Critical mass and driver behavior – a story

[Orestes Munn]

@mstone 98950 wrote:

The question is, if the passing vehicle is suddenly faced with an incoming vehicle, will the passing vehicle complete the pass, brake and pull back into the lane behind the cyclist, or change lanes into the cyclist?

Yes, or collide head-on with the oncoming vehicle. Next question, please.

[Steve O]

@lordofthemark 98918 wrote:

… example of how the increase in the number of cyclists (in this case, me) impacts the behavior of drivers – in this case by making cyclists’ family members better informed about cycling.

Your own similar experiences with family members, either reinforcing or contradicting this, would be interesting.

Apologies for bringing this thread back towards its original purpose.

I usually lock my helmet up with my bike, so I don’t have to schlep it around with me. Recently, though, I’ve had three conversations with fellow cyclists that have made me rethink this. They told me that their helmet hanging from their backpack or sticking out of their bag frequently attracts attention and leads to a conversation about bikes and biking. (Shoot, what other conversation is better than that?)

In my mind this is valuable in two ways:
1) It normalizes cycling a little. (“Look, here’s someone at the meeting who came by bike. Hmm…seems a bit odd, but it never occurred to me before.”) Sometimes I’m at meetings where another person has a helmet. If I had not locked mine to my bike, there would have been two of us. Double the normalcy.
2) It personalizes an individual cyclist for your interlocutors (and eavesdroppers). Those people, presumably drivers, now have a stronger association with a cyclist as an individual human being and not just an abstract obstacle in the road.

[mstone]

I guess you’re trying to be amusing. I don’t think it’s particularly humorous because, in my experience, drivers act based on their assessment of what is safe for them and don’t consider the safety of others much of at all. (This is why they don’t see why speed limits should be low on wide straight streets in residential zones, for example.) So I expect that a car passing me on a two lane road could suddenly run into me, because that’s safer for the driver than getting hit by a car. A lot of double lines are there because there simply isn’t a way to see what’s coming. The idea of just letting drivers decide to pass anyway seems insane.

Maybe a workable option would be to codify the effective practice which ignores this behavior if done safely, but add strict liability if the motorist miscalculated.

A better option, I think, is to revisit the guidelines on double striping and only stripe the places where passing a bike is unsafe or where there are multiple lanes. Oh, and ticket people passing so they can speed.

[Orestes Munn]

@mstone 98955 wrote:

I guess you’re trying to be amusing. I don’t think it’s particularly humorous because, in my experience, drivers act based on their assessment of what is safe for them and don’t consider the safety of others much of at all.

If you really mean this, why is cycling not lethal for us all in the (not very) long run? This is the same fallacy perpetrated by those who “have never seen a cyclist stop at a red light.”

I am amusing myself, if no one else.

Edit: Apologies for the discussions; however, this is relevant to the original question. Do many of us impute a callous indifference to the safety of others to our friends and loved ones who drive and can such an ingrained attitude be altered by having a friend or relation who cycles?

[jabberwocky]

I ride some narrow roads with decent traffic out in Great Falls. Many of them have blind turns or rises, and I infrequently have motorists attempt to pass over a double yellow in these situations. My experience is that almost always, they stay in the oncoming lane and risk a head on collision rather than swerve back into me (which actually surprises me; whenever I hear a car revving up to pass at a blind corner, I’m always ready to bail right to avoid them if they decide to swerve back into my lane, but it hasn’t happened yet).

I’ve seen numerous situations where oncoming traffic needs to brake to almost a complete stop to avoid someone passing me in their lane. I’ve remarked to my coworkers on several occasions that one of these days I’m going to see a jolly good head on collision because someone is too impatient to wait until we are around a blind turn to pass.

[mstone]

@Orestes Munn 98956 wrote:

If you really mean this, why is cycling not lethal for us all in the (not very) long run? This is the same fallacy perpetrated by those who “have never seen a cyclist stop at a red light”.

This is completely unrelated to whether cyclists stop at red lights. Why aren’t we all dead? 1) most of us ride really defensively 2) it’s relatively rare for a driver to have to make a considered decision that directly impacts us. We generally try to minimize the occurrence of situations where safety depends on people making quick decisions under stress to protect other people. Instead, we make blanket rules that don’t require much judgment. (Such as: don’t pass on a double yellow line.)

Note that none of this is specific to drivers; in most dangerous situations people will think first of themselves.

[krazygl00]

@rcannon100 98933 wrote:

…hanging out on the right – allowing the crazies to be on the left.

WOW the election has really affected this town :p

[Orestes Munn]

@mstone 98959 wrote:

This is completely unrelated to whether cyclists stop at red lights. Why aren’t we all dead? 1) most of us ride really defensively 2) it’s relatively rare for a driver to have to make a considered decision that directly impacts us. We generally try to minimize the occurrence of situations where safety depends on people making quick decisions under stress to protect other people. Instead, we make blanket rules that don’t require much judgment. (Such as: don’t pass on a double yellow line.)

