Bikes, bicycling, and road safety.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are trying a new tactic to discourage speeding and calm traffic in some corridors: Fake speed bumps.

The optical illusion is described as “a flat piece of blue, white and orange plastic that is designed to look like a 3-D pyramid from afar when applied to the pavement.” There is a claim that they require little maintenance after application, but none of the tests have been run in places like Buffalo or Minneapolis, where winter is rough on roads and road markings.

I have no idea how the illusion varies from different vehicular cockpit positions, or from a bicycle of any kind.

It is also noted that as motorists realize the fake bump is there, the calming effect wears off for regular users of a route. Still, NTHSA are continuing tests, because they require no engineering and are really cheap, thus I have a feeling they really want to see data that justifies using them.

Sing it with me, everyone!

City of Winona has put up some close-up shots of decaying gusset plates in action on the MN43 bridge over the Mississippi River. Closing the sidewalk is clearly justified by these images.

Clickable for detail:

There are several others on the City of Winona web site.

However, bikes STILL don’t belong on sidewalks, so they STILL could easily be allowed in the traffic lane. The bridge was never signed that bicycles could only use the bridge (like on the Mendota Bridge of MN55), and MN43 was never a prohibited route (like most interstate highways). The restriction on cyclists appears to be a categorization failure - those making this rule are classifying bicyclists with pedestrians as sidewalk users, rather than as vehicles making shared use of the road as permitted under Minnesota Statute 169.222.

A study from Colorado State University suggests that drivers who personalize their cars - think bumper stickers, air fresheners, personalized plates, hula girls on the dashboard - are more prone to road rage. While bicyclists should always watch the traffic around them, this may provide another clue to prompt defensive vehicular cycling behaviors.

The personalization is considered a territorial marker. Boundaries between the personal space and the public space occur. As a result, these drivers are more prone to defend their right-of-way, and are far more prone to name-calling, tailgating, getting out of the vehicle to argue or using their car to block or ram another.

The study also says that it doesn’t matter WHAT the personalization is - so even people who have Wellstone stickers or ‘SLOW DOWN - Respect People & Neighborhoods!’ stickers are potential road ragers.

I can’t say I’m surprised by this, given that I’ve experienced having a hybrid with world peace stickers try to run me off the road near the U of M.

Photo from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Because, remember: Those bikes will be the straw breaking that concrete camel’s gusset plates!

MSNBC has a piece on North America’s ‘most bike friendly cities.’

Most of the cited cities appear to be League of American Bicyclists-recognized Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs), save, of course, the Canadian cities. The top-10 slideshow (at Forbes Traveler) does something I’ve wanted to see for ages: They rank Minneapolis ahead of Chicago.

Bicycling magazine constantly buys into Daley’s hype for Chicago, and gives Minneapolis ‘honorable mentions.’ Having ridden both cities, which are very different in terms of layout and infrastructure, I will take on Minneapolis roads and drivers any day of the week, no matter what Hizzoner of Chicago sez.

As a follow-up to need-to-knows, I’ve seen some pretty epic bad behavior on bikes lately. I don’t know if these are novices driven to bikes due to gas prices, people who are confident in their immortality, or just plain dumb people, who exist in cars, on feet, and on bikes.

Here are some suggestions, though:

1. Shut up and ride. Using your cell phone while riding is not a good plan. If you must take a call, please pull off the road, get off your bike, and take it. Even if you’re slow, the external noise while you’re riding can’t be good for the conversation, and having two hands on the bars/brakes? Bueno. Just trust me on that.

2. Smoking a cigarette while riding. O, how wrong this is. Beyond the bueno factor mentioned above (both hands on the bars, plz), smoking is bad. You’re combining something somewhat healthy with something really drastically not healthy. I know quitting is hard. Really, I do. But use your time on bike to be a time when you aren’t inviting death by lung cancer. It’s a start, anyway, and let me assure you: lung cancer is a bad, bad way to die. (Of course, if you need both hands on the bars and lack it, you won’t live long enough to find out.)
   
3. Use appropriate routes. The streets you might use in a car are not always good plans on bicycles. US10, for instance, magically turns into interstate. Yes, I did in fact see someone on a bike either learning this, or knowing this and being super-duper dumb.

4. Riding against traffic. Ok, this is not only illegal, but it puts you at high risk. Physics will tell you that if you’re going WITH traffic and get rear-ended, the total force of collision is lower than if two vehicles head-on each other. POW. It will hurt. Also, I believe I mentioned the illegal? Yeah.

Also, as a public service announcement, I would like to urge people to check their seat height. The number of people I have seen with their seats too low, both recently and non-recently… yow. When your seat is too low, you work harder than you need to work to go the same speed. Raise the seat and either save energy, or go faster. If you can’t get full leg extension without knee lock, your seat is too low or your bike is too small. The seat can be fixed for free.