Windshield Bias

Many of us envy countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, where people cycle even if they have other transportation or recreation options.  Here in the US, we have "bicycle friendly" (a relative term, to be sure) islands in a motor-centric sea.

One reason for the difference between the cycling environments has to do with policies. Europeans seem to understand what it takes to make bicycling safe and practical enough for people to choose it over driving or other forms of transportation, at least for short trips. In America, on the other hand the notion of "bicycle friendliness" seems to consist of building bicycle lanes--which, as I've said in other posts, are too often poorly-conceived, -constructed and -maintained--and passing "safety" regulations that bear no relation to the experience of riding.

A reason for so much misguided policy, I believe, has to do with media coverage.  I'm not familiar with what the Danes and Dutch print or broadcast, but I suspect that it's less auto-centric than what the French see and hear which, in turn, seems like tout l'Equipe compared to what we see on our pages and screens in America.

Now, some might say that I am in a "Big Apple Bubble."  It's true that on many issues--including, ahem, gun rights (Guns have rights?)--most New Yorkers, including yours truly, think differently from a state legislator in Mississippi or Texas.  But from what I've been seeing and hearing, New York City's news stories aren't the only ones infected with "windshield bias."

That apt phrase came to me from Christian MilNeil, a reporter on the Boston edition of Streetsblog.  In his article, he describes how the city's broadcast news programs and newspapers have framed the debates in neighboring Cambridge over bike lanes and pedestrianizing public spaces.  He noted something I've seen here in New York: the debates are too often framed as "bike lanes vs. parking spaces" or some other false equivalency, as in "we have more important issues, like gun violence and affordable housing."

I will not argue that gun violence and affordable housing are not urgent issues. But comparing issues is not useful.  Moreover, how does making a park car-free prevent the  construction of apartments and houses that people and families can afford on worker's wages?  Or passing a law that would keep people who aren't old enough to drink or who have mental health issues from acquiring military-style assault weapons?  

Speaking of which:  A car, especially an SUV, is as deadly a weapon as an AR-15 when an unbalanced person is at the wheel.  If policy-makers actually want to encourage more people to pedal or walk to work or school, they could take measures to prevent and more severely punish violence committed against cyclists and pedestrians in which the motor vehicle is the weapon.  

But I digress.  MilNeil's article shows that while coverage in Boston's print media has been somewhat more balanced, the city's television and other electronic media are heavily skewed toward organizations like "Save Mass Ave" who argue that building bike lanes will destroy their businesses.  Too often, he points out, stories show only outraged owners of the businesses in question or give only a few seconds to a cycling or pedestrian advocate.

(For the record, the Cambridge City Council has consistently favored policies to build bike lanes and ban cars from parks and other public areas.)

Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge.  Photo from Boston Streetsblog.

I suspect that some of that distortion is inevitable.  For one thing, I'd guess that most reporters and editors aren't cyclists and probably don't often walk to get to wherever they're going.  But there is a more important built-in bias, I think:  As we've seen all too clearly during since Trump launched his first Presidential campaign, loud, angry voices are better than calm voices relating facts at "bringing the eyeballs to the screens" or keeping earbuds in ears. 

Could it be that we need advocates who foam at the mouth the way some folks do when their right to have as many and whatever kind of guns--or parking spaces--as they want. Or to use them whenever, whenever they want. 

Is This What It Takes To Charge A Driver Who Strikes A Cyclist?

If you read the post I wrote yesterday, you could tell I was angry.  I still am.  Another story that came my way intensified my rage.

In Omaha, a 26-year-old woman was arrested after hitting a cyclist with her car.

You can be forgiven for thinking that I should view this arrest as "progress" after a driver in my hometown got off with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from a police officer after he killed a cyclist.



But the driver wasn't charged with any injury she caused the cyclist. Instead, she was cited for DUI, reckless driving, child neglect (her infant was improperly restrained in the rear of her car) and having an open alcohol container.  

I guess I should be grateful that she was cited for anything at all.  I can't help but to think, however, that the only reason why she was charged with anything at all is that the cyclist in question was an Omaha police officer.

Death For Bike Messenger, Tea And Sympathy For Driver

Warning:  The video near the end of this post may be too much for some of you to take.

A couple of years ago, a woman was attacked and raped not far from where I live.  She'd been walking home at 3:45 on a Sunday morning when she was set upon by a group of young men who dragged her into a darkened parking lot.

