cars don't kill cyclists, people kill cyclists

Two days ago, there was accident in my fair city, in which a cyclist was killed. I know that statistically speaking, bike vs. car incidents are relatively rare, but this one hit really close to home. The rider, Heather Reu, lived in my neighborhood. She was about my age. She was a mother to four adopted children. She was the PTA secretary at the neighborhood school, my kids went to school with her kids. I am pretty sure I have met her. I know that as a fellow cyclist, she and I could easily have been friends.

She was training for triathlon on a road I know well. The road is on top of a mesa, it's straight and flat, next to a small airport. It used to be used as part of the course for a local time trial series. It's a popular route for local cyclists. Though there is a very narrow shoulder on it, it's not an inner city route, and the traffic on it is usually light. The cars that do travel on it go fast. Normally this is not a problem, since it's long, straight, and flat. Drivers can see ahead for miles. This is not a dangerous road.

Here are the facts. The driver that hit and killed Heather had a court record which included a number of motor vehicle citations (including driving with a suspended license). The driver is currently in police custody, he was found with narcotics in his possession. The driver claims he leaned over to pick up his cell phone when he hit Heather. Witnesses said he fled the scene on foot, he was then taken into custody by police. He's being held on $7500 bail, and has only been charged, so far, with fleeing the scene. He rear-ended her.

Here are more facts. Heather is dead. Four children are now motherless, a husband is now a widower. A community has lost a woman who, by all accounts, was a helpful and loving person. This accident represents the pointless and preventable death of a good person, and it makes me deeply sad. I don't want to explain to my children that one of their classmates' mommies was killed on a bicycle - how do you think they will feel the next time I out on one of my long rides?

Logically, I could say that one fucktard on drugs striking and killing a cyclist is an entirely random and unlikely event. It is horrible and wrong, but it does not happen every day. It would be easy to brush this off and say, that's random - it's statistically unlikely it will happen to me. The need for self justification will help me find a way to make it safe for me to keep doing my sport. I have to believe that we have laws that are supposed to protect us, and that motorists are, in general, not out to hurt cyclists...

Right?

Earlier this week, I read how Texas Governor Rick Perry vetoed the 'safe passage' law. I was not surprised to find a lot of emotional and inflammatory comments following the article -- it is, after all, politics. Nothing seems to push buttons more than politics. It seems like Texas is at war with itself on cycling.

Today I read about another incident in which a cyclist hit an SUV during a race, on a closed course in Florida. The lead cyclist smacked straight into the car during a triathlon - there were about 900 other cyclists. Talk about random, unpredictable and weird, this never should have happened on closed course, with a policeman at the intersection. He was totally not at fault, he was as blameless as Heather (though he's survived, with injuries). I was bewildered to see so many comments from readers of this article who were agitated with cyclists. Why would a blameless rider in a closed race get so much derision?

This is not an isolated thing - I've read other newspaper articles in other states and other countries about cars vs. bikers. It seems like drivers who comment on cycling accidents in the paper make the same judgments every time. I'm going to go out on a limb and be general about it -- it seems rare that motorists are nice or helpful or open minded with their opinions. A majority of comments are made with an angry tone. They're pissed off. Let me think about this -- pissed off people in multi-ton vehicles making disparaging comments about cyclists? Yes that scares the hell out of me. Why are motorists so pissed off at cyclists?

The comments by motorists always boil down to the same essence: it's the cyclist's fault. For the record, I'm not anti-car, but I find myself wishing that it were compulsory for everyone to ride a bike for some period of time. I think many drivers simply don't know what it feels like to have a car make an unpredicted turn in front of you, or forget you're there, or just not see you. I think that a lot of road cyclists get bristley about the car argument thing because they have to adopt an offensive posture to survive. I think that if more people would get outside and feel what it's like to be on the road, we'd have a lot more empathy for each other.

I've read irate comments from drivers who believe that cyclists don't obey the same laws, they break motorist laws. Every time I've heard this comment, it's coming from a motorist who believes that cyclists are getting away with murder - they're breaking the law, they never get caught, it's completely unfair.

I've been a motorist for a long time, and now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I've ever personally seen a cyclist run a red light. I'm not saying cyclists don't break traffic laws - I know it happens, and I've heard about Critical Mass rides (some of you guys are not helping matters, by the way), but I don't think it happens as commonplace. I have seen cyclists do dumb things that make my palms sweat. I've seen far more car drivers do way dumber things that made my heart stop. I'd say this is down to numbers: there are far more cars than bicycles on the road.

