By the Sunday after Thanksgiving I’ve usually been enough of a glutton that I swear off food entirely. You know, go cold turkey.
Reading this article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker last night I couldn’t help but think we’ve turned into a country that Shakespeare could write a historical tragedy about.
NewMexiKen lives near a state highway with a posted speed limit of 50 mph. (That translates to about 65 in practice). Parallel to the road, and about 50 feet away from it, is a bike path. The path, however, is used by strollers (both the people kind and the kid-carrying kind) and slower bicycle riders. Most of the lycra-wearing bike riders use the bike lane on the highway itself. I understand that drivers are often rude to cyclists and that some drivers seem to get off on endangering bicycle riders. That said, though, why do so many of these bicycle riders — including those riding solo — hug the painted line separating the bike lane from the traffic lane? Isn’t that inviting trouble? The bike lane is eight or ten feet wide. I drive down the middle of my lane, why can’t/won’t so many cyclists ride down the middle of their lane?
Why is it that some people put on both socks then both shoes, while other people put on one sock and one shoe then the other sock and shoe? I’m the latter type.
I kind of like the logo for the New Mexico Bowl, which is having its first game December 23. It’ll be UNM vs. Nevada or San Jose State.
Grinding the beans just before brewing the coffee really does enhance the flavor. It also gives you something to do while drinking the coffee — clean up the mess.
Notre Dame really needs to get into a conference for football. I know they like taking home ALL the TV money and not having to share it (as conference teams do), but playing the other independents like Army and Navy isn’t going to prepare them for pro teams like USC. Playing Stanford (1-10) and North Carolina (3-9) didn’t help either. The Big 10 has 11 teams. Why not 12?
I bought some Christmas lights at Costco. According to the info on the box, this 100-light string of multi-colored LED bulbs uses just 8 watts, compared to 36 watts for mini lamps and 500 for incandescent Christmas lights (C-7 bulbs). Seemed like a good choice; for indoor or outdoor. Bulbs never need replacing.
How come cocaine is against the law but Costco is permitted to sell chocolate covered bing cherries?
I bought the Obama book (mentioned in the previous post).
Have you read his first book? If not, I’ll loan it to you; it’s wonderful as well.
Is it like Harry Potter? Do I have to read them in order?
Heheheheheh. Nope. But for the sake of a balanced Universe, you really DO need to do the sock/shoe thing in order. Sock (left), sock (right), shoe (left), shoe (right). SERIOUSLY.
Yeah, I am disturbed by the whole sock, shoe, sock, shoe thing also. But, as you’ve said in the past, at least then you’d have one shoe on if there were an emergency in the middle of you getting dressed.
Why do some people button their pants before putting a shirt on when they know they’ll have to unbutton their pants again to tuck in the shirt? Doesn’t that seem like a lot of wasted energy?
Speaking of Harry Potter . . . the next movie is coming out this summer. Yeah! I have mixed feelings about how soon I want the next book to come out. I want to read it, of course, but I don’t want the series to be over.
I enjoyed Eragon and will probably go see that in the theaters. Although, paying $16 for my four-year-old and I to see Happy Feet made me pretty bitter toward movie theaters right now.
And, I’m guessing the road is smoother the closer you get to where the cars are. There are some pretty big rocks by the sides of most roads. I’d hate to be the cyclist who tries to be nice and ride down the middle of the lane and ends up in the ditch.
Why is it that people who have barely taken down their Halloween decorations (which by the way are more and more as crazy as Christmas decorations these days) are already putting up Christmas decorations? We have two houses on our street that are lit up like the Griswold’s. How did we get so lucky?
That’s my This and That response to your This and That.
This is going to be a long and rambling answer to your question about bike riders and bike lanes. I hope you don’t mind.
Hike/bike paths are one of the most idiotic ideas humankind’s come up with. Mixing bikes (that routinely travel at 12mph and higher) and walkers (who do 3mph and are completely unpredictable in their paths of travel) is begging for serious injury. Not to mention most hike/bike paths are so poorly maintained as to be punishing for anything less than a full-on dual suspension rig. Thank goodness NM had the wisdom to repeal the hike/bike requirement (forcing bikes by law onto unsuitable paths).
