Scared off the Road

I'm a cyclist. I've been riding a road bike for about 20 years, now. I do it mostly to stay physically fit, but it also definitely helps with my mental health. I like riding alone out on rural roads. In the same way that many people have insights and find inspiration in the shower, I can easily turn off my prefrontal constraints and let my mind wander in the saddle. It's like a productive meditative state. I've had breakthroughs on the bike with songwriting and with sociological research projects. Mostly, though, it's just a way to (dis)engage in a relatively undemanding, repetitive mental/physical practice that unclutters my mind. (It turns out cranking pedals and maintaining balance is a lot like washing one's hair but lasts far longer.)

A problem, though, that I've encountered from almost the first time I went on a bike ride as an adult is that motorists regularly endanger and disrespect cyclists. While cycling is pretty safe, it can feel harrowing. What is more troubling, though, is the aftermath of those troubling encounters. When my life is threatened, I am understandably angered. Think about the times when you've been driving your car and another motorist does something stupid that could have killed you or others. You likely got mad. This is not "road rage"; it's a justifiable and natural reaction. It's only amplified when I'm on my bike because while car accidents are dangerous, as a cyclist, I have about 10% of the mass of a typical car and am protected by a helmet, not crumple zones, airbags, a seatbelt, etc. Add heightened adrenaline levels from the exercise and stress, and these emotions are exagerated. You'll forgive me for being a bit enraged when someone chooses to risk my wellbeing because they're in a hurry. When I'm behind the wheel of a car and some idiot cuts me off, I can use the horn to alert them to their mistake. There is no such mechanism on my bike so I end up yelling and, sometimes, using my middle finger.

The double-whammy of having my life endangered and then feeling irrationally guilty for the rest of my day from expressing righteous anger erases the mental and emotional benefits of cycling for me. I was stubborn enough in my youth to push past this, but now, I have changed my habits. For the last month or so, I have been riding nine laps around my 1.74-mile neighborhood loop instead of doing my typical 17-mile ride through the local countryside. It's not the same. It's better than feeling bad about getting mad, but it's still sad.

Trolleys Are Not Model T's Are Not SUV's

I was listening to the most recent RadioLab on my commute to work this morning. They revisit a philosophical/moral dilemma that is very interesting to me. They ask, as the self-driving car inches toward reality, how will we decide to program driving computers to cause fewer vs. more casualties/fatalities. (For the tl;dl version, skip ahead to the 27:14 mark.) An example of such a decision proffered in the episode was that a car should be programmed to crash into a brick wall, killing the lone passenger, rather than careen into a crowd, maiming and killing several. The general conclusion of many is that this would be unworkable. Most recognized in general that it was logical to do this, but few would be willing to ride in such vehicles, and few would want to sell such vehicles.

My observation is this: we are already making such decisions! People regularly make choices regarding transportation that, on the whole, value their own safety at the expense of others. People, for example, often cite "safety" as a reason for buying SUV's, but what people mean by "safety," whether they recognize it or not, is safe for themselves (or their loved ones) even if that means making pedestrians and people in other cars less safe. I have written about this before. Science fiction has long been recognized as an effective tool for understanding complicated current social circumstances. Too often when that science fiction is projected as near and inevitable, we fail to get the same messages.

A Study in Ambivalence: The Collegiate Crossing Guard

Last fall, my employer started posting a crossing guard at one of the more heavily trafficked spots on campus. I had been aware of this but just encountered it for the first time yesterday.

My reaction is decidedly mixed. My first inclination was to decry it as just another example of how we increasingly infantilize young adults. On second thought, I realized that pedestrians die fairly regularly on college campuses, and crossing guards such as ours are likely saving lives. This one admittedly has me scratching my head a bit.

Trading Legroom for Lives: SUV's and the Other Guy

I caught an interesting piece online recently about how automobile fatality rates are higher for those who are economically disadvantaged. Even more, the rates are increasing. Those with lower levels of education were about 2.5 times more likely to die in 1995 and 4.3 times in 2010. The authors point to several discrepancies as possible explanations for this, including older/newer cars, proximity of a trauma centers, road conditions, and safety infrastructure. What the authors don't address, however, is the possibility that the cars' size might also be a factor, a topic that I've been haranguing on for years. Here is my case for this.

