The other night, coming home, my husband and I had a scare. We were making a left turn on a green light, and out of nowhere a bicyclist appeared in front of the car. My husband slammed on the brakes, but in our windshield was a horrible sight: the terrified face of a young woman as we knocked her to the street.
In the few seconds it took us to get out of the car, she had already picked herself off the pavement and righted her bike. “Are you all right?” she asked — illogically, since, after all, we were surrounded by 3,000 pounds of metal plus airbags while she was unprotected bones and flesh. A cop who happened to be sitting at the light when the collision occurred interrogated all of us. The biker insisted that she was fine and so was her bicycle. We offered her a ride, but she refused. Finally, the policeman sent us on our way.
That I collided with a bike recently was a bit karmic because bikes have been on my mind. A number of news items have surfaced to suggest that the ranks of bikers are burgeoning and that they want more space and money. But this incident shows that there’s more to do to make bikes safer.
First the news:
1. Transit for a Stronger Economy, a new statewide group encompassing 40 disparate organizations (a sampling: the American Heart Association, Alliance for Sustainability, Sheet Metal Workers and Episcopal Homes of Minnesota) completed a public opinion survey about people’s transit preferences. They polled 500 registered voters. I thought you needed 1,000 for that kind of thing, but some 67 percent favor including funding for bicycle and pedestrian transportation in transit proposals; and a majority said they would pay higher taxes to get it all done.
2. A few days after that announcement came the Transit Vision Bill, a legislative proposal based on the group’s findings. Presented in both the state Senate and House, it would, among other things, assess a sales tax hike of 0.75 cents (that’s three-quarters of a percent) on the seven-county metropolitan area to fund transit. Sponsors Sen. Bobby Joe Champion and Rep. Melissa Hortman assert that the proceeds would provide a transit kitty of about $300 million a year. The vision bill, unlike the governor’s transit proposal (a quarter percent sales tax on the seven counties for transit) would allocate 3 percent of the whole or $9 million a year to the Met Council for “regional bicycle, trail and pedestrian infrastructure and maintenance.”
3. New reports shows that from 2007 to 2012, bicycling increased by 56 percent to about 34,000 daily trips and walking by 22 percent in Minneapolis to about 20,000 daily trips; in the metro, biking activity rose by 51 percent to about 7,000 daily trips and walking by 24 percent to about 6,000. The count for Minneapolis was conducted by the city, and for the metro by Bike Walk Twin Cities, a nonprofit.
4. Forty thousand trips by bike amounts to just a handful when compared to the 2.18 million car trips taken in the metro each day, or about 2 percent. Why does the vision bill want to gobble up 3 percent of those new tax revenues? Well, there are harbingers of a shift away from car reliance among some of the younger generation. A survey conducted by Zipcar, the car-sharing service, found that so-called Millennials, the generation born roughly between 1980 and 2000, care much less about car ownership than previous generations. For starters, they are less likely to own a car or have a driver’s license. And, when asked which kind of technology they would give up, more of them said they would be less heartbroken making do without a car rather than a cell phone or computer.
You should take that last with a lump of salt because many people aged 18 to 34 will probably change their tune when they start hauling babies and kids around town. Still, these items are telling us that, like it or not, drivers and bikers are increasingly likely to be sharing the roads as we roll on into the future. All of which brings me back to the accident the other night.
Two schools of thought
Now, I know there are generally two schools of thought when it comes to car-bike relations: the first claims that many, if not most, drivers are irresponsible road hogs in giant, gas-guzzling SUVs who would just as soon crush a cyclist under their wheels than be delayed a minute from visiting a big-box store to buy unhealthy processed food for their obese children; the second camp insists that bikers are flakes who scoot on and off sidewalks, flit in and out of traffic, disregard all signs, signals and semaphores and give a driver who so much as taps his horn a self-righteous finger before speeding off to the crunchy granola store.
Dorian Grilley, executive director of BikeMN, says that the advocacy group is going for “small incremental changes to make things safer.” On the group’s legislative agenda is a bill that would clarify the law for cars turning across bike lanes. Although the driver’s manual properly tells people that they must first merge into the bike lane and then turn, the law does not say so. Lack of awareness has most cars simply turning right across a bike lane and cutting off an oncoming biker. That seemingly minor problem, Grilley says, has caused three deaths in the past few years, most recently that of a 25-year-old University of Minnesota student in Dinkytown in 2011.
