[SDCBC] all road users need education

[Gene Carman]

At 04:02 PM 2/12/2007, John Forester wrote:
>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.


And in their "traffic training" have those very adults you mention, 
been taught that they can and should ride bicycles in the streets in 
a vehicular manner, and that they have rights to ride in the streets, 
and that they should drive their bikes as drivers of vehicles?

Those very adults you mention are generally trained, in their youth, 
by parents to NOT ride in the street.  That knowledge is passed on 
from generation to generation ... thus forming the basis for the 
phobia you mention.

Since our traffic training system barely mentions the rights of those 
trained adults to use bicycles as the driver of a vehicle (if at all) 
in the middle of a six week class they take as teenagers...  there is 
no doubt that the knowledge of vehicular cycling does not sink in.

In the CA driver hand book, that information is only barely touched 
upon in a single page of 80  pages of driving information...  in a 
six week driver's education class I doubt 10 minutes is spent 
discussing handling a bicycle as the driver of a vehicle.

There is no doubt in my mind that the lessons of many years of youth 
are vastly stronger then the scant mention of vehicular cycling later in life.

My whole point is that to offset that earlier "stay out of the 
street" training in youth... a much stronger emphasis must be made 
later in life...  and the most opportune time for that training is 
while general traffic training is being taught.



>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.

I tend to agree...  and where later in life is this training offset 
by any other strong training to tell adult cyclists otherwise?  If 
they happen to search on the web, and they happen to find the LAB or 
SDCBC or similar organization... then the might take a class.  But 
the odds of that happening are very slim... as most adults generally 
feel they "know" how to ride a bicycle.  After all, they were taught 
in their youth.

>snip