Conflicts with bicyclists and pedestrians are just symptoms of the selfishness and poor judgment motorists routinely exhibit toward each other. In addition to being a means of conveying people and their stuff from place to place, motor vehicles also serve a function like the pads worn by American football players, or ice hockey players. Motoring is a contact sport.
In the past two days I have gotten to witness two classic examples of motorist logic on my morning drive to work.
On Thursday, the weather was warm and wet. The landscape was shrouded in fog as the snow pack sublimated into vapor. Along with perhaps eight or ten other drivers, I came up behind a state highway truck winging back the plow drift along Route 28. The speed limit for most of that part of 28 is 55 miles per hour. In good weather, that means most of the locals are doing 60-65. Because the weather has not been good, the road surface was a mix of chunked-up wet ice, slush, and bits of exposed pavement, slathered with sand and brine. Average speed had been about 45 until we all caught up to the state truck. That vehicle was going about 18-25 mph. Its bulk filled the lane as its side blade bounced along the shoulder, shoving the snow further back to make room for whatever else the winter might deliver.
We were on a long, steady climb. The center line is double yellow. The height of land is a narrow crest, so the approach is blind from both sides. In spite of fog, unsteady traction, and the blind hill crest, impatient drivers went one after another out around the plow truck. There was no skill involved. The drivers had no way to judge whether it was safe to pass. It was a complete gamble. But these suicidal lemmings weren't just gambling with their own lives. They were also betting the lives of anyone who might be coming the other way.
No one happened to be coming the other way just then, but 28 is a busy road, especially on a workday morning. Passing there and then was a selfish and stupid move. Unfortunately, those traits are common.
Today, on a different part of 28, we were all moving along much better on mostly dry roads, when I saw a big work truck pull partway off the travel lane and throw it in reverse. A plastic container had blown out of the truck bed. The driver's automatic reflex was not to pull safely off the road and walk back, it was to back up against traffic. Driver's ed was a lot of years ago, but I definitely remember being told quite emphatically that you do not put it in reverse and back up on a highway. But we are a motoring culture. We drive as close as possible to our destination, and walk as little as possible. Of course you stay in your truck and back up against oncoming traffic to try to rescue your unsecured property from the center line of the road. No other driver will fault you for behaving completely normally. What else is a driver supposed to do?
The driver's selfish and dangerous maneuver increased the chances that another driver would hit the item that he was hoping to rescue, as we all tried to work around truck and its lost cargo.
In both cases, drivers were doing things that they shouldn't have done, that lots of people do anyway, and that most people get away with. It only reinforces the custom, because drivers so seldom suffer any consequences.
A motorist in free flight will react negatively to any obstacle that breaks the flow. The same fixation on forward motion prompts a driver squeezing past a cyclist or blazing around a plow truck on a blind hill crest in the fog.
Interestingly, the driver backing up on the highway to suit his own convenience has a philosophical kinship to the cyclist who rides against traffic and ignores one-way streets. It's the same kind of personal relationship with the law and right of way in either case. "It's only me, it's only here, it's only now." If everyone else would lighten up -- and adapt to my personal wants -- everything would be fine. A chunky truck going backwards on a highway has a bit more leverage, but the self-centeredness is spot on.
The cyclist who rides on the sidewalk is analogous to the driver who pulls into a designated cycle lane to get ahead in traffic or to park. These equivalencies are not meant to excuse the behavior of either side, only to emphasize that the problems are not motorist or pedaler problems but human problems. Wrapping the human in a motor vehicle makes the offenses worse because of the damage that the hard outer coating can inflict on softer opponents, but it's pilot error in either case.
We all want to flow smoothly to our chosen destination. Cyclists like to maintain speed. We take advantage of our small size and maneuverability to bend traffic rules in ways that actually enhance our safety and make traffic flow better. But some of us abuse the power and commit gross infractions that don't end well. If the result isn't an outright crash with injuries or death, it is at least a bad public relations move, with far-reaching consequences in the bike-hating community. Everyone bears some responsibility for making a multi-mode transportation culture work. However, the bigger the vehicle, the greater the responsibility.
Showing posts with label driver psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driver psychology. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2019
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Dinky little lights
The early onset of snow and ice forced me into the car more than a month sooner than in past years. This has given me a lot of time to look at fellow road users through the windshield, the way the vast majority of road users view those of us who aren't in a motor vehicle.
I've seen the whole range, from people with no lights to people with conspicuous outfits combining illuminated and reflective elements. The more brightly lighted are certainly more noticeable, but even the most conspicuous is hard to see.
