I’ve been bandying about thoughts on responsibility lately, in a lot of areas, but especially as they relate to using the public road system. Towards what end, I’m not sure, but there’s something there I intend to explore.
So as to not keep you in suspense, I can sum up my position quite simply: as long as you’re not the bottom of the food chain, you have a responsibility to those beneath you. Trucks need to be careful of cars. Cars need to be careful of motorcycles and bicycles. Motorcycles and Bicycles need to be careful of pedestrians. We all, in turn, need to be careful of ourselves, because it’s not a perfect world.
That said…
The idea of “great power brings great responsibility” is so ingrained in our society that when it’s actually spoken aloud, it sounds strange. But bear with me and think about it, I do have a point… The nuclear warhead and the pellet gun are both weapons, but with vastly different damage potential. Compare how easy it is to get the one vs. the other, and how much you’ll have to pay to do so. Ease of use and ease of acquisition are directly related to damage potential, which is directly related to power.
Likewise, consider the controls around Biosafety Level 1 agents vs. Biosafety Level 4… You won’t see the same caution or controls around chicken pox as you will around Ebola or the hantaviruses. And for good reason! Chicken pox will make you sick, with the rare visit to the hospital. Hanta and Ebola kill you.
This is so logical and steeped in common sense that you’re probably thinking “Uh, yeah… What’s your point?!” You’d be right to do so.
In our chain of considerations, however, lets move back to the subject at hand, namely, cycling on public roads. Though it now seems somewhat small and inconsequential with all this talk of nuclear warheads and Ebola.
Why is it, when the relationship between power and responsibility is so well formed and clear, so many drivers cannot see that the greater power of their multi-ton vehicles gives them more responsibility to be considerate and safe, vs. the considerably lesser power of our relatively minuscule bicycles?
I understand that relationship. That’s why, when I moved to the sidewalk on Saturday during that crazy game day traffic, I switched my perception from avoiding cars looking to kill me, to avoiding pedestrians I might injure. I was the danger at that point, not the endangered. I realized this and bore the increased responsibility gladly.
This calls to mind another facet of the issue… choice. In hitting the public roads on my bicycle, I make a conscious choice to put myself into harms way. It could be said that I take on the responsibility b/c, knowing the dangers, I enter the relationship anyway. “I told you so,” a driver might say, as I’m broken and bleeding on the side of the road, “you shouldn’t have been there, and you knew it. This is your responsibility, and not mine.” That might sound far-fetched, but police officers have said exactly that to cyclists following an assault.
Fortunately for myself and my two-wheeled friends, this logic is tragically critically flawed. It relies, at least entirely, on the “might makes right” philosophy. By that reasoning, the crumpled flat thing that used to be a Mini Cooper under the Peterbilt got its comeuppance. No investigation necessary, the Peterbilt is larger, and as such, is in the right. Ridiculous, right?
If I get it, and I believe I’m right to assume you do as well, why do so many refuse to follow? Given that the logic is *ahem* irrefutably solid, it could be anything, and this is where things get fuzzy to me. Perhaps it reaches back to historical attitudes towards cycling and cyclists, back to when bicycles switched from a rich man’s status symbol to a poor man’s means of transport. Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that for most of the population, bicycles are a recreational (ahem) toy. Toys don’t deserve our respect, they deserve to be left behind when we reach adulthood. Perhaps it also ties into our obsessive love affair with cars, which has morphed into an full blown entitlement complex. All these things, and likely a lot more, lead many to a simple conclusion: cars deserve to be on the road, and bicycles don’t.
The question is, how to convince them otherwise?
I believe at the heart of the animosity towards bikers is that it’s a recreational activity. In our society, no one really needs to use a bicycle. This is highlighted by the hyper expensive bikes with sophisticated computers which amount to luxury items.
Now when a biker enters the road it increases the risks of driving. The driver’s responsibility drastically increases. The driver has no control over this increase of difficulty. It was entirely the biker’s decision to enjoy himself that raised the stakes.
Basically, the biker has made the conscious decision to make the driver’s life harder specifically so the biker can have fun. From the driver’s point of view, the biker is a griefer.
