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Ride
on the Sidewalk Yourself
I
was glad to hear that Chuck Quackenbush [Letters, April 13]
has an easy time cycling in the Capital Region. Sadly, though,
he’s the only cyclist I’ve ever heard say that Capital Region
drivers are friendly to cyclists. And I’ve spoken with a lot
of them, as well as been one.
In fact, I find it truly staggering the number of times I
have been shouted at, while calmly and predictably riding
in a straight line along the right curb, to get off the road
or ride on the sidewalk (that’s illegal for those of us over
the age of 10, by the way). Along with being hyper-aware of
recent area car causalities like David Ryan, I personally
know many riders who have had much worse shouted at them than
I have, not to mention been hit, by grumpy drivers who refuse
to believe that bicycles have, according to state law, “all
of the rights” (and yes, all of the duties) applicable to
drivers.
Cyclists are less polluting, less traffic-causing, and easier
on the roads than drivers, not to mention they’re doing their
part to reduce the obesity crisis. A public good if I ever
heard of one.
And so some better attention needs to be paid to their legal
status. Bicycles are traffic, but they are also different
enough from cars that “all of the rights and all of the duties”
doesn’t quite cut it.
Local ordinances governing bicycles are piecemeal and often
anachronistic. In Scotia you may not coast with your feet
off the pedals. In Hudson if you dismount and walk your bike
you become subject to pedestrian laws. In the city of Albany,
bicycles, tricycles and velocipedes (those would be those
old bikes with the really big wheels) have a speed limit of
8 miles per hour and must ring a bell as they approach any
intersection they plan to cross. I can think of few things
more certain to lead to an increase in vehicular violence
against cyclists if obeyed.
The state law is better, clearly enunciating a few key rights
many cyclists aren’t even sure they have. It says that bicycles
should ride as near the right hand curb as practicable, except
when preparing for a left turn or when it would be unsafe
to stay all the way right. The latter conditions explicitly
include obstacles (parked cars, people. . .), surface hazards
(potholes), and “traffic lanes too narrow for a bicycle .
. . and a vehicle to travel safely side-by-side within the
lane.” Cyclists are also supposed to ride no more than two
abreast, and to go down to single file when “being overtaken
by a vehicle.”
The state regs get at more of the heart of the matter, but
they still beg a few questions. If one considers all the places
within our cities where cars swerve across the double yellow
lines when passing a bike as places too narrow for a bicycle
and a vehicle to “travel safely side-by-side,” which would
seem reasonable, you’ve got quite a high percentage of our
roads. If you then add in all the places that might be wide
enough except for the potholes that tend to be concentrated
in that strip between the parked cars and the travel lane
where a bike would go, suddenly it would make sense to see
cyclists in the flow of traffic much more often.
Of course it’s a good indication of how much cyclists, even
clearly experienced and skilled bike commuters, trust that
that would work to watch how many of them instead regularly
pop onto the sidewalk for a few blocks here and there along
major arteries for their own safety. To quote Albert Howell
in a column from the April 11 Toronto Globe and Mail,
“No cyclist wants to ride on the sidewalk; it’s slow and
full of obstacles. But when the alternative is being injured
or killed by a car, I go where I have to.”
If you then ask how the safe-to-travel-side-by-side test would
interact with the double-wide/single-wide regulation, you
get a real muddle. Does it mean anything to be overtaken by
a vehicle in a lane where it wouldn’t actually be safe to
be passed? Should it? I would hazard a guess that if they
couldn’t actually safely pass a group of cyclists, car drivers
would probably at least prefer those cyclists to be compact
and moving swiftly, rather than strung out in creeping single
file. But I’m talking common sense here, not the letter of
the law.
(Note to Critical Mass: it could be interesting, theoretically,
to see what would happen if a ride stuck strictly to two abreast,
far enough into the lane to be safe, and then proceeded to
also stick very strictly to an 8 mph speed limit and ring
very loud bells/horns in chorus upon approaching every intersection.
I mean, I’m not suggesting it, but it might put a new spin
on the law-abiding vs. obstructing traffic equation, you know?)
I tend to hate arguments whose main conclusion is “there needs
to be more education.” But sometimes it’s true, and this is
one of those times. (Check out the New York Bicycling Coalition’s
Share the Road driver-education program for a good model.)
I would, however, add that we’re also in need of clear and
explicit statements on the part of municipalities that they
support cycling, that they’re interested in making their ordinances
reflect that, and that they won’t tolerate law-enforcement
patterns that are more concerned with not inconveniencing
drivers than with protecting cyclists from them.
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
maxel-lute@metroland.net
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