Crossing The Line Into A Collision

Once again, Florida leads the nation in bicycle deaths and injuries, overall and per capita.  And it's not even close:  the next-worst state--Louisiana--has about half of Florida's numbers and rates.

Having cycled in the Sunshine State, I could see why there the body count is so high.  Many thoroughfares are "stroads:"  multi-lane streets, avenues or boulevards that cut a straight line from Point A to Point B.  Such an arrangement seems to bring out the inner Dale Earnhardt in drivers. Also, those "stroads" are not only the most direct routes from one place to another:  They're often the only routes.  Worse yet, they often don't have "service" or emergency lanes or even sidewalks, let alone bike lanes.

The arrangements I've described can be especially difficult to acclimate to if you come from a place that isn't as auto- and driver-centric as Florida.   Just as my teachers and professors didn't teach me about female, queer or Black writers because they weren't taught them themselves, I think many drivers have the idea that the road belongs to them and nothing should be in their way because, well, they were inculcated with such a notion at a young age--and it was reinforced by road an highway engineering that prioritized moving motor vehicles as quickly and efficiently as possible from one point to another.

The conditions I've described had at least something to do with one of the more horrific car-bike crashes I've heard  of. Fortunately, it didn't add to Florida's death toll, though at least one of the cyclists involved has "incapacitating" injuries.

Notice that I said "at least."  The driver involved in this confrontation was piloting her Kia SUV south in the southbound lane of North Ocean Boulevard Gulf Stream, a Palm Beach County community.  A group of eight cyclists was riding northbound, in the northbound lane.

For some as-yet-unexplained reason, the 77-year-old driver crossed the center line dividing the two lanes.  The front of her vehicle met--with great force--the front of a 43-year-old cyclist and struck the others who were riding with him.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he's the one with the "incapacitating" injury.  Three other cyclsts had "serious" injuries; they, the others and the driver were brought to the hospital's trauma unit. 

I hope everyone--yes, including the driver--recovers and she explains, or someone figures out, why she veered across that road.  And I hope--though, I realize, this is a very long hope, especially with Ron De Santis in the governor's mansion--that Florida makes itself safer for cyclists, many of whom are tourists or, like me, were visiting family members.

To Prevent Another Invasion

 Nearly two weeks ago, an alien clad in green, white and red landed in the middle of Paris, bearing artifacts eagerly anticipated by a line of people 1.5 kilometers (almost 1 mile) long who came to greet it.

No, the alien wasn’t Italian and the artifacts weren’t vital links to a distant galaxy. They are, however, prized in the place from which the aliens came.  And the people who so anxiously awaited an encounter with them had seen them, until that moment, only on large, glowing screens in darkened halls.

The alien’s colors were not of a flag or spectrum. Rather, they represented the emblem of the alien’s homeland—something known in the galaxy as a “chain “ or “corporation.”

Those folks in the queue were waiting to try something they’d seen in images from a faraway land—one where Ford F-150s roam.

By now, you might have surmised that the customers in Les Halles were waiting to try something that doesn’t exist in the galaxy of Parisian pâtisseries—a Kree-spee Kréme beignet.

I guess I shouldn’t have been have been surprised. Owing largely to movies, television and music videos, American popular culture is, especially for the young, a kind of yang to the yin of haute culture, couture and cuisine. Les jeunes have grown up watching Americans dig into iconic Krispy Kreme boxes.

The company says it plans to open 500 “access points”—which will include vending machines and kiosks as well as actual stores—all over France in the next year.

I mention this development because I hope that Krispy Kreme isn’t a sign of more, and worse, trends crossing the pond, just as seeing the Shake Shack font is a harbinger of the worst things about gentrification coming to your neighborhood.

Guardian Europe columnist Alexander Hurst describes America as a “hellscape” in which folks go for their fix of glazed donuts—in their SUVs and amped-up pickup trucks.

To be sure, I have seen such vehicles in Europe.  They are, however, smaller than their US counterparts. Also, when I took bike tours in the countrysides of France and other European countries, such vehicles were used by farmers, carpenters and others engaged in work that requires hauling a lot of equipment and cargo.  Even the SUV-like vehicles I saw on recent trips in Paris, Athens and Rome were usually emblazoned with the name of a store or some other business.