Traffic statistics show the safest place for bicyclists is on the right side of roadways, in the flow of vehicular traffic … with no special ‘bike lane’ nonsense.
Bike lanes confuse both cyclists and drivers, raising the dangers for both. Accident statistics pretty much bear this out. Motorists tend to believe bicyclists will stay within the bike lanes; this is not generally required by law, and oftentimes the bicyclist must ‘break’ the line to execute legal maneuvers (such as make a left turn at an intersection, or avoid being on the right of a vehicle’s right turn, avoiding obstacles).
I do not understand why some bicyclists insist on the installation of bike lanes. Most veteran bicyclists feel, rightfully so, that traffic engineers design bike lanes to encourage suicide … as if they’d like to cull the herd so motorists can have an open highway. Engineers love the car, hate the bicycle. Motorists sense this force majeure behind road design, and generally pay no attention to bike lanes and cross them with impunity, especially at intersections … the same place bike lane ‘engineering’ tends to fall flat, and further endangers everyone.
My point is, given that most motorists expect bicycles to stay ‘in the lines’ and get terribly confused (and, often angry) when they don’t … raises the danger for both motorist and cyclist. Both want some level of predictability; bike lanes offer neither.
Better just leaving roadways alone, and instructing bicyclists to ride as far to the right as they deem safe … and automobiles should respect that judgment. Both have an *equal right* to utilize our nation’s roadways.
States are having more problems with bicycle deaths, because they continue to attempt to shoehorn more lanes into existing rights-of-way, eliminating shoulders. Bicyclists naturally will ride farther left, in these cases, to allow for a rightward swerve around obstacles (safer to swerve right than left). This directly causes a conflict with the increasing size of trucks and SUVs, and those horrifically murderous right-side mirrors on some trucks cull our nation’s riders on an all-too-frequent schedule.
The answer, for safety’s sake, is always to put your butt solidly into traffic and to operate as another vehicle. Which is why we ride in the road, and not on the shoulder. If I’m not in the flow of traffic, I’m ignored … which becomes dangerous when I need to enter traffic to execute a particular maneuver (such as, trying to make a left across multiple lanes). Staying in the traffic area of the roadway, being recognized as a ‘fellow vehicle’, is the safest and best method for all involved. Again, statistics clearly prove this out.
Is your ‘bike lane’ really a bike lane, or a shoulder? A bike lane should have stripes on both sides of the lane, not just on the left, with a shoulder to the right of the bike lane and some sort of dopey bike insignia painted in the center at intersections. I hope you’ll excuse the impertinence of my question, because eight to ten feet is more generous than any bike lane I’ve ever encountered in any state.
If it is a shoulder (and eight to ten feet sounds more like a shoulder), bicycles should be operating in the traffic lane, as far to the right of that lane as is safe. That is the NM statutorial requirement. The exception is an interstate highway, in which bicyclists are required to ride in the generous shoulder areas. In that particular case, shoulder riding is safe because a bicyclist will never be crossing traffic.
If they’re in an actual bike lane, they should also be operating as far to the right of *that* lane as they deem safe. If they are riding eight to ten feet out from the edge of that bike lane, then I would look for gravel or some other problem with the bike lane. Racing and road bikes have extremely high pressure tires, and any gravel hammers your palms and groin. A bicyclist in that case will make an unconscious decision … cars are an intermittent threat to life, gravel is a constant threat to – er – glandular health. NM is decidely bad about keeping roads clean. If this is the case around your area, a call to the highway department may get a sweeper out there.
Thanks Garret for so much detail.
The road I am talking about is Tramway; five-to-six miles are one lane in each direction, the remaining ten miles are two lanes in each direction. The speed limit for all but both ends of the route is 50 mph. The “bike lane” is, as you suggest, the shoulder. Tramway has a lot of bicycle traffic, and, of course, a fair amount of vehicular traffic, but no through trucks.
If I understand all that you’ve said, the cyclists should be in a traffic lane. Clearly, going 12 mph in a 50 mph lane is not going to work. (Leaving aside whether it SHOULD work.) Riding on the shoulder appears to be the only alternative.
Given that this is the reality, I think my initial question remains. Why ride in the leftmost part of the lane when the lane you’re in (shoulder or not) is as wide as it is?
