Is “Bulled” Worse Than “Doored?”

The October before last, I suffered the worst nightmare of anyone who cycles in traffic:  I was “doored.”

I ended up with 30 stitches and a lot of aches and pains. Still, it could have been worse.

At least, I imagine getting “bulled” could be even more painful.  And the driver who doored me didn’t run from the scene! 

Gambling With Cyclists' Lives: Cara Cox Lost Hers

Here in New York City, those of us who ride often complain about the conditions of bike lanes and streets, and about the seeming hostility or cluelessness of some drivers.  While we all have our stories about the perils of the street, my experiences of cycling in other parts of the US have shown me that, poorly-conceived bike lanes notwithstanding, we have it a little better than riders in other parts of the country.

Other municipalities and states, I believe, actually are more hazardous than the Big Apple.  One reason, I think, is that much of the nation, particularly in parts of the South and West, are more automobile-centric than this city.  Cyclists are still seen  as anomalies in many places. As a result, drivers don't know what to do when they see us.  Some even feel resentment and hostility toward us for being on "their" roadway.

One city with such conditions, it seems, is Las Vegas.  I was there once, nearly three decades ago, and from what I understand, the city's permanent population has exploded and, as a result, traffic is much denser than it was back then.  So it's not surprising that I've been hearing and reading that 'Vegas has a "problem" with bike-car collisions and that it has a large number of fatlities in proportion to its population.

Cara Cox

The latest such casualty is Cara Cox, who was struck by a 74-year-old motorist more than two months ago.  She lay in a coma until her death the other day.  Ms. Cox thus became the ninth cyclist to be killed by a motorist in the Las Vegas area this year. A month before  her accident, 500 cyclists particpated in a safety awareness rally and ride in nearby Summerlin.  The eighth cyclist to be killed, Matthew Hunt, brought them together. "[M]atthew did everything right," according to his brother, Jason. "At this point, it's up to the drivers to pay attention," he added.

That some don't is the reason someone like Alan Snel can say, "Every bicyclist I know can share a story about a motorist endangering their safety."  Mr. Snel is a self-described "cyclist who pays the bills as a newspaper writer/reporter" who has written about Ms. Cara, Mr. Hunt and others who died after being struck by cars victims--as well as other stories about cycling in the area--for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  He also writes a blog, Bicycle Stories, where I learned about Ms. Cara's tragic death.

"For the life of me, I can't understand how society accepts killed cyclists," he writes, "as just part of the regular carnage out there on the roads."

I couldn't have said it any better.  I hope that the day comes when there will be no need to say it at all.

Whether You Autumn Or Fall, Please Don't Take A Header!

A few posts ago, I made a lame pun to explain why I prefer "autumn" to "fall", especially when it comes to cycling.

No one has ever autumned off his or her bike.  On the other hand, just about every cyclist has taken a fall.  

I have taken a few in my time.  None resulted in my missing any significant amount of time from riding. Ironically, the only injuries that kept me off my bike for more than a few days were not cycling-related.  Ditto for the one other event that kept me out of the saddle:  my surgery.

Of the falls I have taken, two resulted in my head making any contact with whatever I was riding, and fell, on.  

The first came when I was pedaling from Park Slope, where I lived at the time, to a school in the Bronx where I'd been conducting poetry workshops as an artist-in residence. I had just spun my way across the Greenpoint Avenue  Bridge and veered left onto Van Dam Street, in an industrial area of Long Island City, Queens.  About two blocks into Queens, a truck driver flung his door open, and into my side--causing the one and only somersault I've ever done on my bike.  Some would argue it wasn't a true somersault, as I didn't push my hands out in time to keep me from rolling on my head.

The second time, I was riding my mountain bike in Forest Park.  I was pedaling at  high-octane pace and was in my own little zone, not paying attention to my surroundings.

Well, in my path was a mound the BMXers used to flip themselves in the air.  I rode up on it--in the wrong direction, on the nearly-vertical side.  

Well, I flipped over. But I didn't flip back. Instead of landing on my wheels, as any of the 14-year-old kids would have, I came to earth upside down.

Those 14-year-olds rushed to my side.  "We really thought you were gonna die!", one of them chimed after helping me up. I never lost consciousness, but when I got up, I noticed that my helmet had broken.  In two.

OK.  So now you probably have figured out my position on helmets.  Yes, I wear them and encourage others to do likewise.  