Most people were, rightly, outraged.  But a few, even at such a late date and liberal neighborhood, asked, "What was she doing out at that time?"

The explanation, it turned out, almost exactly matched what I'd surmised:  She'd been working a Saturday night shift at a bar.   To the question of why she didn't take a cab or Uber or something, the answer was simple:  She lived only a block and a half away from the bar and had never before encountered any trouble.

It was a chilling reminder of the days, which I remember, when the first questions people--even other women--asked upon hearing of a sexual attack were, "What was she wearing?"  "What was she doing there at that hour?"  The implication was, of course, that she'd "asked for it"--even if the woman had been wearing "scrubs" and was in front of a church in the middle of the afternoon. (Yes, I heard of such a case once!)

I found myself thinking about such victims after a story  that made news in our area:  A 20-year-old female bike messenger was struck and killed yesterday morning, just as the workweek was beginning, in the bustling Flatiron district of Manhattan.

One reason I found myself thinking about the rape victims I mentioned is that news coverage seemed to emphasize two major points, one being that the messenger was a young woman.  Some of the coverage expressed more grief, if in a patronizing way, than she might've received had she checked the "M" box.   But some of those same reports--and, of course, other coverage--seemed to convey a tone of suspicion and scorn reserved for the rape victims I mentioned.  You could almost hear some news editor wondering, "What was she doing, working a job like that?"

The other salient point of the coverage, which also turned into another way to blame the victim, was that she was riding "in the middle of the street" and "not in a bike lane" when she was struck.

Robyn Hightman

I am very familiar with the block--Sixth Avenue between West 23th and 24th Streets--where the Robyn Hightman, recently relocated from Virginia, lost her life.  There is indeed a bike lane, which is frequently congested.  Anyone who makes deliveries, whether on foot, bike or in a motorized vehicle, knows that it's all about speed.  A messenger simply can't move quickly enough in a lane crowded with tourists on Citibikes.  

More to the point, though, is that the way the bike lane, like most others in this city, is designed.  Because it's at the curb's edge, and the "stop" line at each intersection is the same for bikes as it is for motor vehicles, turns--which you make a lot of if you're a messenger--can be dangerous if a motor vehicle is turning in the same direction.  This arrangement also makes crossing major intersection--23rd Street at Sixth Avenue is one--difficult, if not dangerous.

Moreover, when there are flexible or no barriers--as is the case on the Sixth Avenue lane--delivery vehicles and Ubers frequently pull in and out, especially in as busy an area as the one I'm mentioning. 

What makes the shaming of Robyn Hightman all the more galling is that the driver of the vehicle, who claimed he didn't know he hit her, got off with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from a police officer who arrived at the scene.  The driver claims this incident is his first "accident" (the word he used) in 14 years of driving for his employer.  An investigation, however, revealed that the truck he was driving has been cited with 83 summonses since 2015.  Most were for parking violations, but at least two were for speeding.



In 2018, ten cyclists were killed by motorists on New York City streets.  Robyn Hightman was the 12th in 2019, and the year isn't half-over.  And the driver got tea and sympathy--along with an assurance he wasn't in trouble--from an NYPD officer.

Drug Dealers, Rapists, Murderers...And Cyclists!

Donald Trump has labelled Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, rapists and murderers.

In my grandparents' generation, Italian immigrants were almost automatically seen as criminals and the Irish who came a generation earlier were viewed as drunken brawlers.  And Asians, particularly Japanese-Americans during World War II, were depicted as shifty and untrustworthy.

These days, when someone uses the word "thug", it's assumed that person is referring to a black male.  Likewise, "Arab" and "Muslim" are uttered interchangeably; both are used as synonyms for "terrorist."   

Now it seems that, at least in the meida, "cyclist" has become the new stereotype.  Whenever some drunk or distracted driver runs one of us down, we made the misguided choice of riding a bicycle--never mind that we were riding in a "protected" lane and the driver veered into it. But we are not, in those situations, labeled as "cyclists."

Instead, the c-word seems to refer only to those who are breaking the law--or, in one recent case, windows.

