of us have had so many run ins with cars that result in us getting struck, obviously something is wrong with the way the city is set up. The space seems to be putting cars and bikes into a fight for space. Boston is starting to try. The mayor has also hired a bike czar, and has made pledges to add more bike paths, more bike racks, etc.
It really can’t come too soon as it seems from my very unscientific poll of a couple of avid cyclists that it is not a matter of if, but when you will be hit by a car. The longer your exposure time is to the street, the higher your chances of being hit are. Until the city gets it’s act together and improves the infrastructure, I would ask all the cars, trucks, vans and pedestrians (especially the ones that like to run out between cars, you know who you are) to check for bicyclists, we are all over.
The accident rate seems kind of weird to me, especially the kind of accidents and the way they are caused.
Aren’t drivers in the US trained in the basics like using mirrors and the rules you need to follow to participate on the road?
Here in the Netherlands we are by law required to learn to drive with a certified teacher or school. In specialized cars with double controls (brake and throttle) and mirrors for both the student and the teacher. And during the driving test they pay special attention to how you react to traffic and participate (not using the mirror twice is a fail criteria), if you follow the rules and if you watch out for bikes. This last isn’t surprising for a country where there are more bikes than actual people.
Also children are given lessons at school in how to use the bike and what the rules are. With an actual exam where they watch how you do on the road (with people watching what you do and who regulate traffic if needed)
Accidents do happen here. Although they really aren’t common. I’ve never been hit by a car and most people never do. And if they do it’s minor injuries (the kids/adolescents making a stupid move and the driver of the car preventing a serious accident).
In total we had in 2001:
552 fatalities
6860 injuries
And that’s with 13 billion kilometers traveled per bike (that’s one accident per 1.8 million kilometers traveled per bike). And that’s for al 16 million inhabitants in my country, we all use the bike. Some more thant others but everyone uses them.
Hi Collin: You paint a picture of a system that simply doesn’t exist here. Drivers are NOT taught how to deal with bikers in any real way, bikers do NOT go to bike class, there are not many bike lanes, and it is true you guys have way more people using bikes.
Riding your bike in a city like Boston can feel like a battle some times, your in traffic with crazy drivers all trying to get quickly to a place that the roads were never designed to allow you to go quickly to.
Hopefully Boston will start to adopt some of the things you talk about, or maybe I should move to the Netherlands :)
Happy Biking!
So why don’t you move here. ;)
Yeah I know, that’s whats so completely alien for me. But the thing I tried to get across was if there isn’t something in the training of drivers for looking correctly at traffic?
That’s what we do here. That in our driving lessons they pay special attention on how to deal with bicycles is something unique to our region. But they mainly teach us how to look at traffic. So that we adapt our driving style to the children running/playing on the sidewalk or the idiot coming your way thinking he’s in the movie the fast and the furious.
That’s a big thing in our driving test and a fail criteria. If you can’t think on your feet (so to speak) and also react correctly to situations on the road you fail the test.
So for us it is normal to look in our rear-view mirror, side-view mirror, look over our shoulder, and as we turn (or switch lanes) to make a quick glance at our side-view mirror and over our shoulder to check we haven’t missed something (if you don’t do this on a driving test you fail).
That’s the reason why the decribed accidents on your blog completely flabbergast me. Because here it’s so ingrained in our driving style we seldom don’t see a car, bike or pedestrian.
And I get the feeling it’s something that’s not really standard in the US. Judging from the accident rate.
For most of the riders I know, being on a bike in Boston is more of an adventure. As a biker in a city full of people who couldn’t care you have to be faster, stronger, and think faster than they do.
When I am on my bike, I have to look behind me (both sides) I have to keep an eye on that pedestrian that is about to walk about between that parked van and car (you can tell from the shoes, and the shadow on the ground). A cab is changing lanes and has his right flasher on meaning he is going to pull in front of me soon if I don’t take the lane or slow down he is going to hit me (god forbid he has a fare on the corner cause then he is going to come a complete stop). There is no bike lane so I have to dodge pot holes, and keep an eye on the doors and review mirrors of all the parked cars, because they might have people in them, and I for sure don’t want to win the door prize. Then you got people running red lights, pedestrians crossing at all point in the road, and people who feel that bikes belong some place other than on the road (they don’t like to share) and you have a mine field of crazy to ride through.
Do all this while going as fast as possible (for the fun of it) and you get my morning/night ride. I get to work amped pretty high from the adrenaline, but I think I could learn to live with a nice placid bike lane drive to work. Where there are special lanes, and street signals just for me on my bike.