Here are some data from the Kelley Blue Book. The most popular SUV in 2015 was the Jeep Wrangler, which sells new for about $24,500 and gets about 18 MPG. The most popular pickup in 2015 was the Toyota Tacoma Access Cab, which sells new for about $21,300 and gets about 21 MPG. The most fuel efficient (non-hybrid/non-electric) sedan in 2015 was the Honda Civic, which sells new for about $17,500 and gets about 33 MPG. Smaller cars are greener.[1] Smaller cars are cheaper.

When I speak out against big vehicles, people assume that I am going to make the pro-environmental argument. That, however, is only part of the issue. If smaller cars tend to cost less, it stands to reason that they are more likely to be purchased by those with lower levels of income; larger vehicles are only affordable to the relatively affluent. One rationalization for purchasing larger vehicles is that they are "safer." On this point, people are generally correct that larger vehicles tend to rate better in crash tests, but an important question is, safer for whom? While SUV's are safer for those in the SUV, SUV's are more likely to cause fatalities in the other vehicle, with car drivers 7.6 times more likely to die than SUV drivers in such collisions.[2] Those who are economically advantaged enough to be able to choose to purchase a larger vehicle make a choice to value their own individual safety, comfort, and convenience (and that of their immediate family) over those who are relatively economically disadvantaged and, moreover, to externalize the safety risks inherent to automobile travel onto the economically disadvantaged.

In the absence of regulation and in a system where (some) people have a "choice" over what type of vehicle to purchase, consumers have several ethical questions with which to wrestle:

• Does the extra legroom in your big vehicle justify the reality that you're more likely to kill someone else on the road?
• Does the extra luggage and cargo that you're able to haul around really justify risking other's lives?
• Are there no low-profile vehicles, like station wagons, that might offer a safer alternative to your SUV?
• Should one's safety be at all related to her socioeconomic status?
• Is your life more valuable than the other guy's?

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[1] In general, larger cars are fuel inefficient compared to smaller cars. Basic physics should be enough to convince us of this: it takes more energy to accelerate a larger mass, and since mass and volume are generally directly related for cars (i.e. heavier cars are also bigger), it also takes more energy to overcome the increased friction that moving mass encounters. If you question this, here are some data to support the claim. I think that most people accept this, that SUV's and pickup trucks are less than green.

[2] See Mayrose, James and Dietrich Jehle. 2002. "Vehicle Weight and Fatality Risk for Sport Utility Vehicle—versus—Passenger Car Crashes" Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care 53(4):751-753. Additional coverage here and here.

UPDATE (10/19/2015): A related read: The Geography of Car Deaths in America: The U.S. is a nation divided not just by how people get around, but by how fast they drive.

Individualism, (the Illusion of) Control, and Self-Driving Cars

The self-driving car seems like an imminent inevitability. More than just convenience, they promise to make us safer. People are easily distracted or impaired (e.g. from exhaustion or chemicals); computers are consistent and singly predictable. Sign me up! When can I get one?

[record scratch]

I see trouble on the horizon. We already have a safer alternative to personal, private automobile use: public transportation. People in the United States, however, have been reluctant to use public transportation, in part, because we are culturally far more individualistically oriented than communally oriented; we valorize individual choice over collective benefit. Given that this is the case, I am skeptical that the average American will be willing to give up direct control of his car.

There are two issues along these lines that are far from reconciled, yet. First are the implementation of the technological options and their adoption by users. It is possible that self-driving cars could actually end up being more a series of automated override failsafes; in other words, people would continue to drive cars as they always have, but the cars will be smart enough to stop people from doing the stupid things that we frequently do. Second are the laws regarding the technology. How comfortable will our lawmakers, politicians, and judges be reframing laws that remove human operators from accountability? Today, when there is a car "accident," we typically attempt to assign blame to one or more drivers (i.e. individuals). In a future where there is no human (at least directly or immediately) driving the car, whom do we blame when--in the increasingly rare instances where they do happen--car accidents happen? Do we blame Google? Ford? a nameless computer engineer?