This is true… to an extent, for most of us cycling is recreational. Most of us are both cyclists and drivers, and have cars at our disposal. However, there are those that rely on cheaper forms of transportation such as cycling, buses, and rail lines because the costs of owning a car are just too steep. Are these people to be denied because drivers are unwilling or unable to face the inherent responsibilities of the road?
I say inherent, because personally, I think the increased responsibility argument is a cop-out and only partially explains the animosity. What it does do is speak to the lack of respect for driving I’ve always felt the majority of drivers “enjoy”. People simply do not, in my opinion, properly respect the fact that they’re driving 2 ton weapons around. They throw them around without thought for the consequences or regard for those around them. Unable or unwilling to face the life and death reality of what they’re doing, they take for granted that they’ll be OK. They put on their make up. They talk on the phone. They pluck their eyebrows. The read the damn newspaper for God’s sake! When I’m driving, I’m driving. It’s dangerous enough out there without contributing my own lack of attentiveness to the mix. If I were to characterize driving in this country with one word, it would most certainly be “disrespect.”
I’ve not been hit yet (*knock on wood*), but I’ve had a few close calls, and am happy to at least be able to say that in every case, I was where I should have been according to the law, doing what I should have been doing. Driver inattentiveness nearly changed my life more than once. I tell you what, there is nothing to make the blood turn to ice like hearing the screech of brakes behind you. It is, literally, chilling.
If increased risk is truly the root of the animosity, this tells me that drivers have little or no understanding of the situation. As both a driver and a cyclist, I believe I have a more balanced view than exclusive drivers do, As a cyclist, it is frustrating that my life is in the hands of someone simply too busy or distracted to properly handle the responsibilities of driving. My presence isn’t an added responsibility. My presence is an inherent responsibility. I am not *in* traffic. I *am* traffic. Granted, I am another thing to pay attention to, but my observations tell me that there is plenty of attention to spare.
Honestly, when it comes right down to it, the risk is not theirs. In five 9′s (another interesting fact I just made up) of the time, they will come out relatively unscathed… maybe a scratch or minor dent in a quarter panel. This is assuming they didn’t try any evasive maneuvering, of course. Their risk is having to live with hurting or killing another human being, regardless of fault. The cyclist, however, as many of these stories detail, might come away with anything from a broken nose to permanent disability, or might not even come away at all.
But that just speaks to the accidents. Risk is inherent on the road, be you a cyclist or a motorist. That is reality. However, willful and intentional assault is another thing altogether. I don’t understand the hostility expressed by drivers throwing beer bottles, firecrackers, lit cigarettes, punches, *bullets* and even their cars around trying to intimidate or injure cyclists. The idea that cycling is strictly recreational (and all that implies) doesn’t explain that to me.
That sort of willful assault, that sort of blatant disregard for human life astounds me. It is our choice to travel or recreate by cycling. We aren’t out to hurt anyone. We’re out to save money and get healthier. Those that assault us, physically and verbally, have also made a choice, and show themselves the lesser because of it.
I agree that there are people who cannot afford a car. This is especially true in major metro areas such as New York and San Francisco. I think this is mainly due to the cost of parking and the difficulties driving poses in such environments. In the Mid-West I would guess there are significantly fewer without cars. Of those few, the number of individuals who use bicycles instead of walking, car pools, or buses approaches 0. Whether this is true or not would be difficult to prove, and for the purposes of this discussion it’s largely irrelevant. I think we both agree that the vast majority of bikers are recreational.
I also agree that there are a large number of irresponsible drivers on the road. I believe that in order to be a good driver you must treat every other driver as an unpredictable no talent ass clown while at the same time forcing your own driving decisions to be overly predictable and obvious.
It is also my experience that the majority of bikers on the road are also unpredictable no talent ass clowns. In fact last night I had to slam on my brakes and dodge a biker crossing the road into oncoming traffic during the night with no reflective clothing. We were both damn lucky. I say both of us because I still dream about rodents I’ve hit in the past. God only knows what it would do to me if I killed a person.
That beings said, I think we can both agree that being a no talent ass clown is a human trait. It’s not something attributable to drivers or bikers, but something that is generally held to be true for the whole of humanity. It may very from individual to individual, but I’m pretty sure we can all think of a time where our lack of talent and clown like antics made an ass of ourselves.