Even though I had a helmet protecting me in each of those accidents, I count the lucky stars I didn't see when I feel that I have never taken a "header".  I hope you haven't either.

A line drawing of the world's first "header".  From Roads Were Not Built For Cars.

It seems that in the days of high-wheeled bicycles (a.k.a. "penny farthings"), "headers" were a fairly common occurrence. And, since cyclists in those days commonly rode front wheels of 60 inches (about 1.75 meters) or more, the impact from such a fall must have been even greater.  

Some would use the fact that people survived such falls as an argument against helmet-wearing.  That's a valid argument, as far as it goes.  However, there is also this to consider:  In those days, no one seemed to know much about concussions, let alone their long-term effects.

So...Yes, I will continue to wear a helmet as I cycle in autumn--and be grateful I haven't taken a "header".  At least not yet.

Being Prepared, Before Uber

As a teenager, I learned bike repair and basic first aid because I wanted to be self-sufficient on the road. 

As a Scout (We were still “Boy Scouts” in those days!), I had to learn first aid to advance from one rank to another, if I recall correctly.  Also, I learned some first aid techniques and lore—some of which contradicted what Scout leaders taught us—in one of my high school Health/Phys Ed classes. 

On the other hand, when it came to bike repair, my education was home-made.  Most of what I learned came from the first edition of the late Tom Cuthbertson’s wonderful Anybody’s Bike Book.  If the “For Dummies” series of books existed in those days, ABB could have been part of it:  It began with the assumption that, before you opened the book, you didn’t know the difference between a flat-bladed and Philips screwdriver, let alone a Schraeder and Presta valve.  But Cuthbertson would not have allowed his book to be called Bike Repair For Dummies; he had too much respect for his readers to do that.

Anyway, I wanted to learn bike repair and first aid, among other things, because I wanted to get on my bike one day and pedal some place far away, never to be seen or heard from again by anyone who knew me.  That fantasy came, in part, from being an adolescent and taking some things I read—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to A Doll’s House—as well as movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid--perhaps a bit too literally.  To be fair, I must say that I wasn’t suffering the fate of some Dickensian character.  Though I butted heads with my parents, teachers and other authority figures in my life, none were abusive.  However, I also knew that I couldn’t live any of the lives my parents and teachers, or any other adults in my life, envisioned for me, even if I didn’t quite know what sort of life I actually wanted to live.

You might say I wanted to run away.  I suppose I could have done that by joining the circus or the French Foreign Legion.  Believe it or not, I actually thought about giving myself over to the Legion one day when I passed by their recruitment office.  But getting on my bike and riding into the sunset, the fog or whatever else was on the horizon was more appealing. 

Even though I wanted to disappear, I didn’t want to get stranded someplace.  I wanted the power to move out, move away, move forward, move on — all on my own terms, in my own way.  I didn’t want to put myself at the mercy of anyone or anything else in an emergency.

That would mean, of course, having certain skills and tools when I was on my bike.  It would also mean carrying dimes (and, later, quarters, or whatever the local coinage was) for pay telephones—at least, for those places where there was a pay telephone!  By the time I took my first long bike tour, I had those things and some textbook knowledge of Spanish and French—and perhaps even less knowledge than I thought I had about a lot of other things!  But that is the topic of another blog post, perhaps another blog.

I am thinking about all of that now, after the bike ride I took today.  Every inch or centimeter of the route on this day’s ride was one I’d ridden numerous times before; my intent was simply to ride vigorously and enjoy myself on a gorgeous day.  And, yes, I planned on getting home:  After all, I have cats (and myself!) to feed.

I was descending the ramp of the Cross Bay-Veterans MemorialBridge (“the bridge to the Rockaways”) on the Beach Channel side.  I’d pedaled about 80 kilometers (50 miles) and had about another 25 (15) ahead of me. The wind blew at my back, so I expected to be home shortly.

There is a fairly sharp turn in the ramp on the Beach Channel side.  I have long since learned not to yield to the temptation of descending faster than Lindsey Vonn on the Super G at Val d’Isere; there isn’t much room if you have to dodge another cyclist—or, worse, a group of riders—coming in the opposite direction. Even a pedestrian, skater or dogwalker who’s “in the zone” and not paying attention to surroundings can lead to your being entangled. 

However, someone else hadn’t learned those lessons.  Or she simply lost control of her bike; from what I could see, she’d probably never before ridden so fast—or much at all.  When I saw her, she was flat on her back, crying in pain. 