I think that it's easy to see how self-driving cars could force us to reconceive--or perhaps reproduce--our culture.

George Jetson, Sot

I was listening to a recent episode of The Diane Rehm Show on the rise of  driver-assistance systems (e.g. adaptive cruise control) and the inevitability of autonomous vehicles. One purported advantage of computer-assisted driving is that it would eliminate driver inattentiveness as a cause of accidents. Taken to its logical conclusion, cars would eventually drive riders wherever they'd like to go without the occupant intervening. This means that people could one day in the not-so-distant future safely text and drive and, perhaps, even drink and drive. This struck me as a place that might bring some unintended consequences. Here is my hypothesis: the widespread use of autonomous vehicles will result in an increase in adverse alcohol-related health outcomes. Think about it this way: inasmuch as anti-drunk driving campaigns have successfully attenuated people's drinking overall, the decriminalization of this behavior will mean that people will drink more frequently and in larger quantities. Just an educated guess.

Mothers Against Matriculating and Driving: On Leaving Your Car Home

Many colleges are trying to discourage students from bringing cars to school with them and for a number of reasons, including safety, environmental, and parking concerns. This got me thinking about many of the problems in my own community and on our campus that we'd need to overcome to make something like this work. Below are four constraints we would need to tackle.

First, we would need to address the ongoing business sprawl that is displacing/bankrupting business in the downtown district and relocating/establishing business north of the city center on the heavily trafficked US-441. Ideally, we would discourage the ongoing sprawl that has caused so many of these problems and encourage businesses to open in places that are accessible to larger parts of the local population without the need to drive to them. Short of this, we could make the 441 business corridor more pedestrian-friendly. As it is now, driving on 441--let alone trying to walk or ride--is a harrowing experience. People tend to illegally use the center turning lane as a merging lane, but even when obeying traffic laws, it is a relatively unsafe as demonstrated by a sharp increase in traffic accidents at the intersection in front of the local Walmart. According to one of our local newspapers, the Baldwin Bulletin, addressing this string of accidents, "MPD Chief Woodrow Blue said that there is a simple solution for the problem. 'Basically, people need to slow down and pay more attention,' he said. 'Otherwise, the same thing will continue happening.'" It is exactly this type of ineffectual leadership that cannot be tolerated if we want a safer community. City officials should take active steps to reduce accidents, not simply tell people to drive better. Two fixes to the problem of 441 would be to put in protected bike lanes and sidewalks.

Second, we should develop a city-wide infrastructure of bike lanes and, even more basically, sidewalks. Even in the downtown district and around campus, there are places that are unsafe for pedestrians. For example, my wife and I live in a condominium complex just a half-mile walk from campus/downtown. Our complex, however, was built without sidewalks. To get out of the complex on foot, one has to literally walk into oncoming traffic via a blind vehicular entrance. A second example is on a road that is just south of campus, on which there are several student-inhabited apartment complexes. This road is completely absent of sidewalks, even though hundreds of students must walk on the road to get to athletic events and classes every day. By laying and maintaining sidewalks, people will be encouraged to walk instead of drive.

Third, a major problem that our community has yet to address is the complete lack of a public transportation system. I have absolutely no idea how the folks who live in the Section 8 housing around town, many of whom presumably do not own cars, get to their jobs, the grocery store, or to doctors appointments. The college now owns a small fleet of shuttle buses that run daily to get students from their apartments, dorms, and satellite parking lots to campus. If a student body of less than 6,000 can do this, certainly a city/county of 46,000 could pull it off. Again, however, this would not be necessary if businesses were planted within walking/biking distance of people's residences. (I've posted on mixed use zoning before, though.)