Now the assault, as you said, is another thing entirely. It’s mind boggling what people are willing to do to one another. It’s also strange to me because these kinds of attacks seem ‘difficult’ in the slacker’s sense. The assailant actually tells the driver to slow down, while they come up with some kind of method of reaching out to strike at a person 10 feet away. It seems to require a particularly insidious mind. Scary.
I believe my original point is still valid. A biker’s presence is an inherent responsibility, but the biker is not the norm. A biker’s presence increases the chance a death will occur in the case of an accident. This is an increase beyond what the average traffic pattern presents. The added distraction is a barb in the mind of a driver pre-disposed towards road rage. It’s made doubly so since the biker’s decision is one of pleasure. This distinction is probably why farmers don’t receive the same level of anger. The farmer is an annoyance in his tractor, but he has to be there. The biker doesn’t have to be there, so he represents an insult.
No talent ass clowns. Check.
That added distraction, outside the norm, is very likely a barb in the mind of those who aren’t cyclists, and could go some distance towards explaining the animosity.
Interestingly, as a cyclist, an incident like what you describe would have had me following the idiot cyclist and calling him or her out in manner most vehement. It’s idiots like that who don’t have any regard for *their* responsibility to be safe, predictable and courteous that give the rest of us a bad name. Given my status as both cyclist and driver, I imagine my outrage at even the smallest infraction by another cyclist to outstrip that of most other drivers. I seethe when I see another pedaler doing something stupid or discourteous, knowing that it’s just another bit of proof to the affected drivers that we’re all just griefers. Just ask Amanda… She’s been witness to that.
Funny you should mention the farmer in the tractor, as I was thinking about that myself. I do, of course, agree. It might be irritating, but there is the idea that the farmer is earning his/her living, and so some benefit of the doubt is given.
I think another aspect of it is that a cyclist represents an easy target. A car cuts you off and sends you into a rage. By and large this is an impotent rage. There’s really nothing you can do that won’t put you at risk yourself, so you grit your teeth and think hostility.
The cyclist, however, represents a low risk target. Knock him over and you can get out of there before he ever has a chance to get your plate number. Grab onto his saddle, forcing him to lose control and he’s too busy trying not to die to be concerned with how to ID you to the police. Put a bullet in his chest or neck and you can drive away, secure in the knowledge that any witnesses are sympathetic to your anti-cyclist cause (yes, cyclists feel that way, whether they truly believe it to be true or not). In these cases, it is the cyclist whose rage is impotent. Compound this sense of vulnerability and frustration by police who rarely take such situations seriously, sometimes lecturing the cyclist, other times even issuing a ticket to the cyclist! “Took a fist to the chin, eh? Shouldn’t have been there, don’t you think? Here’s a citation for obstruction of free fist swinging. Next time, be somewhere else. Have a nice night, and be careful, some people aren’t very nice out there.”
It’s one thing knowing that there are so many drivers with an unreasonable, illogical and wholly selfish hatred of cyclists. It’s one thing knowing that far too many of those people (in all likelihood, a very vocal minority) have the time and inclination to lash out. It’s another thing entirely knowing that when those drivers do lash out, those very people sworn to protect us are part of the problem.
And *drivers* are frustrated?
We are at a crossroads here. As roads become more crowded with cars, more and more people are also beginning the experience the benefits of cycling. More cars plus more bicycles equals more challenges in our daily commutes. Things will get more difficult before they get better, but I have confidence that both drivers and cyclists will begin to see things from each others points of view and find common ground. Certainly not all of them, but more than what we see now. It may take a while, and there are some ingrained prejudices to overcome, but it’ll happen.
For the record, and this is probably fodder for an entire post of it’s own, but I believe, moreso every day, that cyclists intent on riding the public road system in traffic should be required to have licenses the same as cars and motorcycles. I also believe that current driving tests and requirements are a joke, and should be seriously overhauled and made more strict and demanding. There is too much at stake to continue without proper and adequate education. Cyclists have nothing right now. Motorists have comedy, instead of actual useful preparation.
Or, maybe I’ll just move to Copenhagen.