But in our accident, nobody did anything wrong. Both parties had proceeded on a green light. We were entitled to go left, and she was entitled to go straight. We simply never saw her. Moreover, while this was the first time I’ve run into a bike, it’s not the first time it almost happened. Every couple of months, while driving at night, I turn a corner and screech to a stop to avoid hitting a cyclist who is usually invisible until the very last second. These experiences (and eight years spent with safety hounds at Consumer Reports) have made me think that bikes themselves are insufficiently lit.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has extensive regulations for manufacturers. Mandated on all bikes are reflectors, front and rear, on the pedals and on the spokes. If you bought a bike in the United States, you’ve got reflectors. But there’s no requirement for lights even though Minnesota law (and the laws of most other states) require that night-time bike operators be equipped with a “lamp” emitting a white light visible from 500 feet away and a rear reflector visible from 600 feet.
Too much about helmets
Michael Bluejay, an Austin, Texas, bicycle advocate, says that safety experts have put too much emphasis on helmets. “A helmet does absolutely nothing to prevent a cyclist from being hit by a car,” he says. “In the end, it’s much better not to be hit than to be protected if one does hit you.” And one way to not get hit at night is to “light up,” he argues. “Going without lights is a death wish.” Bikers should install both a headlight and “rear red blinkies.”
Transit for Livable Communities Minnesota assesses compliance with the law by observing cyclists at twilight in six locations in Minneapolis and found that in December and January this year some 78 percent had lights. I must be hanging out in neighborhoods with naughty bikers because I haven’t seen any with headlamps. As for rear lights, Grilley says that installing them requires bikers to remove rear reflectors, and “that’s against the law.” He adds that for some cyclists who use bikes for basic transportation, adding lights would be a burden. Sorry, but that seems a little silly since a lot of the lights cost less than $15.
If I had a 20-something kid bicycling at night, I would want him or her and the bike lit up like the Eiffel Tower. In Europe and Japan, Bluejay says, front and rear lights are mandatory, not to mention tire pumps and other safety equipment. As bikes become more and more significant in the array of transportation choices, methinks it’s time for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to step up and make them safer.
“As for rear lights, Grilley says that installing them requires bikers to remove rear reflectors, and “that’s against the law.” He adds that for some cyclists who use bikes for basic transportation, adding lights would be a burden. Sorry, but that seems a little silly since a lot of the lights cost less than $15.”
I couldn’t agree more. Installing rear lights not not require you to do a _thing_ with the rear reflector. You can install one on your bike rack or, like I do, clip one or even bungee-cord one to the back of your helmet. I’ve also seen people clip cheap rear blinkies to their backpacks or to their shirts.
There are some costs to bicycle ownership; I consider a rear blinking light and a headlight to be one of them, right up there with a tire pump.
While $15 may be a burden for some riders, I have seen rear blinky lights for $3. To not have one is utterly ridiculous.
Light yourself up too. Same for dog walkers, runners, etc.
You are invisible in the dark and near dark hours. Reflective tape is a mere pittance compared to the cost of being hit when you are not visible.
Transit for XYZ?
I’m starting to notice how all these supposed environmental/community groups for transit seem to have less to do with really solving our transportation issues and more to do with acting as shell groups for the construction lobby and real-estate developers. You go to the “Partners” page and it’s a list of other similarly vague groups along with construction unions and corporations, then you look at those vague groups and see more partners which are contractos, suppliers, and well-funded non-profits with corporate grants. I’m wondering if all these groups are really made up of mostly the same people, creating an echo chamber to sell their giant, inefficient infrastructure projects that get built over the few open spaces we have.
It’s not about saving the environment for most of these groups, it’s about developing more land, opening new markets, pouring more concrete, and the long tail of money that comes from maintaining it all. If they cared about the environment they’d be doing something with the huge transit corridors we’ve already built for our cars, and repurposing those. But it’d be too cheap to buy some electric buses, or to repaint a street for bikes.
what?
This is only true if you’re talking about highway lobbies. Construction interests and developers love highway projects far more than transit funding. The Stillwater bridge is the perfect illustration of your point.
OTOH, most transit projects don’t occur in “open space,” but in place that already have density.