I've discussed the drawbacks of aggressively conspicuous lighting before. That's a different problem. What I noticed most recently is the way night lighting and reflectivity for non-motorized users fails to define them even if it makes them quite noticeable.
Starting at the dark end of the spectrum, pedestrians and cyclists start right out with different minimum recommended lighting. Way back when I was a kid, my father said we should carry a flashlight when walking the dog at night, so that drivers could see us when cars came by. Flashlights are a lot better now, and pedestrians are a lot rarer. I appreciate it when I'm in my car or on the bike and people on foot have a light. But from the car it still doesn't provide instant and definite positioning. The same goes for cyclists with the minimum required lighting, or even a notch better. Any oncoming motor vehicle blasts out the smaller lights of the non-motorized travelers and narrows the space in which to pass safely. More than once I have pulled over and stopped completely rather than go forward into the visual field of blaze and blackness. Any normal driver will just bull through and hope for the best.
More powerful lighting definitely improves the situation for a bicyclist at night. The most powerful head and tail lights define you as a vehicle better than in daylight. But the sheer size of the headlight is never as large and definitive as the lights on a car or truck. If you're on a road where it's inadvisable to take the full lane, you're off to the side a bit, ambiguously lighted and generally moving more slowly than the large, motorized sensory deprivation tanks in which most teens and adults spend most of their lives in developed countries.
The lights on motor vehicles are designed not only to allow drivers to see where they are going in the absence of other light. They also define the shape and size of the vehicle. They are a symbolic language and an aid to navigation. At a glance, a driver can identify the other vehicles by their lights, determine their direction of travel and approximate their speed. Non-standard lighting causes immediate confusion. You will notice this at accident scenes where emergency vehicles are in unusual positions and emergency responders with reflective vests and lights are moving around a scene, particularly early in the response, when drivers are still flowing through the area. You'll see it at construction zones. You'll see it when a motor vehicle is escorting people on foot who might for some reason be using the public right of way for something like a long-distance charity relay or similar event. I have been unable to dig up a link to a story about it, but I recall years ago -- pre-internet -- that a mixed group of fraternity and sorority students were doing a charity run, escorted by a truck with floodlights on the back of it. They were in the right lane of a four-lane, divided highway when a driver ploughed into the runners, killing several. The white floods on the back of the escort truck made it visible, but not identifiable.
At highway speeds -- and even at the lower speeds -- drivers need automatic cues that trigger automatic responses, because they are so conditioned to business as usual. Are they wrong? Of course they're wrong. Drivers should be on the alert at all times for unusual circumstances that require them actually to pilot their craft. Wrong they may be, but they are also normal. The vast majority of the time, they only encounter each other, normally lighted and operating within a fairly narrow range of deviations. Even the speed changes and weaving of a texting idiot fall closer to the norm than the dinky little lights of a bike or pedestrian, or the bright but unfamiliar look of a motor vehicle engaged in non-standard activity.
Take your super-equipped rider with fully reflective garments and lots of lights. You will trigger reports of space aliens, but you still don't give drivers a quickly assimilated spatial reference that they can use to set up a seamless pass. You're just weird looking. I don't say that you shouldn't do it. Just don't be surprised when it fails to provide anything close to perfect safety and confidence. On the approach, even that display can be obliterated by the lights of oncoming traffic. And it didn't really claim your space in the first place. The illuminated human outline of a full reflective suit does reinforce that you are at least humanoid. But that very spectacle might lead to target fixation, as the driver gravitates toward you, gaping in fascination at this apparition floating through the darkness. You're little better off than the rider with just a really decent head and tail light, reflector leg bands and an odd couple of blinkies.
I've seen the whole range, from people with no lights to people with conspicuous outfits combining illuminated and reflective elements. The more brightly lighted are certainly more noticeable, but even the most conspicuous is hard to see.
I've discussed the drawbacks of aggressively conspicuous lighting before. That's a different problem. What I noticed most recently is the way night lighting and reflectivity for non-motorized users fails to define them even if it makes them quite noticeable.
Starting at the dark end of the spectrum, pedestrians and cyclists start right out with different minimum recommended lighting. Way back when I was a kid, my father said we should carry a flashlight when walking the dog at night, so that drivers could see us when cars came by. Flashlights are a lot better now, and pedestrians are a lot rarer. I appreciate it when I'm in my car or on the bike and people on foot have a light. But from the car it still doesn't provide instant and definite positioning. The same goes for cyclists with the minimum required lighting, or even a notch better. Any oncoming motor vehicle blasts out the smaller lights of the non-motorized travelers and narrows the space in which to pass safely. More than once I have pulled over and stopped completely rather than go forward into the visual field of blaze and blackness. Any normal driver will just bull through and hope for the best.