Part of that has to do with the higher cost of gasoline in Europe. Another factor might be the narrower streets and roads. But Hurst believes that France and other European countries must do more to prevent this:

Ford F-150 through  the years,
 1970s-2020s.Graphic by Will Chase for Axios

The bloat in American vehicle sizes, he observes, is not only an “environmental disaster.” It’s also a hazard for pedestrians and anyone operating a smaller, less powerful vehicles—including bicycles.

As I have pointed out in earlier posts, SUVs and the pickup-trucks-on-steroids (driven by guys who could use Viagra) give us little or no room to maneuver if the driver turns, swerves or veers. Moreover, their increased height makes cyclists and pedestrians (especially small children) less visible and their higher grilles are more likely to strike someone in the upper body or even head, which is more likely to result in paralysis or death than a blow to the lower extremities.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo has proposed tripling the parking fees for SUVs in central Paris and doubling them in the rest of the city. If her proposal passes, it will be a good start. But more needs to be done—in her city and country, and the rest of Europe—in order to prevent an invasion of alien vehicles grown and fueled by Krispy Kreme’s.

The Incredible Shrinking Distance Between Bikes And Cars

Apparently, I am not the only one who perceives what I am about to describe.  Moreover (How many times have I used that word on this blog?), there is empirical evidence to back it up.

In New York City, where I live, as well as other American municipalities, there are more bike lanes than at any time since, probably, the 1890s bike boom. Of course, that is not to say that you can get from anywhere to anywhere you want or need to go in a lane separated from traffic, but you can spend at least some of your cycling time secluded from large motor vehicles.

Well, at least in theory, that's possible.  But there is something else that's mitigating against cyclists' safety.  As more "cycling infrastructure" is being built (too often, from misconceptions about cycling and traffic), motor vehicles are getting bigger.  Twenty years ago, a typical family vehicle was a Toyota Camry or some other sedan.  Today, it is a sport-utility vehicle (SUV) like the Kia Ascent or pickup truck like the Ford F-150. As an infographic from Transportation Alternatives shows, that means the typical amount of "elbow room" between a cyclist and a vehicle has shrunk from 18 inches to 4 (46 to 10 cm), a reduction of about 75 percent.

The trend toward larger vehicles began and accelerated well before cities like New York started to build bike lanes.  So, encounters between motor vehicles and cyclists were already getting closer.  That means drivers can't use the excuse that bike lanes were "taking away" their space for driving.  

On the other hand, as I've said in other posts, lines of paint does not a bike lane make.  Many family vehicles*  on the road today take up the entire width of a traffic lane.  So, if someone is driving their Toyota 4Runner to their kid's school or soccer practice and is trying to pass another driver, or has to swerve for any other reason, there's a good chance that the SUV will veer, or even careen, into the bike lane. At least one driver has done exactly that right in front of me.

Of course, a couple of lines of paint or a "neutral" buffer strip between a bike and traffic or parking lane won't protect a cyclist--or change a motorist's behavior--in such a situation.  Then again, so-called "protected" lanes don't, either:  Most of the objects used to segregate lanes, like bollards or planters, are easy to knock over, especially with a multiton vehicle.  

The size and weight of the vehicles presents another problem.  Safety experts say that driving even a mid-sized SUV like the Buick Enclave, let alone a full-sized one like the Cadillac Escalade, is more like driving a truck than a family sedan of the 1990s.  With all due respect to all of those parents who ferry their kids and aging parents, most of them don't have the driving skills of someone who operates a long-hauler.**  So, Sarah or Seth driving their Honda CR-V to pick up Ian or Beth can easily misjudge the distance between them and other vehicles--or pedestrians or cyclists. Worse, the larger size and heavier weight of their vehicles means that a blow that might have struck a pedestrian or cyclist in the middle of their body and caused damage that could be serious but was probably survivable had the vehicle been a Honda Accord or Ford Escort could, instead, trap the benighted person riding along the street or crossing it underneath the grille or the vehicle itself.

So, while the effort, if not the results, to build "bicycle infrastructure" is laudable, it won't make much difference in cycling (or pedestrians') safety if typical family vehicles continue to grow in size, along with the sense of entitlement that some drivers have.

*--I'm not talking about delivery trucks and the like, which have remained more or less constant in size.

**--Although I've never driven such conveyances, I am aware of the differences in driving skills between people who drive them and the average driver:  One of my uncles and a close friend, both departed, drove trucks for a living and another uncle and a cousin did so for significant parts of their working lives.