I am referring to the suburban-focused LRT projects. I know it’s completely offtopic for this article, it’s just a pattern I’ve been noticing with these “grassroots” organizations which, are at their core, are full of lobbyists. The same lobbyists who are pushing the highway projects, like the Stillwater bridge that you mention. If you look at the plans for Bottineau and SW you will see how little density there is, or where it goes through or along single family residential and park. These projects aren’t about infill, they aren’t about biking to work, they are about developing property in the distant exurbs.
Thank you for this. Nothing in American politics gets done without lobby power and money. The central corridor certainly was lobbied for by construction companies who wanted the city to hire them, corporate developers who wanted to make money turning property around and the Chamber of Commerce. It is not always bad to have powerful groups lobby for the greater good of a local economy. I would love to read an investigative account of the money trail involved in many of the green projects around the Twin Cities.
If you are in a rural area with no street lights
Lights on a bike are an absolute necessity. We have limited shoulders and almost no street lights and very little to no lights coming from houses. Please for everyone’s piece of mind get at least a rear light and wear reflective material.
Now if Dorian would just advocate for the bike riders to pay something for putting asphalt in the woods on recreation trails we would appreciate it. Other users pay it’s your turn.
Good catch Ms. Harris but the deception in the survey wasn’t in the numbers it was in asking a combined pedestrian bicycle question. You would have to be ready for court ordered hospitalization if you thought pedestrians and vehicles should share a lane. Separate the questions and ask again because the question really involves three separate lanes not just two.
The issues is speed and weight for design and in general you design multi-use paths and treadways for the heaviest and least maneuverable (or responsive) user. That means freeway designs for semis not sports cars.
Dorian makes an excellent point in that the rules are not understood for turns and there is a lot of room for education on everyone’s part.
“But in our accident, nobody did anything wrong. Both parties had proceeded on a green light. We were entitled to go left, and she was entitled to go straight. We simply never saw her.”
I’m sorry, but you failed to yield the right of way. You didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have the right of way. You DID do something wrong.
As a cyclist, I share your concern about stealth bikers. She certainly should have had lights. (Is it possible she had a smaller-than-a-headlight you didn’t notice?) However, a person on a bike appearing “out of nowhere” is the traditional driver excuse. It’s a thin excuse when someone is killed or maimed, and one that drivers imagine to be compelling — and which is much too often perceived as compelling to other drivers.
Get a grip…
…she didn’t see the rider because the rider was riding at night without a light. That rider should have been paying attention, she should have been more cautious and she should have had a headlight. It really doesn’t matter if you have the right of way or not, what matters is you won’t win when its a car you’re going up against. I never assume that a car sees me until I see the drivers eyes. Never.
Cars and pedestrians need lights also
It’s not just bicycles that are hard to see. Cars should turn on their lights too. Ever notice how a dark brown UPS truck blends into the background on a cloudy morning? Or how hard it is to see that white SUV in the snow? All vehicles should have their lights on at all times. It’s the right thing to do and is proven to reduce accidents. It might even save your life. Or, think of the people with limited vision who are trying to cross a street in front of you.
Some cars have “driving lights”, such as headlights that turn on at reduced power when the vehicle is in motion. But the vehicle tail lights aren’t illuminated. Driving lights are not enough to rely upon.
Pedestrians and jogger should carry lights as well. Reflectors are not enough for cyclists or cars to see you. Especially because lights on bicycles are for others to see. They aren’t powerful enough to light up that little reflector strip on your shoe.
We all have an obligation to to each other to be as visible as possible.
Getting hit by a car
I’ve been a bike commuter for twenty years in three different states. I’ve been hit by cars twice, both during the day. The fact is even during the day some drivers simply don’t see bicycles. I was right-hooked by a driver who I believe never saw me, even though she had passed me ten seconds before turning into me. The other episode involved a driver making a left in front of me, thinking incorrectly that he could speed through the turn before I arrived, he didn’t and I flew over his trunk, a sore wrist and broken wheel, no major injuries, but it could have been much worse.
In my twenty years on the road I have seen major improvements, both in driver behavior and bicycle infrastructure, but there is still a lot more to be done. More bike lanes, more separated bike lanes, reengineered streets to calm traffic speeds and make them safer for pedestrians are all needed, and they will make the city better for everyone, bikers, walkers, and drivers.
