What If Car-Bike Wrecks Inspired Dumb Theories?

Dead cyclists, scarred drivers

Riding a bicycles on streets with cars creates a mathematically predictable carnage which is too upsetting for people to accept, so the following two theories are typically invented and re-invented, as a defense mechanism.

1. Drivers are bad people for causing this carnage and not respecting cyclists. Until this changes, cyclists will be hopelessly slaughtered.
2. Cyclists are bad people for disrespect to the law and generally discourteous driving habits, and deserve the bad luck that befalls them.

Neither of these arguments makes the slightest mathematical sense. Their existence keeps people from addressing the real problem, which is the linear predictability of the event itself.

Toward an effective solution:

Yesterday was "Ride Your Bike to Work Day", no telling how many people were slaughtered as a result of this brilliant move. It comes on the heels of the Ride of Silence two days previous, where those of us who have had friends slaughtered mourn our losses.

The only solution that makes sense is separate trails and roads for bicycles. Anything less is fraught with risk, including the bizarre blame the victim solutions taken in the typical Drivers are bad people or it's equally mindless companion, the Cyclists are bad people arguments.

In the arguments that follow, it is stipulated that both driver and cyclist are damaged in a car/bike accident. The damage is not equal, which obscures the less visible damage to the driver.

Drivers are bad people

This nonsensical argument takes the approach of education as the solution. We simply need to educate these doggoned drivers. Make them realize that bicycles are here and deserve to be here. They have to pay attention. As soon as they do, they will embrace our right to be on the road, and we will not be slaughtered any longer.

The logic behind this assumption ignores certain facts.

1. Neurology works in patterns. People see what they expect to see and are blind to things they do not expect to see. Drivers literally cannot see bicycles, at least some fractionally small percentage of the time.
2. If the above is true only 1 in 1000 times, and a rider gets passed by 36 cars average on his way to work, mathematically he's likely to be hit by a car for sure, if he rides to work for a couple months instead of taking his car.
3. The neurology of cognition is related to frequency. The fewer people that ride to work, the less it is expected, and the more likely that the driver is going to be blind to the one rider who did.

Extrapolating on the intent hypothesis.

The Drivers are bad people perspective takes the approach that we can make them good people by making them accept our rights to be on the road. That way they can choose to be good people by acknowledging our rights.

If we extrapolate this out, what it says is that some percentage of the carnage is due to people with bad attitudes towards cyclists. There is, in this perspective, a kind of intent to disregard cyclists.

I have looked into the eyes of two different people right after they hit a cyclist. One had just hit me ( I was not injured ). Another may have been fatal, or pretty serious. The girl who hit me looked to be much more shaken up by the accident than me. The guy driving in the serious accident will probably have nightmares for the rest of his life. You could not convince me that either caused the accident from an intention to harm. They just didn't see (me, him) in time.

Or take my good friend Scott, intensely dedicated father of two children, one of whom is a competitive cyclist and Eagle Scout. Two years ago Scott almost hit a cyclist. It happened in the early morning, a mile away from his house. Tell me that's because Scott is a bad person. No. Scott is not a bad person, he just didn't see the guy. 

My brother recently buried an adult friend from his childhood. He was hit by a car that never even slowed down. The low sun was in the driver's dirty windshield. This driver was not a "bad person" who needed to be educated about bicycles rights on the road. He was a new 16 year old driver who will never be the same again.

It is silly to argue that there is any intent to hit cyclists in our culture. Not that this never happens, just that far and away the most prominent source of accidents is invisibility, not intent. Focusing on the few creeps among us misses the primary cause of the carnage.

Cyclists are bad people

Being one of those bad people, I can tell you for a fact that I have helped earn this lovely distinction. Cycling is not for sissies, and it can bring out the animal in anyone. I'm 55 now, so maybe I am back to being a sissy, but I was young once, and much more stupid than I currently am, even now.

Imagine that I'm a 23 year old and full of piss and vinegar, and some guy is passing me in a car and doesn't see me until the very last second, so he passes me on the left in the same lane. His mirror barely misses my left shoulder. I'm 7 miles into a ride, the adrenaline is flowing, and this guy just scared the holy crap out of me! The inevitable finger goes up, and the driver instantly becomes another convert to the "Cyclists are bad people" crowd. Heck he's just glad he saw me at the last moment and didn't hit me, and now I flip him off in gratitude.

Then 3 miles later I go through an intersection. I'm timing myself this trip, hitting 16 mph average, not bad. So I run the stop sign, and the guy watching me becomes second convert to this group of cyclist haters. He asks himself rightly "What kind of jerk doesn't have to stop at a stop sign?"

Or take the case of my sister who just about plowed into another car dodging an idiot cyclist who darted out in her lane. She IS a cyclist.

All these events are very typical, so the inevitable result is to create this knee jerk philosophy that cyclists deserve everything that happens to them. It's unfortunate. But it just doesn't hold water.

Mathematically, if the "Cyclists are bad people" hypothesis was the cause of the carnage, then you could take a cross section of people who had killed cyclists and find a higher percentage of cyclist haters among them. You're not going to find that. They might have reason to hate cyclists, but it's not likely to make them run over a random cyclist and kill him.

Fatal Attraction: Cyclists love well traveled roads.

There is one other causal factor. Ask me where I like to cycle most.

Where cars drive, roads stay clean and grit free because car tires pick up the grit. Where cars drive, roads are well maintained. Where cars drive, traffic moves freely and it's fun to get out in it, and race.

Shoulders of the road are perfect counter-examples. This is a harsh place to ride, as it tends to shred bicycle tires. But a few feet to the left? Now that's a nice smooth ride.

Not saying that this is the way it should be, just saying this is the way it is.

The Solution

No solution is offered. But we've got to tell the truth. Blaming drivers is dishonest,  so is blaming rude cyclists.

We could theoretically create separate roads for cyclists. But cyclists don't pay a gas tax, so who pays for this?

It's a puzzler.