Biloxxxi's Woodshed

Truckers hate car-drivers. Car-drivers hate truckers. Everyone hates bicyclists.
-A wise, wise man.

Some cities are very bicycle friendly. Atlanta is not. Portions of it are pretty decent, with wide streets and dedicated bicycle lanes, but for the most part bicyclists are forced to share narrow lanes with heavy traffic at their own risk. The popular “Share the Road” campaign has evolved from merely tolerating the presence of an occasional bicycle during your commute to accepting that they will make you 10 minutes late to work on a bi-weekly basis.

As I was driving to work the other day, I saw a bicyclist get clipped by a car. He took a nice little tumble, but fortunately he was wearing a helmet, and other than a few bumps and bruises, he appeared to be ok. Once I figured out that he wasn’t hurt, I took a little bit of satisfaction in his misfortune. Here’s why. We were on a narrow stretch of road and the light ahead was red. Three or four cars were stopped ahead of me and I as I pulled up to the light, this gentleman on the bike passed me on the right. Cars normally park on the street on this stretch of road, but there wasn’t one beside me, so there was plenty of room. However, there was one parked next to the second car in line. As the bicyclist attempted to navigate between the parked car and the SUV that was second in line, the light turned green and the SUV accelerated. I couldn’t tell exactly which portion of the SUV clipped the bicycle, but I saw the bicycle flip into the intersection. Fortunately away from traffic rather than into it. The SUV driver immediately stopped to check on the bicyclist along with a couple of other cars.

Obviously, the bicyclist exercised poor judgement here. He thought he could squeeze through a tight spot and lost. I have bicyclists do this to me all the time. And they’re really fortunate they don’t get hit. Cars have these things called “blind spots” and as a general rule, it’s wise to not ride in them. You learn that awful quick on a motorcycle, but bicyclists seem oblivious to it. I guess they figure that they aren’t going all that fast and they can just whip out of the way of any potential danger. I can tell you from years of removing chunks of my hip bones riding a skateboard, that pavement hurts at any speed. It will eat your lunch.

Why don't they ever attach the head in these things?

I suppose the argument is that bicycling is good for you and good for the environment. Point A is correct, provided you avoid getting hit by a car. Point B is only correct if you can ride without impeding the flow of traffic. Let’s say it’s Friday afternoon and you live a mile from the bank and you need to withdraw some money for the weekend. You could walk, but that takes too long. That’s too short a distance to really necessitate driving. The bicycle is the perfect solution. It’s fairly quick, you get some exercise, and because it’s not yet rush hour, you aren’t slowing down traffic.

However, let’s say you want to commute home from work on your bicycle. It saves you some gas money, you get some exercise, and you release a little less smog into my beautiful Atlanta air. You know what else it does? It ruins the good time of everyone behind you in traffic. Nothing sucks worse than having to whoa up your car to avoid hitting a bicyclist cruising along at a measly 10 mph.

I also think the environmental benefits are negated when you impede the flow of traffic. Cars are much more efficient when already in motion, traveling at constant speed. When a vehicle has to slow down to wait for an opportunity to pass a bicyclist, then accelerate around it, the emissions increase exponentially. The engine has to work much harder to round up the gumption to pass that bicycle, and so do all the other cars that are behind it.

Think of traffic like waves on the ocean and a bicyclist like a wall that the waves slam into. What happens to all that energy that’s flowing along nicely in the waves when it hits the wall? It stops. In a car this energy has to be started up again once the vehicle passes the bicycle. The engine revs higher, increasing the emissions, as it accelerates back up to cruising speed. Every car behind it does the same thing. Then once everybody gets rolling along nicely again, a God-forsaken MARTA bus pulls out in front of you, starting the whole process again. But that’s another rant for another day.

I don’t have the complete data to do a scientific assessment here, but the idea is sound. I’ve found that whenever there’s an environmental movement, there are always those first adopters that just say, “Damn the torpedoes, we have to do this AT ALL COSTS!” Seldom do they take into account the realistic implications of what they’re doing. These things are a process, and the masses tend to be put off by extremists. Ride your bike during the off hours, lobby your county or city officials to create bike lanes when repaving roads, and be courteous to motorists. In return, maybe they’ll avoid hitting you. Actually, the next time you want to change the world, just consult me. I’ll tell you how to do it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under Treatises on Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.