In my younger years I rode at night without lights, I was young and invincible, plus bicycle light options were not what they are now, but there is no excuse for not riding without lights now. I’d like to see more *gentle* enforcement of regulations for bicycles and automobiles, and more people on bikes, there is safety in numbers.
Two schools
Love the stereotypes in that paragraph under “Two schools of thought.” Sadly, both are probably correct to some degree, which is what makes them stereotypes in the first place.
I’d absolutely endorse more and better lights on bikes (your point about the minimal cost is well-taken), but I’d add a couple of other things.
First — and understanding that nothing will be done about this because doing so might inconvenience some people, whose convenience is surely far more important than the lives saved — the cell phone may end up killing far more cyclists than any other single factor.
Drivers, whether of an 18-wheeler trying to find an address, a Cadillac Conspicuous, or a Kia Dreedle, have their attention elsewhere when they’re on the phone. Everyone knows this, from the State Patrol to school crossing guards to eagle-eyed kids who know it’s not safe to cross the street because they can see that the driver approaching them is paying no attention to the road ahead. Knowing what the problem is will not fix the problem. Nothing will be done because the bulk of the working population is now addicted to being “connected,” even if they’re filling the airwaves with trivia and banality. This includes, of course, state legislators.
Worse, I’ve occasionally seen even cyclists using cell phones. These actively-suicidal bike-riders are no more attentive (and perhaps even less, because talking on the phone competes more directly with the physical tasks required to keep the bike moving) than their automobile-driving cohorts, their reaction times are significantly slower, and so on, ad nauseum.
Second — another educational endeavor doomed to failure — my experience as a pedestrian in Minneapolis has been that cyclists here are just as rude and arrogant as cyclists elsewhere. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been overtaken on a trail by a cyclist who bothered to warn me that s/he was approaching, whether with the generally-approved “On your left” or “On your right,” or even with an unhelpful “Watch out!” The cyclists I’ve encountered have also been far less willing than vehicle drivers to yield the right of way to me, or to any other pedestrian.
Pedestrians are often left out of these kinds of discussions because, I guess, the society in general tends to ignore the possibility that someone may want to walk to a destination rather than ride a bike or drive a car. And mention of pedstrians compels me to add that it’s not just cyclists who ought to make themselves far more visible at night. Numerous pedestrians in my neighborhood are not only enamored of black outerwear, including shoes, while simultaneously rejecting the notion of a reflective area anywhere on that black clothing, but they also seem addicted to walking in the street. At night. That there aren’t nightly instances of pedestrians, dressed entirely in black, without any reflective areas at all, walking in the street, and being smashed to the pavement and mangled by vehicles driving… um… in the street is one of those cosmic miracles for which I have no explanation.
Bike Helmets
Not sure how an article had a one line comment about bike helmets. Several local hospitals ran TV ads last summer saying that 80% of the ER visits involving children on bikes could have been avoided if the children had been wearing helmets. So we are not to confuse the general public by advocating for lights and helmets? Lights are typically used at night when there are fewer children biking but many children do not wear helmets. Why not mandate bike helmets?
Bike aren’t just for kids anymore…
…and kids generally aren’t commuting in the city. Yes mom and dad, put a helmut on your kid, but we don’t require helmets on Motorcycles, you want to mandate them on a bicycle?
Bikes
You are wrong! One or the other of you committed a traffic offense. If the light was green, the driver of the car was required to yield. If the driver of the car had a green arrow, the bicyclist was required to stay stopped at the light. Worst of all, the policeman should have given one or the other a ticket!
I agree,
but I would say they are both right, and both wrong. Technically the cyclist had right of way, the left-turning car should have waited, but if the bike had no lights the cyclist should have assumed she was not or poorly visible, and yielded.
Lights
Speaking of lights, one item that’s not addressed in the article is the car’s lights. There are two points to consider here:
1. Are all of the car’s lights working?
2. Was the turn signal used?
Oft times I see cars with burnt out lights, which makes it guesswork as to what their intentions are. Add to that mix the fact that many drivers don’t bother to use their signal turn corners or change lanes and I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents on our roads. The biker should definitely have lights if riding after dark (I bet she’s bought some by now), but she may also have thought she had safe passage if it appeared the car was going straight.
a guess as to what transpired
I think the car operator didn’t yield because they did not see the bicyclist, not uncommon, even in daylight. But the bike rider probably proceded through the intersection because the car driver did not signal their intent to turn(use a turn signal.)This is pure speculation of course.