More powerful lighting definitely improves the situation for a bicyclist at night. The most powerful head and tail lights define you as a vehicle better than in daylight. But the sheer size of the headlight is never as large and definitive as the lights on a car or truck. If you're on a road where it's inadvisable to take the full lane, you're off to the side a bit, ambiguously lighted and generally moving more slowly than the large, motorized sensory deprivation tanks in which most teens and adults spend most of their lives in developed countries.
The lights on motor vehicles are designed not only to allow drivers to see where they are going in the absence of other light. They also define the shape and size of the vehicle. They are a symbolic language and an aid to navigation. At a glance, a driver can identify the other vehicles by their lights, determine their direction of travel and approximate their speed. Non-standard lighting causes immediate confusion. You will notice this at accident scenes where emergency vehicles are in unusual positions and emergency responders with reflective vests and lights are moving around a scene, particularly early in the response, when drivers are still flowing through the area. You'll see it at construction zones. You'll see it when a motor vehicle is escorting people on foot who might for some reason be using the public right of way for something like a long-distance charity relay or similar event. I have been unable to dig up a link to a story about it, but I recall years ago -- pre-internet -- that a mixed group of fraternity and sorority students were doing a charity run, escorted by a truck with floodlights on the back of it. They were in the right lane of a four-lane, divided highway when a driver ploughed into the runners, killing several. The white floods on the back of the escort truck made it visible, but not identifiable.
At highway speeds -- and even at the lower speeds -- drivers need automatic cues that trigger automatic responses, because they are so conditioned to business as usual. Are they wrong? Of course they're wrong. Drivers should be on the alert at all times for unusual circumstances that require them actually to pilot their craft. Wrong they may be, but they are also normal. The vast majority of the time, they only encounter each other, normally lighted and operating within a fairly narrow range of deviations. Even the speed changes and weaving of a texting idiot fall closer to the norm than the dinky little lights of a bike or pedestrian, or the bright but unfamiliar look of a motor vehicle engaged in non-standard activity.
Take your super-equipped rider with fully reflective garments and lots of lights. You will trigger reports of space aliens, but you still don't give drivers a quickly assimilated spatial reference that they can use to set up a seamless pass. You're just weird looking. I don't say that you shouldn't do it. Just don't be surprised when it fails to provide anything close to perfect safety and confidence. On the approach, even that display can be obliterated by the lights of oncoming traffic. And it didn't really claim your space in the first place. The illuminated human outline of a full reflective suit does reinforce that you are at least humanoid. But that very spectacle might lead to target fixation, as the driver gravitates toward you, gaping in fascination at this apparition floating through the darkness. You're little better off than the rider with just a really decent head and tail light, reflector leg bands and an odd couple of blinkies.
Are there statistics on this? Probably not. Someone would have to care, and get the funding for the study, tabulate and publish the results. I base my conclusions on my own observations as a prisoner in my car, going off to grub for my pittance each day.
Out of the car, we riders and walkers have adapted to the night. It's easy to forget how invisible you are under even the best of circumstances. That's why I don't feel like a pampered pet of the machine age, wallowing in my privilege as I loll in the recliner and pilot my chariot. I feel like I'm making a sacrifice for the team, performing anthropological and sociological research by spending time as a motorist, and studying its effects both physical and psychological. I would prefer to spend more of the time as a brave outrider, facing the elements and making the world a better place one pedal stroke at a time. But the world isn't there yet. Someone has to guide the transition.
Autonomous elements in a semi-autonomous vehicle would improve the passing situation independent of lighting at night. If motor vehicles had sensor systems that could identify the size, speed, and direction of any object in their space, both oncoming and overtaking vehicles could take over from their meat pilots to slow down and make space for a bicyclist or pedestrian. With the push for fully autonomous vehicles, and new models advertising range-finding features, this could be a reality fairly soon. Meanwhile, most of us poor schmucks have to drive vehicles from the current fleet of rust buckets, and depend on our own poor senses to get us safely around.
Evolution could be hastened -- albeit harshly -- by equipping the newer vehicles with weapon systems that would identify and destroy older motor vehicles and their occupants, thus reinforcing the de facto minimum financial threshold for full participation in society and making the roads and highways safer at the same time. I'm not saying this is a good idea. But I guarantee that someone, somewhere, has been thinking it, along with plenty of other judgmental prescriptions for "improving" our species. Real classic antique cars would have to be equipped with transponders to mark them as better than old junkers driven by low-income dregs.
