The terms “bike safety” and “bike etiquette” are most often used in reference to the many challenges of biking on roads alongside cars and other motor vehicles. It wasn’t until I began spending summer evenings biking on the Custis Trail, a popular bike path in Northern Virginia, that I started considering the complexities of biker to biker and biker to pedestrian interactions.

On a narrow and twisty trail like the Custis, passing is the foremost issue for all users. With an abundance of joggers, walkers, people with dogs and mothers pushing strollers, bikers are inevitably the biggest passers (one would hope). When passing other cyclists or any of the aforementioned slower moving users, bikers have three options: they can remain silent, call out a simple “on your left,” or ring a bell.

It seems that the best possible option is to cause as little disturbance as possible. If someone is using the trail properly on the right side and appears to be maintaining a direct line of movement, it makes little sense to announce your presence loudly and abruptly upon reaching them. Chances are they have heard your bike chains behind them, so only if completely necessary a very calm “on your left” should ensure that your path will not be obstructed.

Ringing a bell makes little sense for a number of reasons. First, just as getting honked at while driving can make a person unnecessarily flustered and anxious, a bell can be equally as shell-shocking to a trail user. Having someone ring their bell at me while I’m biking makes me immediately assume I am doing something wrong or am about to get rear-ended by the cyclists. Common sense will tell you that ringing a bell provides no direction or specific information. Do you want someone to get out of your way? Do they need to move more right? Or are you really just trying to say “I know you’re slowly jogging well to the right of the trail, but I just wanted to announce to everyone that I am flying by you.”

As bicycle advocates we should encourage all types of people to use urban trails and not make them feel that they are moving too slowly or are a hindrance to bicyclists.

Research summaries often state trends or “facts” in overly-simplified terms, using measures that are easy for us to grasp. About five years ago, I recall hearing in a public radio piece that more than half the households in the world do not have access to a telephone. Later, because this “fact” seemed hard to believe, I did some hunting on the internet and learned that this generalization was not based on any research, but the story wound up becoming something of an urban legend that started getting mentioned in numerous broadcasts and publications.

I read a similar generalization, and couldn’t help but wonder if it was true or was another urban legend getting tossed around by cycling enthusiasts. The generalization: there are more people in the world who commute to work by bicycle than by automobile. There were no ratios, no numbers, trends, nothing. And, if it is true, is that ratio of bike commuters to car commuters increasing or decreasing?

Here’s one more “fact” that I heard last week. In a report about a joint World Bank/Chinese government research project on health and pollution in China, it was said that each day a thousand new cars are introduced into the streets of Beijing. In the aggregate, I suspect that a certain number of cars are being taken out of circulation each day because they’re no longer operable or people are moving out of the city, etc. But, it is a significant number of cars for each day in the year. For a city known in the past for its “river of bicycles” I can’t help but think that if bicycle commuters outnumber car commuters now, it won’t be for long.

You won’t often see me write these words, even though I’m a [new] Virginian. We don’t have the most progressive state legislature or DOT or transportation commission in the country (and that massive understatement confirms my English upbringing), but for once the state is making me proud.
You may have read this week that penalties for serious traffic violations have gone up significantly – particularly in the form of administrative fees and penalties attached to various driving offences such as speeding and drinking and driving. So now a speeding ticket in Virginia might cost you $3,000 if you were way above the speed limit and driving erratically or too close etc.

Personally, I love it. For the first time in the 15 years I’ve lived in Virginia people are actually talking about having to behave behind the wheel of their car! I think that’s good news for cyclists in the state.

The only down side I can see is that the fees were levied to raise funds for a transportation funding package that will “improve” roads all over the state. Based on VDOT’s track record, and that of most local agencies in the state, that isn’t going to be so good for bicyclists. But, we can do something about…we can “stick it to the man” by not speeding or running red lights or driving too close or driving under the influence.

This morning’s Washington Post Business Section almost made me choke on my cereal.

The lead story documents the billions and billions of dollars with which we subsidize the blending of ethanol into our gasoline supply. It’s currently around $5 billion annually and will rise to more than $18 billion 15 years from now. And that’s just from the 51-cent tax credit the oil industry gets for every gallon of ethanol they add to the mix. That doesn’t include the agricultural subsidies lavished on farmers to grow the corn for the ethanol.

At the same time, the same Congress can’t find it within itself to spend the $6 million already authorized to fund a few programs to test what would encourage more people to ride or walk instead of driving, or the less than $10 million annual cost of a tax-break for bicycle commuters.

According to the most recent National Household Travel Survey, bicyclists rode about 6.5 billion miles in 2001, a number that has surely increased given rising gas prices and the obesity crisis headlines of recent years. Conservatively, that saved around 300 million gallons of gas from being burned. And remember that’s with bicycling making up a paltry 1 percent of trips in this country. We could double or triple the levels of bicycling in US cities with just a fraction of the money being spent to sustain our driving habit.

