Bicycle Safety

Here in Seattle we have a pretty strong bicycle culture and a pretty vocal biker rights movement, arguing for bike lanes on major streets and rights-of-way on public streets where there are no designated " bike lanes."  We also have had several highly publicized cases of bicycle commuters being run over and killed.

This was brought to the forefront of my attention by a current (November 1-30)  promotion by the University of Washington called "Ride in the Rain" which, to my way of thinking, is the ultimate in irresponsibility.  I have ridden in the rain.  You can't stop, you can't steer, you can't see and drivers can't see you.  Every morning I see riders peddling down the road in the pitch dark, many without lights and wearing dark clothing, just begging to become the city's next bicycle fatalities.  It's nuts.

At the bus stop where I catch my bus home, every day at 5:30 a father rides by with a compound bike, with his daughter (maybe 3 or 4) on a kiddie bike attached to his back wheel.  He can't see her.  She is dragged helplessly behind him.  This seems perilously close to child endangerment to me -- he rides (at 10 mph) in the traffic lanes where the speed limit is 35.  I squirm every time I think of what he is exposing his daughter to.

Report on the local news this morning, the mayor is pushing for "cycle tracks" on Seattle streets as opposed to "bike lanes."

Today, almost all of the lanes that exist are between the car traffic lanes and the parked cars.  In effect, the bikers protect the parked cars.  It should be the other way around -- parked cars should be outside the bike lanes, protecting riders from traffic.  It was mentioned, in the report, that this is the way it is done in Amsterdam and, I have been there!  I can attest.

Every street in Amsterdam has three lanes - a cobblestone sidewalk for pedestrians (next to the shops), next to that a red cement sidewalk for bicycles (and scooters) only and finally the car lanes.  There are no (or very low) curbs, everything is basically at the same level.  Pedestrians who stray into the red lanes (and it's easy to do for Americans) are in danger of getting rude remarks or non-fatal collisions.  Bike traffic whizzes by at alarming speed because everybody goes the same speed in the same direction.  And they are VERY heavily used.

To do this in Seattle would require a culture shift.  

But it's not a bad idea.