Her boyfriend confirmed my suspicions.  He said she “couldn’t steer out” of the path of the retaining wall she crashed into.  She gasped, “It hurts to breathe”. I immediately suspected a fractured rib—or, judging from the scrapes and bruises on and around her left shoulder, a broken collarbone.  I also feared a possible concussion:  Neither she nor her boyfriend was wearing a helmet.  However, she said she didn’t feel dizzy and, after a few minutes, was able to stand up.  And, from what her boyfriend said, her shoulder, but not her head, hit that wall.

This is not the accident about which I've written today. 

I offered to help:  Call an ambulance, get ice from the bagel shop at the foot of the bridge, whatever else they needed.  “We’re OK,” he said.  I offered her my water bottle, which was about half full.  She drank from it. 

I then glanced at her bike.  The front wheel was a “pretzel”, but there didn’t appear to be any damage to the rest of the bike.  I opened up the front V-brake, which made it possible to move the bike, albeit with some difficulty.  I then apologized for not having a spoke wrench:  Although the wheel couldn’t be salvaged, I explained, at least it would make it easier to push the bike.    I also apologized for not having a wound dressing or other things the bagel shop probably wouldn’t have.  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said.  “We’re glad you stopped”.

They live about halfway between that bridge and my place. I asked if they had a way of getting home.  “We called a friend but he wasn’t home,” he explained.  “But don’t worry—we’ll just call Uber.”

Uber.  Nobody had even thought of such a service back when I was plotting my Great Bike Escape.  The only time I had seen the word “uber” was in one of those books I didn’t understand as well as I thought I did—or, more precisely, understood in the way only an adolescent, with no guidance, can understand it.  For all I know, that just might have been the way Nietzsche wanted it to be understood.

But I digress again.  I told the young man to be sure to remind the Uber-man (or woman) that he and his girlfriend have bikes.  Turns out, the Uber person was driving an SUV.  But he had no idea of where we were; he claimed his GPS couldn’t find it.

If he couldn’t find that, I don’t think any Uber driver—had such a person existed in my youth—could have found the places I thought I might ride to when I left home, my head full of the stuff I’d been taught and the bike repairs I’d learned on my own.  And, even if the driver could find them, he (who almost surely would have been male in those days) would not have wanted to go there, any more than many New York taxi drivers would want to take a big black man who wanted to go to Brownsville.

Finally, the young man called a local car service the girl at the bagel shop counter knew about.  They indeed had a van and said it would be “no problem” to go to the young couple’s apartment.

In some of the places where I’ve ridden, there aren’t car services.  Or bagel shops.  Or, for that matter, bike shops.  Perhaps I wasn’t as ready for them as I thought it was. But I survived and had fun, and I had a great bike ride today.

If Speed Doesn't Kill

Today I'm going to talk about one of those topics about which none of us wants to think:  accidents.

Specifically, I'm thinking about motorists hitting or, worse, running down cyclists.

One reason it's on my mind is that last night, I had one of the closest calls I've had in a while.  

I had just traversed the Pulaski Bridge from McGuiness Boulevard in Greeenpoint, Brooklyn to Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, Queens--a crossing I've made hundreds of times.  On Jackson, I turned left and followed it to 50th Avenue.  Then I turned right on Vernon Boulevard, which skirts the East River and takes me within a few blocks of my apartment.

Daylight, such as it was, fell into night.  Showers were turning into a downpour.  Even that, in itself, is not so unusual, especially at this time of year.  I exercised my usual caution:  I rode a little bit slower and gave myself extra time and distance to brake.  I expected nothing more inconvenient than wet clothes (I was riding Vera, which has full fenders and a flap, but I had not brought any rain gear.) on the rest of my trip home.  

But as I approached the "Y" shaped intersection of Vernon with 45th Avenue and 10th Street, a car shot out from behind me and seemed to miss my front wheel by inches.  A quick turn of my handlebars saved me.

The intersection was well-lit, so my "blinky" lights and reflective vest should have been sufficient for the driver to see me.  There was no light or "stop" sign in the intersection, and I proceeded as far to the right as I could without making a turn.  

However, that driver had to be going at least twice the speed limit for that street.  And, given that it was early on Saturday night, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that his blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit.

In thinking about the incident, I realize that in every one of my close encounters with automobiles in which road conditions or inadequate signals or signage weren't the cause, the driver was speeding.  And, I would suspect that there was a better-than-even chance that the driver was drinking.

