Please, just go around me

More and more states are bringing in “Safe Passing” laws to protect cyclists. As they do, more and more motorists complain that they cannot safely pass cyclists on winding country roads without crossing the double yellow line and putting themselves and others in danger.

I contend that drivers are making more out of this issue than there really is. First of all, yes you have to cross the double yellow that is obvious. However, realize that it is a painted line, not a concrete barrier, you can easily drive over it and back again.

Second, get the issue in perspective; it is not like passing an eighteen-wheel semi. A bicycle is less than six feet long, and barely eighteen inches wide. A cyclist needs about a third of the lane width, maybe half, depending on the overall width of the road.

It is nice when drivers go completely over to the other lane to pass, but it is not always possible, and often it is not necessary. Just straddling the yellow line in most cases gives a cyclist enough room; a lot depends on speed.

If I am doing 20mph and a car passes me at 30 mph, it doesn’t bother me too much if I am passed at slightly less than 3 feet. However, pass me at 60 mph and I would prefer a lot more room. A common sense rule would be, 3 foot at 30 mph, and one more foot per 10 mph over that.

The main problem is that many motorists view overtaking a cyclist in the same light as overtaking another car. Any sane person would not usually overtake another car if there is opposing traffic, say 200 yards away. 

However, the fact that a cyclist is moving at a relatively low speed is actually to your advantage when overtaking. You can safely pass a cyclist with approaching vehicles within 200 yards, even if you have to exhilarate from 20 mph.

Just do the maths. One mile per hour equals 1.467 feet per second traveled. A cyclist doing 20 mph would travel 29 feet in 1 second. (20 x 1.467 = 29.34 ft.) A car passing the cyclist at 30 mph would travel 44 feet in 1 second. (30 x 1.467 = 44.01 ft.)

Double this to 2 seconds for the sake of safety, that’s “One Mississippi, two Mississippi” and you are safely past the cyclist and on your merry way, back on your own side of the road.

Now let’s say there is a car approaching at 60 mph; your combined speeds are 60 + 30 = 90 mph. This equals 132 feet per second. (90 x 1.467 = 132.03 ft.) So 2 seconds translates to 264.06 feet, or 88.02 yards.

So if you overtake a cyclist with an approaching car 100 yards away you may be cutting it close, but 200 yards and you have doubled you margin of safety.

Plus, don’t forget you already doubled the time to pass the cyclist to 2 seconds. Also remember, you are not fully in the opposing lane, and not for the full 2 seconds.

The problem is, you get one timid driver who will not pass a cyclist if there is opposing traffic anywhere within the same zip code.

Traffic gets backed up, and everyone is pissed off. And who gets blamed? Why the cyclist of course, when it is not he that is holding everyone up, but the pussy of a driver afraid to overtake.

So please motorists, the next time you see me out on the road, just go around me and stop making such a big fuss.

 To Share click "Share Article" below

Britain's bike friendly cars of the 1950s

I got my first lightweight bike in 1950; it was only five years after the end of WWII and the economic turnaround in Britain and the rest of Europe was only in its early stages. Petrol was in short supply throughout WWII for obvious reasons. It was needed for the war effort, plus off shore oil had yet to be discovered in the UK. Oil had to be imported, and petrol was strictly rationed.

Rationing did not end at the end of WWII, in fact in 1948, (Three years after the war ended.) The Motor Spirit Regulation Act was passed by the British Government, and red dye was added to some petrol. The red petrol was for agriculture and commercial use only. A private motorist caught with red petrol in his tank, could lose his driver’s license for a year, and a petrol station selling red gas to private motorists could be shut down.

The scarcity of petrol throughout the war and the five years that followed, meant there was very little motorized traffic on the roads, and even when petrol rationing ended in 1950, the average working man did not rush out to buy a car, many had never owned, or even driven a car. Traffic was light even into the mid to late 1950s.