Biofuels certainly have their place in the mix of solutions to combat climate change – but I hope at least some of that corn is still left to make my morning cereal.

What on earth would possess someone to promote and sell promotional materials that makes light of – even legitimizes – hitting and verbally abusing cyclists? Ask the folks at CafePress, because I’m not sure I can answer that for them. They are an on-line store that has loads of other products that are clever, humorous, ironic, pointed, self-deprecating, off-the-wall.

And then they have artwork that shows a cyclist getting hit by a motorist, with an accompanying explicit epithet that anyone that’s ridden a bike in the last 24 hours will likely have heard, along the lines of “excuse me, but I think you are in my way.” They have it for bumper stickers, mugs, T-shirts.

I wonder if they also have klever klan merchandise encouraging folks to break race laws. Perhaps snappy graphics showing people being persecuted for their sexual orientation or religious beliefs of other lifestyle choices. Is there a line in humorous “I support torture” stickers that flout international law as well as domestic laws and good taste?

So why would they think it is OK to glorify violence against cyclists? Free speech – to promote behavior that kills and injures people every single day of the year already? We’ll be waiting to hear from them.

And thanks to Dean Schott at the League of Illinois Bicyclists for calling out this awful example of anti-cyclist nonsense. State and local advocacy groups are the eyes and ears of the cycling movement – yesterday it was a radio station in Baltimore, tomorrow it could be someone in your neck of the woods going off on cyclists. Make sure you are a member of your state and local advocacy groups as well as the League. We need to stand up to this crap.

Yesterday morning, WBAL (Baltimore) Talk Show host Chip Franklin did what all “shock jocks” eventually get around to doing (I’ve always likened it to chimps at a keyboard…) and picked on cyclists as a bunch of arrogant, lycra-wearing, law-breakers who don’t pay their way, etc.

As usual nowadays, while the premise of his rant was small-minded, factually dubious, and certainly obnoxious, he made a point of not advocating harm; equally predictable was the chilling attitude of the callers to show who really do appear to want to hurt cyclists.

We learned from folks who listened to the start of the broadcast that what set Franklin off was an altercation with a cyclist on his way into work that morning. Interestingly, two years ago, an Iowa legislator – chairman of the transportation committee, no less – got into a verbal fight with cyclists and introduced legislation to ban cyclists from certain roads in the state. Bicyclist access to one of the Atlanta area’s premier cycling loops was jeopardized earlier this year after harsh words between riders and a powerful resident of the street in question.

Now, I have no doubt that the cyclist that “got in the way” of Chip Franklin was probably just where he should have been in the road and that the Iowa legislator and Atlanta big-wig were at least partly to blame - and goodness knows I have had my share of close calls and heated “discussions” with taxi drivers, diplomats, double-parkers, and drivers who just don’t want me on the street.

But the WBAL story reminds me that you just never know to whom you might be giving the finger, and what impact that person might have once they get out of their car! Be careful out there!

Congratulations, and thank you to drivers of America! Thank you for driving just a little bit less this year than you did last year. After decades of seemingly inexorable increases, the number of vehicle miles traveled has actually leveled off in the past year, according to figures from the Federal Highway Administration.

Whether the reason for this is increasing gas prices, frustration with traffic congestion, or the efforts of communities across the country to promote bicycling, walking and transit use, this is actually good news for America and good news for the planet. The transportation sector, primarily cars, contributes between a quarter and third of all greenhouse gas emissions and to our dependence on foreign oil – we might finally be turning the corner and reducing our over-dependence on cars for most of our trips.

Let me be clear, we are NOT anti-car. There are a lot of trips and a lot of tasks for which a car is ideally suited and often the only option. We aren’t asking or expecting people to throw away their cars keys. What we are saying is that more than 40 percent of all trips in the country are two miles or less; one quarter are just one mile or less – and two-thirds of even these shortest of trips are being made by car. These short trips – which are by far the most polluting – are ideal distances to do on a bike.

As folks contemplate the highest average gas prices ever in this country, we encourage every American to consider making one or two trips a week by bike or foot that they would normally make by car. What better ways to save money, get some exercise, reduce pollution, and have some fun into the bargain.

The impacts are not trivial. Cyclists who rode to work on Bike to Work Day alone will
• save more than 56 tanker trucks full of gasoline from being burned
• save $5.7 million in driving costs
• prevent 4,580 tons of carbon dioxide and 230 tons of carbon monoxide from entering the atmosphere
• burn 410 million calories
If you multiply these numbers to cover a year’s worth of commuting, the benefits start to add up fast for individuals, communities, and the nation as a whole.