Ever since I was hit by a driver making a left turn in front of me, during the day, I make sure I know the intent of a driver approaching an intersection, this means looking at the drivers eyes, and slowing down. Some drivers recognize this and put their turn signal on when they probably wouldn’t if the bike was not there. But I’d say close to half of the drivers around here don’t use their turn signal, and this is as big a problem as bike without lights.
3% is not enough
“Why does the vision bill want to gobble up 3 percent of those new tax revenues?”
I know the author goes on to explain why, but still, there is a lack of shock here and an unnecessary respect for the status quo. “Gobble up 3 percent”?? Are you kidding? Is it possible to “gobble up” 3 percent of something?
Transit funding should be forward-looking, not backward-looking. Cars are not the future. We have more roads for cars than we ever should have built. *Most* new transit funding should be bikes, trains and busses. The funding shouldn’t reflect our already screwed-up reality.
Forget safety, what about the law?
I walk, I bike, I bus and I drive. More driving than biking in the winter months, but I’m pretty darn multi-modal.
I’ve gotta confess that I am really unclear what the laws are regarding biking at night, and I doubt I am alone in that confusion. In retrospect, this article would have been a great forum to explain exactly what the law are for biking after dark.
You always hear that cyclists must follow all rules of the road, as if they were an automobile, which obviously means stopping at red lights and stop signs. I’ll freely admit that I do not come to a complete stop at lower-traffic stop signs, opting to save some time and energy by using my eyes and ears and merely slowing down to yield. I typically do obey traffic lights, unless there are truly no cars in sight.
How does this rule extend to lights? Are cyclists already required by law to have working front and rear lights, just like an automobile? Should they be blinking or solid? Hard to figure that one out from car laws…you don’t frequently see cars driving around with lights flickering.
If bicyclists are currently required by law to have lights on at night, I’d like to see police step up enforcement ASAP. I honestly think most bikers don’t know what the rules are for lighting up at night. If anyone can clear that up here, and/or possibly write a follow-up piece here or at Streets.MN, I think it would go a long way to educate the masses, including myself.
For what it’s worth, I agree with the above commenter that cars should have their headlights on all of the time, expect for sunny, dry conditions. During the winter months of shorter daylight hours, it should probably just be all of the time. As a fellow car driver, I get incredibly frustrated with people who don’t have their headlights on during the PM rush hour when it gets dark around 430-5pm for a good stretch of the year. Unlike bicyclists however, it is pretty rare to see a car driving around without any lights on when it is pitch black out. Also, if anyone’s interested, there was a car driving on the Midtown Greenway last night around 7pm. She looked pretty confused, and turned around near Fremont, heading back for Humboldt where she probably came from. I doubt it was intentional, but it scared the crap out of me nonetheless. We should probably address those 3 at-grade crossings west of Hennepin Ave before adding a streetcar into the mix on the Greenway.
Headlights
Matt,
Personally, I would advocate for cars having their lights on all day long, no matter the time of year. It instantly makes them more visible regardless of what weather they’re driving in. There are some areas of the country that already require it–southern Washington state readily comes to mind.
You can consult 169.222 for all of your bicycle statues:
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=169.222
The minimum requirement by law is a front white light that you can see at least 500 ft away and a rear red reflector.
The exact wording is:
“Subd. 6.Bicycle equipment. (a) No person shall operate a bicycle at nighttime unless the bicycle or its operator is equipped with (1) a lamp which emits a white light visible from a distance of at least 500 feet to the front; and (2) a red reflector of a type approved by the Department of Public Safety which is visible from all distances from 100 feet to 600 feet to the rear when directly in front of lawful lower beams of headlamps on a motor vehicle.”
I use a fairly bright front light on my helmet that I can purposefully point toward vehicles entering the lane (e.g. from a side street or driveway), yet I still have had to act defensively because the driver of the vehicle thought they could hurry and speed out in front of me. I do not see lights as a panacea for safety but I always encourage their use as long as one is aware of their limitations.
