Ride of Silence 2011

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Twenty Percent

That's the failure level among people taking the GMAC Insurance multiple choice drivers test. Twenty questions and you need to miss more than six to fail. The test is actually quite simple. Answer the questions with safety being the overriding factor for determining the correct answer and you can match my 20 for 20. Who says cyclists don't know the vehicle code?

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Share the Road

Here's an editorial from the Baltimore Sun about sharing the road. Maryland just passed a three foot passing statute and some are up in arms about how it will delay them. This piece, while occasionally sarcastic, takes pretty good aim at the issues.

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It's Bike Month!

So to start off the month, an article from the NY Times about stopping at red lights.

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Nothing to do with Cycling

The British really know how to do a PSA.

Wear your seatbelt.

Spike Bike Rides Again

Ever wonder what Spike Bike rode?

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More on Distracted Driving

Focus Driven is an advocacy group that is attempting to raise awareness to the lethality of distracted driving. The US Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, is promoting the group on the Federal Department of Transportation website. It would appear that anti-distracted driving efforts are indeed Federal level policy.

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Texting While Driving IV

Wonder of wonders! The NC Legislature took the hint from the US Department of Transportation and they have instituted a Texting while Driving ban. (The News and Record has bizarre priorities--they mixed in new reptile laws with a story on the new distracted drving law). As has been noted before, this new law won't do much in itself to stop distracted driving as it will be somewhat difficult to enforce. What it will do however, is make the more serious offenses that distracted driving produces easier to prosecute. If an officer/DA suspects the person may have been texting they need only subpoena the transaction records from the device provider to establish the truth of the matter. With distracted driving proved, this opens up the options for prosecuting the consequences of the distracted driving such as vehicular homicide. Hopefully there will be some active enforcement of this law to raise awareness and we can see the crash levels fall as people do what they are supposed to doing when behind the wheel, driving.

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Get the Msg

The US Secretary of Transportation gets the message. The US Senate appears to get the message. When will the US public get the message? While waiting at a light at Bluford and Dudley yesterday I watched what every driver was doing as they attempted to pilot their motor vehicle down the road. Nine out of ten where on the phone. For all I know the tenth one was on the phone but had a hands-free device. What is so important that people must increase their crash risk by 400%?

Hang up and drive!

Avoiding The Door Zone

Here is an absolutely fantastic illustrative video about where the door zone is and how far out one must ride to avoid it. This is a must show for motorist education classes so they can have a clue as to why a cyclist MUST ride six feet away from parked cars.

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Tax Holiday

North Carolina had its School Tax Holiday this weekend. The concept, as I understand it, is to help people save a little money as they prepare for the school year. That's all well and good. What I take issue with is the logic behind what is or isn't taxed.

How many grade school students have you ever seen wearing Lycra kit to school? I've never seen a one. Granted, just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it does exist. Most students who would be permitted to bicycle to school probably live within five miles of school, a distance were Lycra offers no benefit. What's my point? On Saturday I purchased one Lycra jersey, one pair of Lycra shorts and one pair of cycling gloves and all of it was tax free.

Now I suspect this all came under the overarching category of clothing so I'm not going to complain about law makers trying to keep a law simple. What I will complain about is the purchase that was taxed.

Juveniles in NC are required to wear a helmet while operating a bicycle. Guess which purchase was taxed? The helmet--Not a high end unobtanium feather weight model which would clearly be a luxury, but a middle of the road Bell Ghisallo. If the NC legislature wants to show they are serious about promoting transportation methods other than single occupant motor vehicles then they have some serious work to do.

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National Stop on Red Week

Wish I found out about this one earlier, not that I have a problem with stopping at reds or stop signs, but so I could publicize it better. This week is National Stop on Red Week as promoted by The National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running.

Here's a little eye candy to drive home the point.

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Texting While Driving III

It appears Yankees are good for something. Charles Schumer, Senator from NY, has introduced a bill in Congress to cut Federal highway dollars to states that fail to enact texting bans. This came on the heels of a report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute report on the dangers of texting and cell phone use while driving. Currently 13 states and the District of Columbia have texting bans in place or slated to take effect. The largest issue surrounding these laws is enforcement. Unless the act is seen it is difficult to prosecute although not impossible. My take is anything that makes road use safer, which this type of law has potential to do if enforced, is a good thing.