You never know what a visit to Capitol Hill is going to bring. I was up on the Hill yesterday to deliver our testimony on the role bicycling can play in combating climate change – read all about it here – with Walter Finch, the League’s advocacy director.

I got up to the Hill first (cos I was riding….!) and found myself standing in the security line next to the guy from the Discovery Communications empire that does Lance Armstrong’s website. Evidently it was Livestrong Day on Capitol Hill and Lance was in town with other cancer survivors to raise awareness for their issues.

The hearing itself was a long-drawn out affair – not because of the witnesses or even the statements from Members of Congress, but because of frequent lengthy interruptions for a series of quorum votes on the House floor. My five minutes of fame took about four and half hours to complete – like the last few minutes of a basketball game, I guess – but I did get a couple of questions from Members who were in attendance.

The nicest surprise was that Congressman Dan Lipinski (D-IL) from Chicago introduced himself as a League member, and then asked a couple of good questions about the Federal government’s potential role as a model employer for bicyclists.

And then before we’d even gotten back to the office we were contacted by the Association for Commuter Transportation – the ridesharing, vanpooling, commuter services people – to follow up our testimony and see if there are ways we can work together.

Yesterday we heard the awful news that Stan Oldak of the New York Cycling Club was killed by a hit and run driver while completing a 400km brevet outside Houston, Texas this past weekend. The crash happened about 210 miles into the ride in the town of Columbus, Texas. Stan was completing the ride as part of the qualification series for Paris – Brest – Paris later this year.

You can see from the NYCC cover story that Stan Oldak was a great cyclist and a tireless volunteer. He was the NYCC club representative to the League for a couple of years and had been a League member for many years. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends, and colleagues in the cycling world.

Stan’s death comes at that time of year when we should be celebrating bicycling. It’s National Bike Month, for goodness sake. The weather is turning nice (at least in the DC area). And bicycling is such a healthy, worthy, and enjoyable activity that people shouldn’t pay for enjoying it with their lives.

We don’t know all the details of the crash – except that, yet again, the driver couldn’t be bothered to stop. I don’t know what the actual numbers are, but it seems to me that each year more and more fatal and severe bicyclist and pedestrian crashes involve hit and run drivers. Given the pretty pathetic punishments handed out to many of those that do stop and face the consequences, this is even more disappointing.

What do we do? We express our sincere condolences. We hope the driver has the courage to turn themselves into the authorities. Maybe we join a Ride of Silence (May 16) and honor Stan and the other 700 cyclists we can be pretty sure will be killed this year on our nation’s roads.
Somehow it doesn’t seem like that’s enough.

We’ll carry on with our education programming and our exhortations to build better roads to accommodate cyclists. And we know that somehow we need to do more to instill in people in this country that cyclists are people too, with real talents, value, skills, family, and friends. Our lives should not be cheapened or diminished because we happen to wear Lycra on occasion and ride a bike. We must drive home the idea that driving a car is a responsibility, not a right, and that the privilege given people to drive can and must be taken seriously or be taken away. For real.

Definitely a first. I’ve never had a song sung for me before! The kids at Williams Elementary in Flint, Mich., almost brought tears to my eyes belting out the words to this song and swaying through a series of accompanying bicycling motions. Not only that, but there were signs welcoming “Andy Clarke” and the Farm Bureau sponsors to school to mark May 3, “All Children Exercising Simultaneously” day. I was even made an honorary Williams Wildcat.The kids had a great time walking and running around a short “track” enough times to clock up a mile, and were wonderful hosts. I was in Flint for several days of workshops, presentations and meetings designed to help the home of GM become a more bicycle-friendly community – and ensuring there are Safe Routes to School is one key strategy.

Ironically, Flint’s fall from its heyday could yet be its salvation. Flint was a booming city of more than 200,000 when Buick City and Chevy in the Hole were churning out cars hourly by the train-load in the 1970s and 80s. Now the city is barely half that size and there are conspicuous gaps on most city blocks where buildings have been razed rather than remain as eyesores, drug havens or fire hazards. One small bright spot is that the streets are anything but congested!

Additionally, the city has some terrific higher education institutions that once served the car industry and an incredible enthusiasm for recovery led by various Mott family foundations and community activists who help make up the Safe and Active Flint coalition (and many other groups beside). Indeed, the city is rediscovering itself as a college town and planning to use extra street capacity to crate two-way streets and gateway boulevards – hopefully all including bike lanes, sidewalks and street trees.

The one big worry has to be the disconcerting absence of the city – staff, elected officials, anyone – from any of the meetings of which I was a part. I did a one-hour briefing and half-day workshop, attended a regional trails committee meeting, participated in a Community Dialog session, and met with the local Health Coalition without once seeing anyone from the city participate. I’ve never had that happen before.

And frankly, the wonderful kids at Williams Elementary deserve better than that from their city administration if they are to have a real future in this proud city.