I think that cyclists breaking traffic laws is far from the norm, for sheer self-preservation. On the road, we are the vulnerable ones - we're the ones who will die first in a car vs. bike encounter. I've never felt so vulnerable in my life as I do on a bicycle - you'd better believe I'm watching what every object on wheels around me is doing at any time. For me, running a light is out of the question. I will take every possible step to stay out of a fight with anything on four wheels - it's bigger than me, it's going to win, it gets to go first. Do I break laws on a bike? Hell no - I value my life!

I accept that cyclists break the law. So do motorists. Which one is scarier?

There are many who believe cyclists don't pay taxes for roads. The tax thing is the weakest argument I've ever heard. I know that this is a bogus argument, and it's highly effective at raising emotions - just mention taxes in mixed company, you're sure to get an animated discussion.

In this country, roads are paid for through all forms of taxation: property, vehicle, income, everything. According to this, only 1/3 of the roads get paid for through your vehicle charges (e.g. gasoline, registration, etc.). That means anyone who pays taxes for anything pays for the roads.

Every biker I know has a car and a job - that's two big things that get taxed. I don't personally know them all, but I'd guess that if a cyclist doesn't have a car at home, they probably also have a pretty low income (e.g., poor student), which means they don't make enough money to pay taxes - on anything. Of the total number of bikers out there, how many do you suppose are starving under-the-radar students? I'm guessing a small fraction -- and even so, they are paying taxes for being a student somewhere else. Students are not immune from taxation. No one is immune from taxation.

The 'cyclists don't pay taxes' argument might infer a bias against poverty (e.g., you're too poor to use our roads). Nonetheless, it's patently untrue - bikers pay taxes just like Hummer drivers. Cyclists and cars have equal rights to the road. Cyclists and cars also have equal access to law enforcement - I've seen bikes get ticketed.

I have personally heard the argument that cyclists don't belong on the road because they belong on the sidewalk. If I had my way and everybody had to ride a bike for awhile, maybe more motorists would understand the many reasons that you can't really ride a bike at speed on a sidewalk.

Having said that, I can forgive a certain amount of ignorance on this one - I grew up biking on sidewalks myself, it wasn't until I was in adulthood that I discovered that bicycles are treated, by law, as slow moving vehicles. That's right. Bikes, tractors, farm vehicles: we're all in the same boat. That means cars must give bikes the right of way when passing. That means that it's against the law for us to be on the sidewalk. We're allowed, in this state, to ride two abreast. Cars are supposed to give 5 feet of space when passing bikes. The laws as they apply to bikers in our State are pretty easy to interpret. If there are more cars than bikes on the road, who do you think breaks more laws?

I have encountered a well-meaning driver who pulled me over on my bike to tell me that the road is too unsafe for me on a bike. She was projecting her own fear on me, I could feel that she feared for my safety because she was scared (and I think many drivers feel this way).

This logic has a big blind spot. What would happen if the same freaked-out drivers applied this logic to other cars? There are far more accidents involving cars vs cars than there are cars vs bikes. We ignore this to get ourselves out the door. We ignore the potential dangers that lurk behind the wheel of other cars on the road. We'd never go anywhere if we sat to contemplate just how much danger we put ourselves into in our big safe metal boxes.

It's human nature to find a way to make it OK for ourselves and make it somebody else's fault for every potential danger. To the scared drivers, I say, feel your fear, know that it's yours, and respect others. Maybe if the car drivers were respecting their own fear instead of blaming cyclists for freaking them out, the roads wouldn't be so dangerous. Instead of thinking 'the road is too dangerous for cyclists, therefore they should get off the road', perhaps we should all be thinking 'the road is dangerous for cyclists, I will pay extra attention so that I don't accidentally plow someone down.'

There are those who believe that cyclists deserve what they get. To those who believe this, I'd remind them that the cyclist who was killed this week in my town was a mother, a wife, and a daughter. She was harmless. She was a friend to many. I am sure she knew the risks, I bet she thought about them a lot. She was mowed down by an inattentive driver who was on drugs. She was killed doing something she loved, she was not breaking the law, and she was hurting no one. She was vulnerable, just like every other cyclist out there. Did she deserve it?

Honor Heather and pedal some miles. Think about what she felt, feel her vulnerability. Think about the others on the road.