Category: Cycling

This was originally posted on my old blog on 12 January 2017.

I can think of few better metaphors for our roads than my kids’ school. It was established more than 100 years ago, the building erected with spacious passages, if you consider the maybe two or three hundred pupils it catered for at the time. School, back then, was really for nerds (forgive the stereotyping in this article, it’s to prove a point): your more brain-strong than body-strong types, and of course they were all male.

As the years rolled by, school changed. It became common for more than just nerds to finish to Leaving Certificate level, so the school got fuller and fuller. The demographic changed from nerd-heavy to nerd-light. The doors were opened to girls, too. Additions were made to the school building, but there’s legacy infrastructure that catered to a very different need. Those spacious passages are actually really narrow, now that two or three times the number of pupils need to move through them.

Consider, now, the experience of nerds, the behaviour of jocks. The rowdy, energetic, strong, and often physically big jocks are by their very nature intimidating to nerds. Some of them are perfectly polite, but simply unaware of how they make life difficult for the smaller nerds when they stride down the narrow passage as if they own it, unconsciously offering the nerds the choice between being shoved aside or shrinking out of the way. Others delight in their power, and will go out of their way to intimidate nerds, veering just ever so slightly closer as they push past, laughing when the nerd is shoved or steps aside. Even in small, petty doses, power gives a big high. Still others are aware the nerds feel intimidated, but believe might makes right, and the nerds must just deal with it.

Then there are the nerds. Their life can be made a complete misery by the daily ordeal of trying to get books from their lockers while big, rowdy, often intimidating and loud jocks stream past. Being bumped into; for the girls, unavoidably coming into physical contact they would usually avoid, with boys they didn’t choose to rub against (and who most likely didn’t choose to rub against them, sorry, but the passage is so narrow, or perhaps they were even shoved into the girl when they themselves would rather have avoided physical contact).

It strikes me as illogical to solve this problem by getting the nerds to wear a bright waistcoat marking them out as nerds, and helmets to complete the uniform. When it comes to road safety, visibility is an issue, especially at night, but the inherent visual marking of vulnerable road users with what can be classified as a uniform has wider implications for social group issues, which are extremely powerful inhibitors to sustainable transport uptake. One can absolutely achieve visibility without using the standard, ugly, meaning-laden high visibility vests.

The solution to the problem lies in addressing the behaviour of the powerful, not in coaching the vulnerable to stay out of their way. Like all kids have a right to use those passages without stress or fear, just so all people have a right to use the roads without stress or fear. It’s not happening right now, so we have no choice but to make big changes. If you drive, you are the jock. Be aware that your mode of transport is inherently dangerous and intimidating to those around you, and drive accordingly: carefully, slowly, patiently, giving vulnerable fellow road users a wide berth to show you’re not going to harm them, and for the love of all that’s holy, stay out of their designated space.

You can be a jock without being a dick. It’s time we started aggressively insisting that everyone using the roads makes that their mantra.

This was originally posted on my old blog on 27 December 2016.

Think of a road near where you live, work, or study. It should be a reasonably busy road, but not a highway, and if all such roads near you have well designed, separated cycling infrastructure you can stop the experiment right here. Got one? Good. Imagine yourself cycling along that road. Try to really immerse yourself in the experience, what it would feel like to pedal along that road, nothing between you and the traffic surging past, no barrier between you and the roar of engines.

Do you think it’s safe?

Now imagine yourself cycling along that same road, but all vehicles powered by an engine have lost the ability to go faster than 30km/h. So about twice as fast as a leisurely cycling pace, even pedal to the metal.

Do you think it’s safe? Safer than your previous scenario?

Next, imagine that same road, and you’re cycling along it. Feel the air on your face, but listen: silence. Imagine every car, van, truck, bus has disappeared. Nothing’s wrong, it’s just the way it is for this stretch of road, there are no engine-driven vehicles on it.

Do you think it’s safe? Safer than scenario one and two?

Maybe you’re an experienced cyclist, and nothing scares you. Try then to put your child, or an elderly parent in that same scenario: first as it is, then as it would be if all traffic moved at a maximum of 30km/h, then as it would be if no motorised traffic shared the road with the cyclist in your imagined scene.

Considering your judgement of the safety of a cyclist on a busy road in your environment with the only variable being motorised traffic, what do you think is really the biggest threat to cyclist safety? The perception that cycling is not safe on our roads is a major barrier to its uptake, meaning one of the most accessible ways to combat air pollution, congestion, diseases related to sedentary lifestyles and many more issues is being blocked by safety fears. And the threat to safety is motorised traffic.

