Prejudice and intolerance

Chicago’s Mayor Daley introduced an ordinance last month that would impose fines ranging from $150 to $500 on motorists who turn left or right in front of someone on a bicycle; pass with less than three feet of space between car and bike; and open a vehicle door into the path of a cyclist.

When the Chicago Tribune posted the story on their website in the form of a very short two-paragraph piece. I thought the comments from readers that followed were disappointing.

One would have thought cyclists would have welcomed this as good news; instead, cyclists commented with attacks on car drivers, and of course, drivers responded. It showed that prejudice and intolerance between people who drive cars and cyclists is alive and well in Chicago, as it is the world over.

The same old rhetoric on each side; each one canceling the other out. Nothing achieved. Just a whole lot of hatred stirred up on both sides. Cyclists recalling times they have been hit, and their many near misses. Auto drivers using the same old clichés like, “Cyclists are always running red lights and stop signs.”

Just as in racial prejudice, the actions of a few are used to tarnish the whole group, and give the bigots an excuse for their verbal attacks and behavior. To say all cyclists disregard the laws of the road is akin to saying that all people of a certain ethnic group are criminals.

As cyclists, we can be guilty of the same prejudice. There are many bad drivers out there, and we tend to focus on these and view all drivers as the same. However, I still believe in human decency and that the majority of drivers would not deliberately put another human being in harms way.

Bad drivers are careless and inattentive, but still I believe it is a tiny minority that are malicious. By focusing on this minority, cyclists are practicing the same prejudice as drivers who condemn us for the actions of a few.

I do not run red lights, even if I stop and there is no vehicle coming in the opposite direction; I wait for the light to change. Not out of fear of getting a ticket, that possibility is remote. My reasons are simple, I would not do it in my car, and therefore if I expect others to view my bike as a vehicle; I must behave as any other vehicle.

In addition, when drivers expect me to ride though it creates a good impression when I don’t. A driver seeing me do this is more likely to think favorably of me, and maybe will exercise caution when he passes me a short distance down the road. It is human nature to show consideration for those we see in a good light.

The only exception to stopping on red would be, early in the morning and there is not another car in sight. My bike will not trigger the light, and after stopping and looking all around I go on through. No one sees me, no harm, no foul, and I have not really broken the law. I may have to wait an unreasonable time for a car to come along and change the light.

The same with stop signs, if I am in a quiet neighborhood and there is not another vehicle in sight, I slow, and then ride through. If there is other traffic there, I come to a complete stop and wait my turn. One of the grievances drivers have with cyclists is that they are unpredictable. No one can say I am unpredictable if I obey the law as if I were in my car.

Cyclists who run red lights and stop signs argue that they do it in the interest of their own safety, to stay ahead of traffic. Only another cyclist could understand this logic, to everyone else they are breaking the law. And it pisses people off.

You never stay ahead of traffic entirely, eventually the driver you pissed off at the last light will catch up, and when he does, he is then expected to treat you with respect and consideration.

Cyclists who still run red lights and stop signs might ask themselves this, “Am I really doing this in the interest of my own safety, or am I doing it out of habit because I have been doing it for so long, and because I can get away with it.”

This is not the first time I have touched on this subject, and as before, it is not my place to tell others what to do. However, verbally attacking drivers achieves nothing except to stir up more conflict. It is far more difficult to change the behavior of others, easier to change our own.

If cyclists stopped running red lights and stop signs, if nothing else, there would be one less piece of useless rhetoric that can be used against us.

The London Commuter

There has been a trend in the last few months in that my blog gets consistently more and more hits from Great Britain.

For every thousand hits from the US I get roughly a third of that number from the UK on any given day.

Considering the US has five times the population (Over 300 million compared to 60 million.) I find this both satisfying and surprising.

I am left to wonder are there more cyclists per-capita in Britain? My Stat Counter lists the number of hits from different cities around the world; London is consistently number one.

Therein I think lies a clue; I keep reading how more and more Londoners have switched to the bicycle as their mode of transport to and from work each day. With gas prices around $7 a gallon, plus a fee to drive into the city.

At what point does a person start riding a bicycle out of necessity, then become a bicycle enthusiast to the extent of seeking information on the Internet?

I think of my father who never owned a car, or even learned how to drive; a bicycle was his sole means of transport. It got him to work each day, and to the pub in the evening or weekends. However, he was never a bicycle enthusiast.

Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s I never saw him read anything about bicycles, or talk about them. He never looked at, or showed any interest in my lightweight bike, or asked to ride it.

His bikes were always old and rusty, probably from the 1920s or 1930s. He would lubricate and maintain his bike; buy new tires and brake blocks, and occasionally a new chain.

He never had a new bike, or took it to a bike shop for repair. If something was seriously wrong he would ask around the neighborhood or people he worked with, and someone would give him a bike, or he would buy another, equally as old and rusty for very little money.