I have a Safety Questions…
Why, does it seem, that if there is a paved bike trail along the roadway, so many bikers choose to share the road with cars. I am an avid biker and I see this all the time and it baffles me. Either stupidity or arrogance that a biker would choose the more dangerous sharing the road with cars as opposed to a safer paved trail. I do believe that some paved trails are more difficult to make time because of cross streets and so forth and if a person is training it can be more difficult. Though, I have seen adults towing children on the road as opposed to using the paved trail. I am an avid biker, but I believe the majority of bikers on the road are far more rude and discourteous that people in cars.
Bike Paths
David, you must be new to bike issues as this item has been covered ad nauseam in nearly every article on biking posted in the Twin Cities in the last five years.
Most pike paths, especially the mixed use ones, have a speed limit of 10 or 15 MPH. If you want to ride faster than that you are required BY LAW to be on the street. Also if the bike path doesn’t have an exit to your destination, then you have to get off the path early in order to make your turn.
I would recommend you pop over to the Minneapolis Bike Love forum as the people there would be more than happy to educate you on biking laws and give you tips on how to ride safely.
On the other the law does not require you be in danger
I’ve seen speed limit claim a few times and frankly it’s weak. This is mostly an issue along the parkways where the roads are narrow. Bikers think they’re speed demons if they’re going 20 mph but that’s 5 mph below the speed limit, and few bikers actually maintain that speed consistently. You can ride on the adjacent trails safely but you share the trail with some pedestrians and other bikers. “yeah but then I have to break my pace” the biker complains. Look, if you want to ride at racing speeds the parkway isn’t the place to do in in any event, and you have the same issues on the bike hi-ways like Cedar Lake Trail. You’re always in more danger when you ride in traffic. That doesn’t mean it a can or should ALWAYS be avoided. I’ve seen claims that those speed limits are enforced, but I’ve buzzed by cops on bikes and in cars on those trails and never seen anyone hassled. If someone has gotten a ticket I would suspect it wasn’t just for speeding but rather reckless riding to boot, or rather the cop saw reckless riding and issued a speeding ticket. You can see now during the winter because we all share the trails around the lakes, and a lot bikers are frustrated by that. My wife and I had an jerk fly and weave by us the other day on a dog walk without an audible and that was a really stupid and dangerous thing for him to be doing.
On lights and seeing.
It would be nice if “both sides” did a lot more than the legal minimum. Bikes could be brighter, but drivers could take a little more time to look at what’s in front of them.
I commute about 50 miles per week, all weather, on a bike with home-made (bright) lights. When I built them, for some reason I decided to leave off the “off” switch, and I’m never changing back (they’re hub-powered — if the bike rolls, the lights are on). Obviously this helps at night, but it seems to make a difference even during the day.
When I ride home at night I usually take an unlit multi-use path. I spot pedestrians by the glow of their cell phones, by the reflective trim on their jackets or shoes, or by the glowing eyeballs of the dog(s) that they are walking. If you’ve got lights and you don’t see these things, then you’re not really taking the time to look. My lights are bright by bicycle standards, but they’re not as bright as car headlights, nor are they as nicely shaped to the road.
I should add, on the “both sides” remark — I once aimed a camera backwards to record my commute home, and the overwhelming majority of drivers were changing lanes and shifting well over far in advance of passing me, often before I could hear them in traffic. At the same time, whether driving or biking, I watch other cyclists, and except for Idaho-stopping, they are almost all entirely law-abiding and predictable. What use I see of sidewalks tends to be either legal (not in a business district) or low-speed. Drivers should be aware, also, that their horn is intended (by law, in Minnesota) as a safety device, not an educational device or frustration reliever: “The driver of a motor vehicle shall, when reasonably NECESSARY to insure safe operation, give audible warning with the horn, BUT SHALL NOT OTHERWISE USE THE HORN when upon a highway.”
Lack of lights?
Nowhere in the story does it describe this biker as without a headlight. In fact, the use of the anecdote without explicit mention of this fact seems suspicious. It reinforces the default of inattentive drivers that “oh, I didn’t see a bike, well they must’ve been inappropriately lit.”