I want you to consider one last scenario. Take yourself back again to that busy road you chose for this experiment, and again picture yourself (or a vulnerable loved one) cycling along this road. Traffic is at the levels you’d normally expect for that place, and all engines work as they do in reality. Picture one weird difference, though. Every single motorised vehicle is driven by a clone of you. They drive like you, think of other road users like you do, react the same way to stress such as congestion as you do. None of your clones are aware of the identity of the cyclist.

Is it safe?

This was originally posted to my old blog on 30 November 2016.

One morning last week the world was painted with a brush dipped in frost. I cycle past a primary school on my way to college. After weaving my way through the mess of cars trying to push their way as close as possible to the school gate, I crossed into a park right beside the school. There’s an estate on the other side of it, which means a good few families can opt to walk along the winding tarred paths through the park with their kids. To watch these littlies interact with the suddenly slippy world was simply delightful.

The excitement on those glowing faces, as they slid their feet along and slip-slid to school. What an amazing experience it must have been! The sensation of cold on your cheeks, of the snug warmth of your coat, hat, and gloves, of Mom or Dad’s safe hand whenever you needed it for a moment before dashing off to explore the unfamiliar familiar once more. The balance lessons, as this slidey world met your feet. The stimulating sights as you explored the delicate ice patterns on grass and leaves, as you listened to the crunch of frost beneath your feet.

Is it not heartbreaking that this burst of pure joy is denied most of the children in Ireland? That most of them were instead locked away, on their journey to school, inside a metal box cutting off all these awesome sensations, these valuable stimulants for growing little brains?

Imagine if these parents were given an environment they felt was safe for them and their children to negotiate outside the padded, isolated loneliness of their moving prison. Imagine if society prioritised family wellbeing and adapted hours and expectations to allow the parents to walk or cycle to school with their littlies before going on to work.

Wouldn’t that be grand.

This was originally posted to my old blog in November 2016.

My route to college includes a road with a Z bend: sharp right followed immediately by a sharp left. That exact section of road also has a number of recessed drains probably about twenty metres apart. Therefore, even cyclists who don’t believe in the merits of vehicular cycling* have to move to a position in line with where motor traffic’s closest-to-the-kerb tyre would run.

On Thursday two car drivers overtook me on the turn, one giving an oncoming driver a near heart attack because overtaking on a blind bend is not a good idea. No accident, but a close call. What took the cake was that I joined a queue of waiting traffic at the T junction about thirty metres after the bends… right behind both cars that had overtaken me dangerously.

Now, I get that people are frustrated by cyclists slowing them down to a fraction of the speed they are capable of and allowed. What intrigues me is what foundational thinking framework is lodged in the mind of a driver that results in them making the split-second decision that overtaking the cyclist is worth the risk of one of the most dangerous types of collisions: head-on with a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. The situation Thursday highlighted the pointlessness of this risk: these drivers gained literally nothing. I don’t believe in overtaking traffic on the left, but it would have been my legal right to do so and to cross that intersection before them. As it was, I stayed in the queue of traffic, so they risked collision, injury, death for the sake of making a right turn at best thirty seconds before me.

There is no logic here, so what prompts such folly? I am convinced that dangerous road user behaviour doesn’t start with the moment in which poor decisions are made. Therefore, changing such behaviour will not start with addressing the moment in which poor decisions are made. The key lies in shifting the springboard from which these decisions originate. I believe also that this behaviour is most visible in road user interactions involving cyclists, but that the “bakermat” – the place of origin – of a lot of dangerous road user behaviour resulting in injury and death is the same.

Imagine if we could address that core, if we could shift the launch pad to direct decisions into a safer trajectory. It could save so many lives.

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*Vehicular cycling means you cycle as part of the traffic stream, placing yourself in line with other vehicles for visibility and predictability (our eyes are in the front of our heads, so cycling as close to the kerb as possible takes you out of the line of sight and focus of drivers, and violates the Road Safety Authority’s advice to “Be Safe, Be Seen”. It also places you in the lane with the highest number of obstacles, increasing your risk of swerving into oncoming traffic – drain covers, holes, debris, pedestrians stepping into the road without looking which yes, happens unbelievably often. A British qualitative study mentioned cyclist unpredictability as a major stressor for drivers, so putting yourself in a lane where you’re more likely to swerve unpredictably does drivers no favours, even if they don’t realise that). Segregation (separated cycle lanes) seems to work better for cycling safety, but in a situation where you have no other choice but to share a surface with motorised traffic, many argue it is the safest practice.