Then, just a little while ago, in doing some research (i.e., surfing the web), I came across this account of a 70-year-old cyclist in India who was mowed down by a speeding mini-bus. As it turns out, the driver has a record of speeding and recklessness.

That got me to wondering whether speeding is the main cause of accidents between cars and bikes in which the motorist is at fault. 

A Crash I Just Missed

I had just pedaled up the ramp on the Manhattan side of the Queensborough (a.k.a 59th Street) Bridge.  Two men and a woman, abreast each other,  spread themselves across the pedestrian side and into the side marked for bikes of the bike/pedestrian lane.  One of the men was stretching and craning his neck to snap photos of the city's skyline and the Roosevelt Island finiculaire; the other man and the woman were neither doing nor paying attention to anything in particular.  

As I had pedaled up the ramp from a dead stop at the bottom (courtesy of a man who was texting somebody and crossed into my path), I was riding slowly.  From the opposite direction, three young-looking, lycra-clad young men pedalled and spun at a much faster speed.  Still, I figured I had enough time and space to pedal around the photographer and his friends and that, by the time the three young cyclists were ready to ride around them, I would be well past the midpoint of the bridge.

My highly unscientific calculations proved to be entirely correct.  I was well past the photographer and his friends when the young male cyclists rode around them.  And I probably never would have thought about them, or the photographer and his mates, again.

But then I heard the thumping, clanging and clattering of metal and human flesh colliding as if sucked into a vortex or carbon fiber.  The cyclists were a few wheel lengths past the photographer and his travelling companions, but I don't think they had anything to do with the pileup.  To their credit, the male friend helped the cyclists--who didn't seem to be hurt--up.  I did a U-turn (fortunately, no other cyclists were approaching from either direction) and went to see whether the cyclists needed any help.  Two declined, and thanked me for my offer.  But the other, upon seeing that his bike was wrecked (It was carbon fiber.), punched and kicked the fence on the side of the bridge, picked up his bike and flung it. I got out of his way.

The bridge's lane is just barely wide enough for a couple of pedestrians walking abreast and a cyclist riding alone or in single file.  Plus, parts of the paving have been torn away (It's supposed to be re-paved), leaving half the width of the lane unusable for a significant part of the path's length.  That, at a time when more people are walking and pedaling across the bridge than perhaps at any time in its history.

Cycling In Traffic: Perceptions Vs. Realities

If you ride your bike to work, someone--a co-worker, a friend or possibly a supervisor--will inevitably ask, "Isn't it dangerous to ride on the streets?"


The short answer I give is, "Well, everything is dangerous on the streets!"  That is true epistemologically and, I suspect, empirically.


The more accurate answer is that doing anything on the streets is dangerous if you're not careful.  Crossing some streets is probably even more dangerous than driving or cycling on them, if you don't pay attention to signals and other things in your surroundings.


Now I think I know why, after so many years, I hear the same question from non-cycling commuters.  An article someone sent me opened with this insight: "A bike accident, unlike a car wreck, tends to live on in the memory even if you didn't see it happen."


I can't count how many times the question about safety is followed by some anecdote about so-and-so's brother or friend who was maimed in a clash between bike and car.  On the other hand, I've never heard anybody tell a friend or co-worker a gruesome story about an auto accident when someone is about to drive somewhere.  


Part of the reason for the discrepancy between bike and car anecdotes, I believe, has something to do with the fact that in most places, we're vastly outnumbered by the number of people who drive their cars to wherever they're going.  Because there are fewer of us, there are fewer bike accidents overall, as well as per capita.  Thus, any story about one of our mishaps stands out and is thus easy to magnify.  And, as Ben Szobody, the writer of the article, points out, anecdotes stay in the mind longer than facts.


More than one study has shown that, statistically, you have less of a chance of getting into an accident, let alone incurring injury or meeting your demise, on two wheels than on four.  Such is even true in South Carolina, where Mr. Szobody reports and which has the second-highest (after Florida) bicycle fatality rate in the US.  


Still, people's fears and stereotypes trump realities.  (That is one reason why there are so many poorly-designed and -constructed bike lanes.)   I guess that is the condition of being a minority, albeit one that is growing.  The best we can hope is , if we can't get more people out of their cars and onto bikes, that we can at least have a motoring population that better understands the realities of being a cyclist.