Never one to let a trend completely pass me by unless it’s a really heinous one (I’ve never owned a pair of Crocs, for instance), I think this is all very well and nice. They are all chock full of helpful advice for motorists and cyclists, such as the 3-foot passing rule, wearing helmets, avoidance of distracted driving, etc. etc.

But you know what? I have not seen a single article mention something I think is fundamental: Cars need to signal their turns. Use your turn signals, motorists.

A number of the articles mention the danger of the right-hook – where a cyclist on the curb lane ends up to the right of a vehicle who is right turning, with somewhat predictably painful results. There are several good ways to avoid the right hook, but one of the top ways – beyond cyclists wising up to the idea that hugging the curb isn’t always strictly necessary under law, and is often injurious – is for vehicles who are right turning to always signal their intent.

Because this doesn’t always happen, I tend to be mildly annoying in lanes that can work as either right-turn or through lanes, pulling to the left into the right-hand wheel well where vehicles might go, even if there’s not a car at the intersection when I arrive there. A vehicle arriving might pull alongside, and depending on positioning, it an be difficult to see a signal if it’s even used.

Turn signals are really bueno for the benefit of other cars and pedestrians on the road, too.

So, in summary: Sure, read all those happy articles about road sharing. Then try using your turn signals. Cyclists, pedestrians and other motorists will praise you for it.

With a lot of the lines of vehicles waiting outside schools to pick up individual children, there’s a secondary question about the death of carpools. Now, I can see where the existing infrastructure in some places is a huge barrier in having people walk or ride their bicycles to school. For instance, in Anoka County, if your kid were to have to cross MN65, it’s pretty close to a non-starter, even with chaperoning adults. Statistics say that the corridor is just an accident hotbed. However, much as when I was a kid we all walked to school, when the weather was awful, our parents didn’t take us one to a vehicle. The neighbors would coordinate, and we’d pile kids into one or two cars total. At school pickup, if the next-door neighbor leaned out the door and said that she was picking me up too and had talked to my mom, this was also highly credible. (It’s not as though I was taking a ride from a stranger – this was the next-door-neighbor, also picking up her own kids with whom I played every afternoon!)

This doesn’t happen any more. And I think I realized why the other day: Booster seat laws. I don’t see this mentioned anywhere lamenting all the minivans lined up outside schools, but on consideration, it’s absolutely a factor.

Think about it: Kids are supposed to ride in boosters until they are 48″ tall. That’s 4 feet. Many states make this a law. If you start looking at growth charts, most kids will be in boosters for most of elementary school. Parents typically have the proper seating for their own kids, and not to pile all their kids’ friends into the minivan to go to soccer or the pool or school.

There are ergonomic and design reasons for booster seat requirements. However, when you consider the death of the carpool, it raises a question if there is a role for finding a way to create more flexible built-in restraint systems in family vehicles (minivans, SUVs, wagons) that meet established safety standards but allow for loading up a spare kid without use of a booster. Because even with safer routes and infrastructure, this is the midwest, and you won’t always avoid the day where it’s raining sideways and there’s a tornado warning and flash flood watch. Not the nature of things. And on such days, there may always be a role for a parent to pick up a carful of kids, rather than have them use even nice safe streets to get home looking like drowned kittens.

Duluth’s Northland News Center, which is a site for Duluth’s CBS, NBC, CW and ‘MyNetwork’ affiliate television outlets, provokes today’s big headsmack with their article “BICYCLE RIDING DEATHS UP IN MN.”

While the article does include some fatality statistics for the state, I’m relatively sure that the safety message being put out by Susan Koschak, the chair of the Statewide Non-Motorized Advisory Committee, didn’t include the OMG YOU WILL ALL DIE tilt. The DPS official quoted also is quoted on safety, although the fatality figure (average of 8 cyclist deaths/year) is a DPS number.

Just as a comparison, DPS reports 72 motorcyclist deaths in 2008, and 416 car accident deaths in 2009. Obviously, working towards 0 in all columns is important, but you rarely see the attachment of OMG DANGER! attached in the same way to these other modes of transport.

Northland News also inserts a “use bike paths!” comment, even though DPS and MNDOT share the 8 principles of the Share the Road Minnesota campaign, all of which focus on appropriate and legal use of roadways by cyclists.

I’m blaming this all on Northland, as the state agencies quoted are typically right on and supportive of the Share the Road principles and Minnesota statutes on bicyclists. Education of all roadway users – and not breathless sharing of noncontextual fatality statistics – is the key to cyclist safety on the roads. All a headline of this nature does is forward a not-especially-subtle bias against cyclists’ road rights.

Wired Magazine are ‘crowdsourcing’ reviews, asking people to try their route and see what comes out of the system. It’s a generally savvy crowd, so they aren’t assaulting Google (or their data sources) for errors.

Meanwhile, others are claiming Google is providing hazardous directions. The notable in this category is the NY Post, who found that Google’s data on NYC bike routes is not accurate. Commenters on this article are embracing the general run of bike-hater joy, discussing running bikers off the roads, how this is all a liberal conspiracy, etc. You know, the usual.

As someone who works with Google services every day (for money!), I’ll say that I come closer to the opinions of the Wired folks. It’s a beta project. The pedestrian walking routes instructions have also been notably erratic (routing people onto highways, onramps, sidewalk-free zones). There are prominent buttons to provide feedback. Garmin and other GPS instructions haven’t been 100% either.

GPS services and Google Maps are always going to be limited by their data sets. I think anyone going somewhere unfamiliar, or coming in from out-of-town, needs to view Google Maps as a guide. Talking to a good local bicycle shop, or a local bicycle club, will ever be your best bet for getting the real (and most current) poop on local bike routes, including road construction, reality of what traffic levels are like, and even if they’re scenic or not. No online data set will ever match the know-how of the local cyclists!

Photo Credit: US Census Bureau PIO

• Drivers are 8 times as likely to get in an accident while texting than those, you know, paying attention
• Driver distraction was reported to have been involved in 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008
• An estimated 22 percent of injury crashes were reported to have involved distracted driving

(Source: USDOT data)

Now, Oprah’s on the scene. Monday’s Oprah show put a spotlight on distracted driving and its dangers. The Department of Transportation blog offers links to the transcript of the show, as well as a link to the safety pledge Oprah is asking people to sign.

Distracted driving is a huge issue in Minnesota and nationally. The DOT has been focusing on it as an issue, and the Minnesota Trucking Association is now running an educational campaign to their members.

Minnesota already has a no-texting-while-driving law; many other states do as well. Like the drinking age, this is an issue that needs to be legislated on a state-by-state basis, but the federal checkbook may provide pressures to pass legislation. Now with Oprah on the scene, expect to see more press on these efforts to legislate what should be common sense.