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And I Thought GSO Motorists Were Bad

Take a look at this video from Kansas City. A couple of the motorists slowed for the stop sign but nary a one even approached a state lacking in inertia. Some even were accelerating strongly when they were approaching the sign.

How can motorists even think about complaining about cyclist behaviour regarding stop signs when there own is so horrible?

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NC DOT Adopts "Complete Streets" Policy

Until now NC road designers had no requirement to add facilities to highways that accommodated any other users except motorists. Now a "Complete Streets" policy has been adopted that directs designers to consider the needs of non-motorists. The operative word there is "consider". Using costs of adding such infrastructure as a reason to drop plans from consideration is something that will have to be watched closely before we can call this a "win" for transportation outside of privately owned motor vehicles.

Texting While Driving II

This not quite scientific study from Car and Driver magazine illustrates the dangers of Texting and Reading while driving. Their measurement methods seemed sound enough but their test pool was decidedly small (two people). Given this is a magazine devoted to cars and driving I would expect the drivers to be of above average skill levels. This makes the results all the more frightening. The driver reactions times were universally worse than if they were over the limt for Blood Alcohol Content, for some tasks much worse. Surprisingly texting produced worse results than reading when operating at high speeds. If no one is conducting a scientific, peer reviewed study of this nature then it needs to be done now. Legislatures have resisted making texting illegal because of a lack of evidence of any danger. This pilot study appears to indicate a huge danger. A proper study needs to be completed so the vehicle codes can be adjusted to reflect this danger given current distracted driving laws don't seem to be making a difference in curbing the problem.



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Velophobia?

While the USA would appear to be getting at least a little friendlier towards cyclists (Colorado being an exception), Australia is becoming down right hostile. New laws have gone into effect that bring extremely stiff fines to cyclists. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact there are no reciprocating laws for motorists. I read over the laundry list of infractions listed in the news article and my thought was that if there was an equivelant statute for motorists, scaled up to match the danger motorists bring to the roadway, these might be a good thing. But from what I can tell there is no motorists equivalents (although there may be lesser penalties):

The maximum penalties under the new act include:

DANGEROUS riding - $13,610 or prison for twelve months or both.

CARELESS riding of a bike - $681 for a first offence and $1361 for a subsequent offence

IF a person is killed or seriously injured by a cyclist and the rider has not immediately stopped and offered assistance - $68,052 or five years in prison

IF property is damaged by a cyclist and the rider has not immediately stopped and offered assistance - $284 or seven days in prison for a first offence and $567 or prison for between seven and 14 days for a subsequent offence.

Unfortunately the article didn't define dangerous or careless riding so who knows what that could entail. Even given the weakness of the Aus$ these penalties are a bit steep when compared to the same type penalties in the USA.

Oh and in case you weren't aware, Oz has an all ages helmet law. That was successful in reducing ridership by a substantial margin.

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Texting/E-Mail Ban While Driving

A bill still has life in the NC Senate to ban texting and e-mail while driving. There is some rather odd (read ignorant) commentary in the article as well as spurious exceptions in the bill. Let's start with the odd:

The bill's opponents said it would be difficult for police to determine when someone was using a cell phone to send text messages or e-mail instead of simply dialing a phone number, which is not illegal.

Now while it might be difficult to tell the difference at a glance there are plenty of news reports that clearly indicate the cell companies keep detail logs of all transactions (given how much they make on texting it behooves them to do so).

The bill makes exceptions for police officers and emergency personnel.

Why would there be an exception for these people? They are no less prone to distracted driving as anyone else. They need to pull over to use an e-mail/text device safely. All emergency responders have radios in their vehicles and usually on their persons so what need have they for texting while driving?

Finally the penalties:

Drivers caught texting or sending e-mail would be charged a $100 penalty but would not receive points on their drivers license or insurance.

This like most driving infractions penalties is much too low in my opinion (and others reading the comments section of the News and Observer). The main purpose this statute will serve is to make it easier to prosecute someone who's neglect causes a crash/injury/fatality.

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Tonight

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Get Lit

The NC Legislature has been polishing the bicycle light statute.  Reflectors will no longer be enough on the rear.  Now a light (no color specified) visible from 300 feet from the front will be required and a red lamp visible from 200 feet under "normal atmospheric conditions" will be de riguer during "the period from sunset to sunrise on a street, highway, or public vehicular area."

This has passed the State Senate, assuming it makes it through the House and across the Governor's desk it goes into effect on 1 Dec 2009.

My only question is:  What is a "public vehicular area"?

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