Fourth, the college could encourage the development of our campus culture and improve the local economy by discouraging our students from running back home to their parents on the weekends as is often the practice here (instances of which are often called "suitcase colleges"). There are a couple ways to do this. We could simply forbid underclasspersons who live in campus housing from bringing their cars with them. This was my experience as an undergraduate, and while I was somewhat ambivalent about the requirement at the time, in retrospect, it kept me on campus and forced me to make many new friends (particularly to make friends with older folks who owned cars and could drive me to the liquor grocery store). Granted, this type of policy can be pretty difficult to justify in a place that seems to be 40 minutes away from anything resembling a cultural experience and fully two hours away from Atlanta, the suburbs of which are home for most of our students and where the airport is. It would be great if they extended the light rail system down to us, but by simply expanding the newly implemented Connect by Hertz campus car rental service, the college could remedy much of this fear of isolation. The city could, also, up the cost of a parking ticket, which is right now set at the utterly ignorable price of $10 for staying longer than two hours in a designated spot. Where I went to graduate school, the equivalent ticket today is $25. (This one really shouldn't be a tough sell to a cash-strapped local government.)

Addressing these four problem areas would not only benefit our relatively privileged students but also the absolutely impoverished local population. Really, everyone wins.

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UPDATE: The New York Times has a related story today.

A Cyclist's Grumple: #3 Owning the Road

This morning, I got clipped at very slow speed by a passing motorist's side mirror. It didn't hurt, but it scared the bejesus out me. When I'm on the bike, though, fear quickly turns to anger. Here are a couple pointers for drivers who would rather not clip cyclists. First, if you are close enough to me that I can reach out my hand and knock on your passenger side window, you are far too close. Give cyclists at least a full meter (or yard) of clearance. Second, if you are not aware enough to notice that I am banging on your window to make my presence known, you should not be driving a car to begin with. And, so, here is the reciprocity for cyclists: always stay as far to the right on the road as is safe. This doesn't mean riding in gravel or on the rumble strip, but if you're needlessly in the middle of the lane, expect drivers to be angry with you. This also means that cyclists need to command respect on the road by being courteous, visible, and by establishing a dominant presence. Riding meekly will get you treated unsafely. Own your part of the road confidently! You have every right to be there.

A Cyclist's Grumple: #2 Driver Courtesy

I remember from the days before I was a cyclist that knowing how to drive around us can be confusing so here is a basic question one can ask him/herself when driving in the proximity of bikes: how would I treat this person if s/he were in an automobile? Would you pass a car and then slow down in from of them to make a turn? No, so don't do it to a cyclist. Would you pass a car when immediately approaching a stop light/sign? No, so don't do it to a cyclist. In general, treat cyclists like cars. This does actually work both ways; you should expect bikes to behave like cars. If you see cyclists running a red light/stop sign or turning without signaling, by all means, report them and/or let them know how you feel! They're making the rest of us less safe.

There are, however, a few exeptions to this rule, the first of which is never honk at a cyclist. Your horn is very loud and scares the shit out of us so unless you want us falling off our bikes in front of your car, don't do it.

A Cyclist's Grumple: #1 Demand-actuated Traffic Signals

Demand-actuated traffic signals are the ones that only turn green when an automobile is detected at the intersection. Most detect the automobile with magnets. The trouble is that bicycles and other smaller vehicles don't usually have enough metallic mass to trigger the sensor so, often, a cyclist can find himself waiting indefinitely for a car to come along to trip the light or breaking the law--and risking his life--by disregarding the signal all together. This points to the bias inherent in our car culture and to the unintended consequences of well-meaning city planning. By favoring automobiles, we reinforce and recreate so many of the contemporary problems that we give lip-service to trying to ameliorate. Obesity, urban congestion, and climate change are just a few of the things exacerbated by the little things like demand-actuated lights.

Running List of Pet Peeves: #1 The Long Stop

I really hate it when people driving automobiles stop beyond the clearly marked line at stop signs and traffic lights. It almost inevitably means that they unwittingly end up in the middle of the crosswalk.

I believe that this is related to the car culture which not only leads to obesity by encouraging folks to be sedentary instead of walking or pedaling to their destinations but also, apparently, discourages others from walking by making crossing the street hazardous.

I imagine that there is significant overlap between these folks and those who honk and yell at cyclists as well as those who pass on the right on the highway. Just saying.