[SDCBC] all road users need education

[John Forester]

It looks to me as though a lengthy disquisition regarding cycling 
instruction and cycling instruction policy ought to be generated by 
this discussion. Here's my start.

The evidence is clear that cyclists have a far higher traffic error 
rate than do motorists. The evidence is clear that a very large 
proportion of car-bike collisions are caused by these errors. 
Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that more is likely to be 
accomplished through training of cyclists than through education of 
motorists. Some cyclists keep arguing that many motorists fail to 
acknowledge cyclists' rights; that may be so. However, I have not 
seen evidence that any considerable proportion of car-bike collisions 
have been caused by a defective belief, on the part of the motorist, 
concerning the rights of cyclists under traffic law.

Hence, much of the discussion has concerned how to train cyclists to 
operate in accordance with traffic law. There seem to be two 
different views about the desired scope. One view recommends training 
cyclists, the other view recommends training all road users. 
Everybody who has participated in this discussion recognizes that 
difficulties exist with either scope. However, nobody has mentioned 
the basic problem that underlies all of this. A very large proportion 
of the adult cyclists that one sees upon the roads have been socially 
acclimated, trained, tested, and experienced in the skill of vehicle 
driving. They know how to do it, yet they refuse to use their skill 
and knowledge when they straddle a bicycle saddle.

This is the result of seventy years of teaching the people, almost 
the entire populace, that cyclists should not ride according to the 
rules of the road for drivers of vehicles and using fear to enforce 
this instruction. Some of you may say that this instruction has 
become less intense in recent decades. I thoroughly disagree. 
Practically the entire governmental program about bicycle 
transportation is devoted to institutionalizing this instruction in 
the form of bikeways and the psychological imperatives to use them 
instead of obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. 
While it would be advantageous, as some recommend, to have a unitary 
program of instruction in vehicle driving that applies to both 
driving of motor vehicles and driving of bicycles, I point out two 
real problems. The first is that this will require at least a 
generation to produce the desired effect after general 
implementation, and, second, you haven't a hope in hell of getting 
society to implement such a system until you have already won the 
battle of convincing society that vehicular cycling should be, and 
is, the proper public policy.

However, we vehicular cycling activists, by very strong efforts over 
the past thirty-five years, have managed to protect cycling and 
cyclists to the extent that we have largely prevented the enactment 
and enforcement of laws that would make vehicular cycling unlawful. 
(That is one of our two great achievements. The other is preventing 
adoption of the most dangerous of the proposed bikeway designs, so 
that it is possible to operate on bikeways, using considerable 
caution and better than normal traffic-cycling skill, in reasonable 
safety.)  This means that we can continue to operate in the lawful 
vehicular manner, we can lawfully attract those who might be 
interested in vehicular cycling, and even improve our position by 
using the advantageous cover of encouraging safe and lawful behavior 
to the public good. That way is open to us, and we have seen several 
examples of such action. I think that this is the only way that will 
be open to us for the foreseeable future.

We have plenty of evidence of both the power of the public emotion 
against vehicular cycling and of the means of overcoming that emotion 
in individuals. The means of overcoming that cyclist inferiority 
phobia are repeated successful exposure to real traffic of gradually 
increasing intensity. A useful first step in such acclimatization is 
the video work of Dan and Brian, which can be viewed in a 
non-threatening environment, but it has to be followed by success in 
cycling in real traffic.




John Forester, MS, PE
Bicycle Transportation Engineer
7585 Church St.
Lemon Grove, CA 91945-2306
619-644-5481 www.johnforester.com