In the late 1940s, my pre-teen years, I would ride my bike after school, in the dark using battery lights, with no fear for my safety from my parents. This era is now referred to as the “Golden Age of Cycling.” On the Continent of Europe, cycle racing was the number one sport.

Looking back, it was a great time to ride a bike. Many of the cars on the road were pre-war from the 1920s and 1930s. New cars produced were like the Morris Minor (Above.) and the Ford Anglia, (Below.) had a tiny engines around one liter. (1,000cc.) About the size of many motorcycles today.

You could forget about zero to sixty in a few seconds; for most vehicles, even the new ones, *60mph was the top speed, and that was probably downhill with the wind behind you. Throughout the 1950s, on city streets, there were still as many bicycles as cars, there were even a few horse drawn carts still in use.

A car driver did not sit fuming at a traffic light because there was a cyclist on a horse and cart ahead of him. The driver was lucky if he could get above 20mph between lights, and a fit cyclist on a lightweight bike could get away from a light faster than he could.

The first Motorway (Freeway.) the M1, did not open until 1959. It was approximately 70 miles long from London to Birmingham. I remember within the first few weeks it was littered with broken down cars, as people took their old clunkers out and took them up to speeds they were never built to maintain. The Golden Age of Cycling ended from that point on, as throughout the 1960s and 1970s, more motorways were built and other main roads were widened and straightened.

During the 1950s, most of the people driving cars had grown up riding bicycles, their parents probably still rode a bicycle as their personal transport. They didn’t get upset with cyclists on the road, and they were content to cruise along at 30mph, occasionally reaching 50 or 60 on a straight road that ran downhill. At least they were in they were protected from the rain and cold.

Gradually all that changed, and now you have a generation who never rode a bike as a kid. Owning and driving a car becomes ever increasingly expensive, and with the spending of all that money comes an attitude of entitlement. 

However, Britain is still the same size as it was in the 1950s, but with a far greater population. Improved highways mean that you can drive from one city to another in a very short time. But what do you do when you get to the big city, where there is nowhere to park, and streets where built for horse drawn vehicles?

The cars of the 1950s and before may have been underpowered by today’s standards, but they still got people from A to B. They were cheap to buy, used less petrol, and they were simple to work on. A person could do their own maintenance. Most of all because of their lack of power and speed they were less of a danger to pedestrians and cyclists.

*Footnote: I am sure someone far more knowledgeable about the Morris Minor will tell me it had a top speed was in excess of 60mph. But just as many of today’s cars have a maximum speed well over 100mph. few are ever driven to that limit. 

                          

Freedom and People Killing People

Because of recent tragic events there is a public outcry both for and against gun control. “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

Yes but a gun is a tool for killing people and it works extremely efficiently. If a person goes ape shit with a knife or a baseball bat, he is unlikely to kill as many people as he would armed with a semi-automatic gun.

I am not against gun ownership; I don’t own one, but if crime got really bad in my neighborhood I might buy one to protect myself and my home.

But another issue is being forgotten in this whole debate; and it boils down to the same thing: Individual Freedom. And if one man’s freedom results in another losing their ultimate freedom… Their life, something is terribly wrong. If I am dead I have lost my freedom; forever.

I speak of those who lose their lives on the streets and highways every day. Roughly 90 people die every day in America alone; killed by automobiles. Many of these are children who die inside cars or are hit by cars. None of these children will have their pictures all over the national media. Why not; they are just as innocent?

It is the exactly the same argument: Cars don’t kill people; people driving cars kill people. People driving carelessly, aggressively, or distracted. It is really quite simple, if you can’t drive your car between two lines painted on a highway without running into someone, maybe you should not be driving a car.

In the same way if you can’t own a gun without shooting some innocent person, then you shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun. In fact people who own and drive automobiles get away with far more than a gun owner would, and the scary thing is it is accepted by the general population.

Threaten or intimidate someone with a gun and a person would be in serious trouble. But threaten or intimidate someone with a car… Happens all the time.