Note that none of this is specific to drivers; in most dangerous situations people will think first of themselves.

Here’s what you wrote: …in my experience, drivers act based on their assessment of what is safe for them and don’t consider the safety of others much of at all.

Don’t understand? Then let me refine the analogy for you: Your statement embodies the same fallacy of generalization from a isolated cases that is contained in the statement, “In my experience, cyclists have no concern for the safety of pedestrians.” Moreover, it contains an invidious characterization of state of mind.

Remember that next time someone gives you a nice wide pass or follows at a respectful distance until it’s safe to go.

As to your reasons why we’re not all dead, 1) I would submit that most of “us” (meaning cyclists nationwide) ride like idiots and 2) my own experience of forcing quick decisions on drivers, always due to my own inattentiveness or misjudgment, have resulted in immediate action to avoid hitting me (edit: so far).

[rcannon100]

@krazygl00 98963 wrote:

WOW the election has really affected this town :p

I will disclaim ever saying that!

[Orestes Munn]

@krazygl00 98963 wrote:

WOW the election has really affected this town :p

It’s certainly turned me into one hell of a windy old grouch!

[ShawnoftheDread]

@Orestes Munn 98966 wrote:

It’s certainly turned me into one hell of a windy old grouch!

I bet the two are unrelated.

[mstone]

@Orestes Munn 98964 wrote:

Here’s what you wrote: …in my experience, drivers act based on their assessment of what is safe for them and don’t consider the safety of others much of at all.

Don’t understand? Then let me refine the analogy for you: Your statement embodies the same fallacy of generalization from a isolated cases that is contained in the statement, “In my experience, cyclists have no concern for the safety of pedestrians.” Moreover, it contains an invidious characterization of state of mind.

Remember that next time someone gives you a nice wide pass or follows at a respectful distance until it’s safe to go.

As to your reasons why we’re not all dead, 1) I would submit that most of “us” (meaning cyclists nationwide) ride like idiots and 2) my own experience of forcing quick decisions on drivers, always due to my own inattentiveness or misjudgment, have resulted in immediate action to avoid hitting me (edit: so far).

None of your examples include an element of danger for the driver and are thus kinda irrelevant. They are more about courtesy, which is a great thing but not what I’m talking about. In context, I was talking about the case of a driver looking at the headlights of an incoming car. My expectation is that the driver will take a reflex action to preserve his safety. (Just as someone would do if they were on a bike or on foot.) Again, this has nothing to do with the presence or absence of virtue in motorists, it’s about not putting people into stress situations and asking them to make safety critical decisions.

There are some other points about statistics concerning things like observed speeds which also don’t depend on anecdote, but they’re mostly don’t matter. You seem really upset at the idea that drivers as a group may not be virtuous, but to me that’s self-evident: I don’t think cyclists are virtuous either, I just think they pose less risk to others so I care less about their failings.

[lordofthemark]

I should have posted a seperate thread about double yellow lines – I should have realized it would dominate this thread. Still the discussion has been good.

Note that my wife was, I think, proceeding uphill, so it would have been a particularly dangerous place to cross the double yellow. I do think that NOT striping yellow lines where speeds are slow and visibility is good is a good idea – some of the places I am most comfortable taking the lane are quiet two way streets with NO stripe in the middle, where drivers can safely and comfortably pass me. The lack of a stripe encourages drivers to go slowly.

[mstone]

Yeah, the DOTs have gotten too formulaic: if drivers do X, then the street needs to be changed to make X easier. We’re only starting to see a shift toward considering whether we want X, or whether the street should be configured to make X less likely. It’ll be a generation before the new way of thinking is common in road departments.

[DismalScientist]

Laws regarding passing slow moving vehicles (defined somewhere a traveling less than half the speed limit) with a solid yellow line vary by state. A quick perusal of the web suggest that it is illegal in Virginia, but legal in Maryland and Wisconsin (provided it is done safely.) Cars generally pass me on Army Navy Drive, Carpenter Road in Fort Myer, and 2nd Street South. As I have stated before, I would prefer that drivers cross the yellow than try to pass me in the lane. In all cases, there were adequate forward sight lines and I never have felt endangered.

When riding in rural areas, I will signal for a car to pass me if I think it is safe, generally determined by adequate forward sight lines, regardless of whether there is a yellow line. The reaction of a driver to “sudden” appearance of an oncoming car in the opposite lane is a straw man in my view. If this were to happen, the driver has initiated an unsafe pass regardless of the presence of a yellow line. Drivers should never pass at an intersection because of the potential of right turning traffic from the side street.

[Author]

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