Please understand that I respect (even envy) the cyclists and my question stems from wanting to give them as much room as possible — and wanting them to give me as much room as possible. I think it’s called defensive driving/riding.
The point is that space is not the only consideration for safety. A rider is safer if he or she forces cars to pay attention. Also, the edge of the road is littered with debris, so one cannot safely ride all the way to the right. So a rider can ride to the left (which encourages cars to pay attention) or in the middle (which gives just enough room for people to zoom past and maybe clip the rider at 65 mph with a wide mirror).
Most libraries have a copy of John Forester’s “Effective Cycling.” It’s a thick yellow paperback. If you want to know more about traffic engineering, and bicyling myths, I’d suggest reading a couple of the appropriate chapters. I recommend the book, because applying the techniques has saved my life in more than one occasion. It deals specifically with the safety of mixing 12mph and 50mph vehicles in the same lane. You’ll be surprised at the assumptions the general motoring public makes, versus the actual facts borne out by accident rates and statistics.
Before I express any other opinions, I’ll have to drive Tramway. Don’t know when I’ll be down in Albuquerque next, but I’ll make it a point to drive Tramway to see what’s going on … perhaps bring my bike … and then I’ll email you.
Ken, I am a sometime cyclist living in Albuquerque. There are easy reasons (as described by Garrett, above) for not riding on the Tramway bike lane; basically, you have to come to a full stop at every intersection regardless of what the light says because if you don’t there is an even chance you will be killed by someone turning right while decellerating from 65 mph. The pedestrian traffic on the Tramway bike path never bothers me, but the possibility of either stopping at each and every street or being killed does. So, I ride on Tramway’s wide shoulder.
I share you curiosity as to why cyclists tend to hug the left side of the shoulder. It seems insanity to me. I bet some of them do it as a matter of principle – like they would ride in the lane itself if they weren’t afraid of being killed. Some more of them are used to riding on Albuqueruqe’s other bike lanes, where there is a lot of debris in the bike lane itself, but cars flip that stuff out of the actual roads, so you want to be near enough to dodge branches and glass and the like. That is true on Tramway as well, but the shoulder is so wide that there is plenty of room to dodge the debris without hugging the left side of the shoulder. There are also “idiot bumps” in the shoulder to wake up sleeping motorists, although they are easy to navigate on bike (I had a friend in college who insisted that he knew a girl whose dad invented those bumps and called them “Botts’ Dots,” her name being Becky Botts). Still others, including many without any death wish, and including myself, ride near the left side of the shoulder as streets approach because at every intersection, the shoulder disappears entirely to be replaced by a right turn only lane. This means the cyclist has to move all the way across the right turn only lane to get into the “right lane” which is where the cyclist is supposed to be through the intersection.
My best guess is that cyclists either dislike weaving around the shoulder when they are going to need to be near the left part of the shoulder at an intersection (weaving causes bike crashes, both with cars and other bikes) or have a subconscious aversion to weaving for the same reasons. Hence, they stay on the left part of the shoulder and ride a straight line. The traffic on Tramway scares me to death; I take full advantage of the wide shoulder until I approach an intersection (but, it is an adventure deciding when it is OK to cross the right turn only lane). I would guess more experienced cyclists are more likely to hug the left side of the shoulder.
JMHO; your mileage may vary.
First, according to Wikipedia, “Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts (1893-1966) was the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) engineer credited with overseeing the research that led to the development of Botts’ dots and the epoxy used to attach them to the road.” Botts dots are used extensively in California to mark lanes. They are used less often elsewhere because Botts was a California state employee and because snow plows rip them up. (I first learned about Botts when I lived in California.)
Second, thanks Dan for adding to the bicycling discussion. I understand, of course, why cyclists need to move toward the traffic lane when the shoulder turns into a right-turn lane. I also understand the need to avoid debris. I have a bike currently and once upon a time I commuted regularly to graduate school on a bike. I have also have had two motorcycles (albeit a long time ago).
What’s interesting is that most cyclists don’t hug the line. What’s also interesting is that cyclists occasionally ride two and even three abreast on the shoulder. That implies to me — as an observer and not a rider I readily acknowledge — that the right of way is relatively clean.
I think some cyclists are just jerks, as are a lot of drivers. (The important difference is, of course, that drivers wield a deadly weapon.)