Hit and kill or seriously injure someone with a car, then say, “Sorry, I didn’t see them.” Chances are there will be no charges, no consequences. Try that defense if you accidently shoot someone. “I’m sorry I didn’t see the person standing there when I fired the gun in that direction.” I doubt that would stand up in a court of law.

If a person gets hit and killed by a stray bullet in a drive by shooting, or he gets hit and killed by a car while walking or riding his bike, it makes little difference to that person. He is dead either way.

For the person hit by a stray bullet, the police will put all their resources into finding the person responsible and bring them to justice. Family and loved ones will have some kind of closure.

For family of the person run down by the car, there will be no such closure. There will most likely be no serious consequences for the person responsible. It will be labeled just an unfortunate “Accident.”

It is argued that people should not be allowed to own an Assault Rifle that fires multiple rounds; if they are allowed to own such weapons then there should be some serious back ground checks and more important; special training.

Buy the same rule it could be argued a person doesn't really need a vehicle that will do 100 mph. or 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, or whatever cars are capable of these days. A car is a vehicle for personal transport, to get its owner from A to B. It does not have to be a big as a small house, or reach 100 mph.

If freedom says it is only right a person should be allowed to own such a vehicle, maybe this too should come with some stringent driving record checks, along with questions why you need a machine with so much power?

Above all there should be some serious training before driving this potential killing machine, and serious consequences if you kill or maim someone.

People with criminal records are banned for life from legally owning a gun, even if they have not killed anyone; they forfeit that freedom. Yet people, who kill people with cars, forfeit very little.

And the craziest thing of all, car ownership is not in the written into the constitution. There is no right to drive, like the right to bear arms.

                        

Wasting Space

Mark Twain once said, “Buy land; they’re not making it anymore.” As the world’s population explodes it is pretty easy to understand the amount of real estate each individual has at their disposal, gets less and less because… “They’re not making it anymore.”

I’m not just talking space to live, there has to be space for businesses for people to work and buy food and other necessities. The biggest user of space in our society is the automobile. If each individual has an automobile that vehicle uses more space than the individual that owns it, if you include roads, and places to park, etc.

Each factory or shopping mall has a parking lot bigger in area than the actual building structure. Every highway takes up at least twice the space of the actual paved road, if you include the verges at the side of the road, the median between lanes, and bridges and intersections can take up acres and acres of space.  

It is not by accident or some act of governments the two of the smallest countries in Europe are also the most bicycle friendly; Demark and Holland. (Netherlands) It is not so much that these two countries developed a bicycle culture; they never really opted out of it, while after WWII the rest of Europe followed the United States and gradually switched to a society dependent on automobiles.

Up until the 1960s even Britain still had a bicycle culture. Not only did the majority of the population not own cars, but most had never learned to drive. People rode bicycles to work, children rode to school, and ladies did their shopping on a bicycle with a basket on the handlebars. There was also a good public transport system; trains and busses.

Lack of space forced Denmark and Holland not to opt for an automobile society? When you look at the size of these two countries it is easy to see why; Denmark’s area is a total of 16,629 sq. miles while Holland is 15,892 sq. miles. Both these countries could almost fit into my current home state of South Carolina, at 31,113 sq, miles, and South Carolina is not a particularly large state. Compare this to California with 158,706 sq. miles, or Texas 268,820 sq. miles.

It is hard to convince the average American that we are wasting space it would seem there is still an abundance of it, but the more space used to accommodate the automobile, the more people are forced to live further and further away from the city center, and more space is required for roads to get people to and from work, and still more space to park once they get there. Not to mention the cost of fuel and wear and tear on a vehicle.

It then gets to the situation you have in Los Angeles/Long Beach/Riverside, California, where urban sprawl has reached 4,850 sq. miles. It is not unusual for people to commute 80 miles each way to work, because the only home they can afford is out in the desert somewhere east of the city. Five and six lane freeways still fail to move the volume of traffic, and become parking lots during rush hour.