The inclusion of the bicyclists admission of no injury or damage to the bike adds to the suspect nature of the anecdote. When an off duty State Trooper Lieutenant failed to yield the right away on an unsignalled left turn and cut my friend and me off in daylight this summer, the first thing he made sure to declare before he drove away was to tell me that my friend, who had collided with the unmarked vehicle, had not suffered any injury nor damage to his bike. This kind of stock answer–no injury, no damage to property–seems built to deny any need on the part of the driver to have to even as much as assess if there was an unequal share of responsibility for a Collision. If either of the two criteria are met, Mr. Harris or the trooper could have caused an Accident. As such, we were loudly informed “there’s no accident.”
It’s also precipitous that the collision occurred while Ms. Harris was already thinking about bikes–her research about bike lights seems to influence her reading of the collision rather than the collision adding any flavor or nuance to her understanding of the relationships between cars and bikes on the road. If there is the ability to impose fines for bikers without lights after dark, I would hope that the legislation would include automatic fines for people fail to yield a right away to a properly lit bike, even if that would only be enforceable in situations like the anecdote where a law enforcement officer was there, as a third party, to witness such a failure. Although Minnesota Statute 169.20 should already provide regulations on yielding the right away, but I guess it’s up to enforcement agencies to enforce and provide penalties for breaking this law.
You know what else is dangerous? Driving a car without lights on.
Maybe Marlys should have looked closer but…
If that biker had a light it’s likely Marlys would have seen her, without a light that biker can be nearly invisible in the right circumstances. You can actually get a set of lights, front and back for less than $20.00. People are riding around on $800+ bikes. Many police departments in the metro area actually give away lights certain times of the year. There’s no excuse for not lighting up.
I like to ride at night and I’m constantly amazed by bikers who appear to be deliberately making themselves invisible. Not only do they not have lights, but they’ve removed or obscured their reflectors (the bike in the photo has no spoke reflectors for instance, and most clip peddles have no reflectors) and they’ll be wearing dark clothes and cruising as if they’re the only ones on the trail or road. You don’t have to remove reflectors to install lights by the way, there are a number of models that will clip on bags, frames, and handle bars. My reflectors are intact and I’m lit up.
Helmets are whole nuther story. Consider the fact that in Europe they have much higher rates of bicycle ridership, much lower injury and fatality rates, and almost no one wears a helmet. The statement about head injury rates issued by hospitals and health care providers are unreliable because they don’t know what they don’t know. The actual protective quality of helmets is not that predictable in real world circumstances. There’s a prima facie assumption that a helmet would mitigate injury, but there really isn’t any scientific consensus at this point, the studies are surprisingly mixed.
Confused
Someone did something wrong here. Was the cyclist traveling in the same or opposite direction as Mr. and Ms. Harris? If in the same direction, it was the cyclist at fault. You do not travel straight from a left turn-able lane if another vehicle is in it and capable of turning left (whether or not that vehicle has a left blinker on, is beside the point). If she was traveling in the opposite direction, Mr. Harrison was at least partially at fault. Regardless of whether he did see her or not, the accident was technically his fault. The issue is, of course, whether she was visible. If she had lights on and she was still not visible, Mr. Harris needs to get his eyes checked. If she had no lights on, then she, too, shares fault in the accident. Not only did she break the law, she broke all kinds of common sense.
Although I have never been in a situation where I have had to wail on the brakes for an invisible biker, I have been in situations where a flicker of shadow nearby alerted me to a cyclist that was otherwise not visible. If they had a reflector, it was not either clean or facing my vehicle. My bright lights on my car do not illuminate much behind the headlights themselves. They are designed to illuminate in the direction you are traveling. A bicycle traveling on a sidewalk will likely not be seen should they travel into an intersection.
Regarding widening the issue of having lights and/or reflectors on all modes of travel, I once had to wail on my brakes for a guy on a skateboard being pulled by a dog, neither of which had so much as a reflector on them. I was turning left and he was coming from the sidewalk on my left and into the street to also turn left in front of me into the street lane. People do colossally dumb things, sometimes.
Out of Nowhere
I missed the part where Harris said the cyclist had no light. So, apparently, did the cop who was there and could have cited to rider.
The cyclist appeared “out of nowhere,” which is how cyclists and pedestrians always appear when drivers are not paying attention or are looking only for cars. This happens all the time in broad daylight, especially when drivers are turning.
I tend to light up like a Christmas tree when riding at night and never assume I know a driver’s intention at any time of day. Even making eye contact isn’t foolproof, and it’s not possible at night.