He never locked his bike, and I don’t remember him having one stolen; why steal a bike when it had little value and you could get one for free?

He was born in 1910, so all his life it was the norm for a working man to ride a bicycle. Like a man blind from birth, who does not know darkness because he has never experienced light; my father never experienced joy from riding a bicycle or became an enthusiast, because he had experienced nothing else.

Now we have several generations who have never ridden a bicycle past their childhood; never rode to school or to work, and owned a car from the moment they were old enough to drive.

Some forced to ride a bike through economic reasons, or because they can no longer take the congestion or the expense and the frustration of finding a place to park. Public transport also becomes an expense and hassle.

Some start cycling out of necessity and in doing so experience the joy and the freedom of riding a bike. Like the blind man who can see for the first time. Not everyone will experience this; some go back to their cars and public transport.

I started cycling out of necessity and rode my bike to school and later to work. I may have followed in my father’s tire tracks, but I discovered the beauty of the racing bicycle; I wanted to own one and ride one. That is how I became an enthusiast, the bicycle and riding it became a passion.

Only a minority get into the sport this way; I remember out of all my friends at school, only one shared my enthusiasm and got a lightweight bike the same time as I did, but even he did not continue and soon lost interest.

I think this is how most cyclists in the US get into the sport; first, it is the attraction of the equipment, the bike itself, then riding it becomes a passion. Some drop out; some never get past the ownership stage, and actually riding the bike is secondary.

I can’t see any widespread trend of people being forced out of necessity to ride a bike to work in the US anytime soon; except maybe in some of the larger cities. The UK is far more populated than the US, and London especially.

One fifth of America’s population but the whole of Great Britain is an area about the size of California, and with roads never designed to handle the volume of today’s traffic.

Here’s to the British cyclist and in particular the London commuter; may your numbers increase so that motorized traffic may decrease, and may the bicycle continue to give you joy. Lastly, I hope more and more of you find your way here to my blog.


Pictures from BikeForAll.net

Sensations, simple pleasures and passions

I have often tried to analyze what it is about cycling, in particular riding a road bike that makes it a life long passion.

Many people, including myself, have had periods when we stopped riding, but we are always drawn back at some point or other.

Non-cyclists can’t understand it, and it is only another cyclist having the same passion who can.

Passions derive from sensations, feelings. I don’t think anyone can explain why certain simple things in life give us so much pleasure.

A beautiful sunset, the taste of a favorite food, or a particular sound. These things have to be experienced to understand, and even then, another person may not have the same sensation.

Out riding alone last November on a quiet country road, the weather was dry and sunny, but cool. The sound of acorns popping under my tires caught my attention. The whole road carpeted with acorns, freshly fallen from overhanging Live Oak trees; it was impossible not to ride over them.

Driving a car, that sensation would not be there, even if I had the windows down and could hear the sound. Walking or running, or simply stomping on the acorns would not have had the same affect.

It had something to do with the speed, and a feeling that only another cyclist would fully understand; the feeling that came from knowing that I was the source of propulsion. The feeling of effort, muscle power transformed into forward motion.

The sound somehow drove me to push harder, and gave me renewed energy. The faster I rode the more rapid the popping sound, and the more intense the feeling.

This feeling was close to the sensation of flying, without actually leaving the ground. In fact, the minimum contact with the ground or road was a large part of the feeling.

As a seven or eight year old, I remember running two miles to school and back home twice each day. Running was effortless, there was no pain, and it seemed like my feet were not touching the ground. Rather I was flying, with each step a fraction of an inch above the ground.

Later as an adult when I ran, I felt every jarring step. However, riding a road bike at speed I sometimes get that same sensation of weightlessness and just barely skimming the surface of the road.

I am guessing the rapidly popping acorns enhanced that feeling by adding a sound to the sensation.

Out riding the same road yesterday, the acorns now swept to the side by passing traffic. It was still possible to ride over them by riding close to the edge of the road, but now soaked by recent rains; they no longer produced that same pleasant popping sound.

It looks like I will have to wait until next fall to experience this sensation again. It is sensations like this that turn simple pleasures into passions.

Watchdogging follow up

Thanks to Fritz for the following comment on my previous post:

“I'm a generally lawful and courteous cyclist, but when was the last time motorists who are just part of traffic was labeled "arrogant"?

And just because other cyclists break the law and are hoodlums, why are you and I the ones who are somehow held accountable? We don't expect motorists to apologize for the idiots among their midst.”

I agree with all you say, but who said life was fair, and that everyone in the world plays fair. Cyclists as a group are a minority in the mindset of an automobile society, and minorities always tend to get the shitty end of the stick.

Any minority group, not just cyclists, are always labeled by the worst behavior of those within that group. In place of cyclist say “Illegal immigrant” and are they not all painted as bad? However, the truth is the majority are good, decent people. It is the way that society justifies the prejudice; this is how bigotry works.