In the above picture I count approximately 8 cars per lane, from the bridge to the foreground of the picture. With one individual per car that is 40 people using up this huge area.  

Let’s forget for a moment that fossil fuels will eventually run out. I can remember 50 years ago people said that oil would run out in 20 years, and still we keep finding more. Let’s also forget for now that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming. Both these may be sound arguments, but are a hard sell to many people.

One of the biggest issues I see with the automobile is the terrible waste of space. In time technology may find alternative fuels, but apart from multi story buildings and a few underground tunnels, technology cannot produce more space.

We can no longer support a situation where every individual owns an automobile; families will have to share one car. This means someone in the family will have to ride a bike, at least some of the time.

                       

Is it time to opt out of the culture of speed?

All over the United States and indeed the world, people are riding bicycles. Forget about saving the planet, that is not the reason; it is a satisfying and civilized way to travel. Faster and more efficient than walking, and for not much more energy input; compared to driving a person is burning calories rather than gasoline.

A person riding to work each day on his bicycle is traveling for free; he gets there in only slightly less time that his colleague who drives. In some congested cities the cyclists gets there faster. He has not had to allot time to exercise or pay gym fees. When he gets to his destination he has fewer problems with parking.

Many more people would ride bicycles but they are afraid of being hit by cars. There are still a those who will try to intimidate and bully anyone in their way. The whole “Share the Road” concept is flawed in that it implies that the roads are for cars and cyclists are asking drivers to share space with them.

This is not the case; public roads are just that, “Public.” They are there for people to travel from their home to where ever they need to be. The right is for the person to travel, not according to the persons’ mode of transport.

There is no pleasure in driving anymore; it is the myth and the lie being sold to the public by the auto-makers.

Look at any car ad on TV and what do you see? The obligatory slow motion shot of a car sliding sideways in a controlled skid; cars driving at break neck speed on deserted streets and highways.

This is not reality; on today’s congested roadways, not only is driving fast impractical, it is downright dangerous. And what useful purpose does it serve? There is a legitimate argument for being allowed to maintain high speeds for long journeys on freeways that traverse miles and miles of open countryside.

However, when freeways approach cities and become congested, there is a definite need to slow to the same speed as everyone else. It is the driver trying to maintain his high rate of speed under these conditions that not only cause accidents, but cause people to brake and in turn lead to the stop and go traffic conditions that are all too familiar.

The best thing a person can do is to realize that getting from A to B is a necessity; so if you can’t make it a pleasure then at least make it stress free. Opt out of the culture of speed; slow down and relax.

Speed limits need to be lowered to 20mph in crowded city centers where there are many pedestrians and cyclists. Would such a speed limit have a great impact on peoples’ over all drive time?

In most cases drivers simply accelerate to race from one traffic light to the next. On long stretches of highway, traffic lights can be timed so someone driving the speed limit can have green lights all the way through a town.

The faster cars go the more space is needed between each car. Therefore, people moving slower but continuously in a procession can travel closer to each other. This means traffic is moving slower but on any given stretch of highway it is carrying a larger volume of vehicles. So is the overall flow of vehicles per hour that much less? Bottom line is; people still get to where they need to be.

The world is becoming more and more crowded; populations are exploding everywhere including the US. Every person who rides a bicycle is taking one more car off the road, making more room for those who choose to drive.

Wouldn’t life be a little more pleasant if everyone slowed down a notch? So what if it took you five or ten minutes longer to get to work, at the end of each day would that make a huge difference? Of course wishing for this is wishing for Utopia; but who would argue that it would be better if less people had to die on our roads.

The cities across America that have adopted a “Bicycle Friendly” program, have found that when more people ride bicycles the overall speed of traffic slows. With that comes less fatalities, not just for cyclists, but across the board for pedestrians and motorists too.