Now, I'll be the first to say that the pack who rode the wrong way on a Chelsea street--especially the member(s) who smashed the rear window of someone's new car and who smacked into a police officer--should be prosecuted.  The news reports I've seen and heard about it, however, seem designed to whip up as much hysteria as possible against anyone who pedals two wheels on this city's streets.  You can hear it in the way "reporters" (Where have journalistic standards gone?) elicit reactions from bystanders.  To hear them, cyclists are as much a menace to this city as MS-13 is to some immigrant communities.

To make a bad "report" even worse, the accompanying video, which purports to be a record of the rampage, actually has nothing to do with it.

Now Why Didn't I Think Of That?

Hey, I found it!  The miracle cure!

For what?, you ask.

Cravings for drugs, alcohol, sex and Friends.

The cure is really, really simple--and you might even have it on your iPhone.

All right, I'll tell you what it is: playing Tetris.

I'm not kidding:  that is the conclusion of a research team.  According to their findings, "cognitive interference"  can be used to reduce cravings for substances and addictive behaviors.

Of course, a term like "cognitive interference" could only be coined by someone trying to get or keep a research grant (or by someone paid to explain how a celebrity ran over some unfortunate soul).  In plain English, it means "distraction":  Playing Tetris deflects your attention away from eating pizzas, drinking beer, making love or the "He's her lobster!" episode.

Believe it or not, greater minds than the ones who discovered "cognitive interference" have come up with even more ludicrous conclusions from funded research.

As an example, the esteemed fellows at the National Highway Traffic Administration have figured out how to prevent 90 percent of all bicycle accidents.  Their conclusion is so simple, and so commonsensical that I wondered how I didn't come up with it myself.

According to lead researcher Dr. Laura Gafferty, "Our data confirm that the vast majority of cyclist injuries can be avoided by driving an automobile instead of biking around like some weirdo."  She added that while bicycle riding is perfectly acceptable for children under 12, it isn't recommended for any adult who isn't competing in the Tour de France.  "Regular people drive cars because it's the normal and not the abnormal thing to do," she explained. If every cyclist drove a car "like you're supposed to as an adult", cycling-related fatalities would "drop by 40 percent in the first six months alone," she claimed.

Her team's study was published in that most respected of all journals:  The Onion.

We're Not All Surly Scofflaws

When Donald Trump said that Mexico was sending rapists to this country, many people rightly expressed outrage.

Likewise, there would be plenty of righteous umbrage expressed if African-Americans were portrayed as gangsters,  "welfare queens" or even basketball players, just as we would not tolerate a broad-brushed characterization of Jews as money-hungry.

However, I've noticed that--at least here in New York--many people, including news anchors, think it's perfectly all right to characterize all cyclists as surly scofflaws.  I wish I'd recorded the segment in which an announcer on a local all-news station--the one to which most NYC taxi drivers listen--said that cyclists "never" obey the traffic law and that a proposed law would ensure that we do.

By Andreas Kambanis

Granted, there are cyclists who blow through red lights and sideswipe pedestrians and others. I don't have any statistics, but I know they don't constitute "all" cyclists, any more than the attacks in Paris or the World Trade Center are proof that "all" Muslims or Arabs, or people from the Middle East or North Africa, are terrorists.

What people forget is in painting all members of a group with a broad brush, they are further alienating themselves from that group, just as they are alienating members of that group from themselves.  That, in turn, causes some members of the group--whether they're Muslims or black teenagers or cyclists or whatever--to believe that, no matter how well they behave, they are lumped in with the worst members of their group.  So, they figure, there is no point in changing their ways--or they, out of anger, become even bolder or more brazen in their antisocial behavior.

What I heard yesterday on 1010 WINS is not an isolated example, and it is not part of a new trend.  About twenty years ago, a certain local television reporter staged an incident in which he, while crossing a street, was knocked down by a "cyclist".  (I put "cyclist" in quotation marks because, as the incident was fake, I have to wonder whether the person on the bike was actually a cyclist.  Perhaps he was just playing one on TV.)  As we were even more of a minority than we are now, there was even less outcry than there has been over more recent examples of anti-cycling bias.  Then again, the story had a shorter "shelf life" than today's anti-biker screeds.

So, I urge cyclists to be on the lookout for more examples of anti-bike bias in the meida, and to call the television and radio stations, news-papers and -sites, and other media outlets on it.  At the same time, I appeal to my fellow riders to be considerate of pedestrians, especially those who are elderly and disabled--and to obey traffic signs and signals.  After all, cyclists in Montreal and Paris do it, and it doesn't seem to slow them down.