Bigots don’t like minority groups who are different than they are, and they wish they would just go away. By labeling the whole group as bad, they gather like minded people to their cause, in the hope that this minority can somehow be stopped, driven out, or eliminated.

As cyclists we can whine and complain to each other about the unfairness of society’s attitude, but will that change anything or make anyone on the other side, listen to our point of view?

All we can do is ride our bikes, and obey the laws of the road, and try to behave in a civilized manner. We have no control over the way others act twards us, but we do have control over the way we re-act.

We can try to convince some amongst us who have a hostile and arrogant attitude, that this type of behavior may not be in their own and other cyclist’s interest.

If people like myself and other bike bloggers, keep pushing the message in a positive way, maybe in time it will find it’s way into the mainstream media.

Watchdogging Blogging

There was a link to my last Thursday’s post about the Matthew Parris apology, on a cycling blog called Turnings.

It posted my piece with the following comment:

“Here’s the problem, none of these cyclists who are forever watchdogging all the comments of others (and granted beheading is a bit strong) ever wonder or decry the fact that cyclists the world over are perceived the same way. What can we, as a community, do about the issues the press and individuals raise? No small impact the clothing, packaging, manufacturing, etc have on the environment, or the lawlessness and discourtesy that are often foisted on an unsuspecting public that has no framework to understand our point of view, and worse, we do it with a righteous attitude rife with implication that we are saving the world! How about we work on *that* some more?”

The comment by Daniel Berlinger makes an excellent point. Yes actually, I do wonder and think about the subject often. It seems at times we are our own worst enemy.

Cyclists are arrogant is always the cry, Lycra Louts in some parts of the world. In defense of the cyclist a person could say, is it any wonder they are arrogant, anyone would be after being cursed at, honked at, had stuff thrown at them on a daily basis; cut off, knocked down and even seen their fellow cyclists killed.

But, as the comment above points out, the public has no framework to understand the cyclist’s point of view, and do most care about that viewpoint anyway?

The cyclist can argue that he has the right to ride on road, and he does by law. Does he have the “perceived right” by public opinion? Definitely not, the mindset of some is that cyclists don’t belong on the road, and just by being there appears arrogant. However, is acting in an arrogant manner, and giving people the finger the best way to change public opinion?

The lycra and the helmet has nothing to do with anything, it is the cyclist’s different color skin. It is what sets us apart and causes others to judge us by our appearance. And, like any minority group, the moment we put on that skin and get on a bike we are all judged by the worst standard of behavior of those within our group.

Just because a person in a car hurls abuse at a cyclist because he impedes his way, is it any different if the cyclist then does the same to the pedestrian who steps out in front of him? Does the shouting and abuse help, or make the situation any better? We are all just people trying to get to and from somewhere or other.

Does it help the cyclists cause when a car has to wait at a stop light and a cyclist rides straight through; what gives him the divine right to do that? It is just plain rude, a person wouldn't push in front of someone in line at a movie theatre. Where is the difference?

Change in attitude on both sides is needed; however, it will have to come from the cyclist first. Why? Because the cyclist has the most to gain and at the same time the most to loose. Everybody gains something, but most road users can’t see that yet.

More bikes, less congestion, for one. Safety, and less people killed on the roads will be another. It will cause everyone to slow the fuck down, and realize they will still get where they are going on time, without the carnage we have today.

I think the best way to bring change about, is not by any cyclists’ rights movement, but by individual riders, clubs and small groups of friends who ride together setting their own rules and codes of behavior.

When I’m out riding, I expect sloppy and poor driving from some people. I see it all the time when I drive my car, so it is not going to change just because I am on a bike. I stay alert; I ride defensively, and try not to let it spoil my ride.

When someone is waiting to turn or pull out from a side road, and they see me and are obviously waiting for me to pass, I give a thank you wave. Even though they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

I do this because it is no effort, it costs me nothing, but does a lot for the cycling cause. It lets them know that not everyone in lycra and a helmet is a jerk. A thank you wave will do more for the next cyclist they see on road. Giving someone the finger if they cut you off, will most likely make them deliberately cut off the next cyclist they see.

But this is just me; when some bike riders can’t acknowledge and return my wave as a fellow cyclist, I wonder if I am expecting too much of this same person to give a thank you wave to a motorist. However, think on this, if you can give the finger if someone wrongs you, it takes no more effort to recognize someone doing the right thing.

As for the save the world issue, that is a band wagon that many of us have jumped on. Let’s be honest with ourselves; if cars ran on pixie dust and had zero carbon emissions, we would still ride because it is what we do, we are cyclists. And the fact that millions of little polyesters died to make my jersey, is neither here nor there.

Any other watchdog bloggers out there care to expand on the subject and add their viewpoint.