Of course in America the powers that be would rather keep requiring low income people to dig up some kind of personal transportation, preferably a junky car, than expend public monies on public transportation or alternative transportation infrastructure. There's no profit in that stuff, and profit is God.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Land crabs and porcupines
On the ride to work yesterday a motorist came across the centerline toward me on a sweeping curve with good sight lines, on a pretty morning with no fog or other obstructions. I could see his eye line, so I knew he was not distracted. His expression was ambiguous. I responded the way I almost always do to a motorist encroaching on my space.
I moved toward him.
I've written many times before about body language, cadence, lane position and general affect as ways to communicate with the subconscious of motorists. They can sense fear, and anyone with a personality inclined to enjoy that will increase aggression if they get a fear response. People in general are likely to take whatever they can get, whether they're being careless or purposely pushy. You have to decide what to let them have.
In this instance, the motorist corrected his line and withdrew to his own side of the centerline. It was just another fleeting moment. I can't even know for sure whether he was reacting to my presence during any part of our encounter. I've also written about the near-uselessness of eye contact with a driver, because they can be very good at looking alert and still looking right through you. Or they use it as an opening to share opinions that you'd rather not have known. I try to keep all the communication nonverbal and impersonal, related only to the immediate need to maneuver around each other in the shared space of the roadway. Our long tradition of sealing ourselves into cans and speeding anonymously down the road has bred this isolationist culture in which we respond to each other as little as possible on a human level, and focus instead on ballistics.
After the pass I thought about how I represented no physical threat to the driver. The intent in moving confidently and unyieldingly is to convey the impression that the motor vehicle may be bigger and faster, but you are more dangerous. In cougar country, hikers are advised to make themselves look large, to discourage the predator from bothering with prey that could put up too much of a fight. This is different from bear protocols, that say to look humble and retreat graciously. On the road you have to be ready to switch between these protocols, as you assess whether the motorist has a cat or a bear personality. For the most part, though, my first move is to look like a spiky mouthful.
The defense mechanisms of vulnerable creatures reminded me of road kill I'd seen in different ecosystems. In south Florida, I used to see land crabs crossing the roads. Their reflex when they see a threat is to brandish their claws. "That's right, f***er! Don't mess with me! I've got these!"
Blat. A car is unimpressed by threat displays, and a driver may have no time to react, not notice the creature, or be a sicko who gets off on killing things. In any case, the massive vehicle has the advantage. Sometimes the heavy shell of a large specimen can actually puncture a tire, but the crab didn't win, and the motorist was only inconvenienced.
Up here in the piney woods, porcupines waddle across the roads. When a vehicle charges down on them, they put up their quills. "Bring it," they say.
Blat again. In this case, the porcupine loses completely. The quills will not damage the vehicle.
Crabs and porcupines have only the one strategy. Crabs will sometimes accelerate their scuttle. Given the chance they will flee. If you go into their habitat you can see them run for cover of vegetation or a burrow. But porcupines simply do not run. They have two speeds: slow and slower. In their ancestral environment, they evolved not to need to retreat hastily.
As vulnerable road users, bicyclists can choose among strategic options based on specific circumstances. No matter what we do, our health and survival depend on not getting hit at all. There is no "next level" in a conflict with another road user. In any of our strategies we simply want to avoid contact with another vehicle piloted by another ostensibly thinking, feeling being.
I moved toward him.
I've written many times before about body language, cadence, lane position and general affect as ways to communicate with the subconscious of motorists. They can sense fear, and anyone with a personality inclined to enjoy that will increase aggression if they get a fear response. People in general are likely to take whatever they can get, whether they're being careless or purposely pushy. You have to decide what to let them have.
In this instance, the motorist corrected his line and withdrew to his own side of the centerline. It was just another fleeting moment. I can't even know for sure whether he was reacting to my presence during any part of our encounter. I've also written about the near-uselessness of eye contact with a driver, because they can be very good at looking alert and still looking right through you. Or they use it as an opening to share opinions that you'd rather not have known. I try to keep all the communication nonverbal and impersonal, related only to the immediate need to maneuver around each other in the shared space of the roadway. Our long tradition of sealing ourselves into cans and speeding anonymously down the road has bred this isolationist culture in which we respond to each other as little as possible on a human level, and focus instead on ballistics.
After the pass I thought about how I represented no physical threat to the driver. The intent in moving confidently and unyieldingly is to convey the impression that the motor vehicle may be bigger and faster, but you are more dangerous. In cougar country, hikers are advised to make themselves look large, to discourage the predator from bothering with prey that could put up too much of a fight. This is different from bear protocols, that say to look humble and retreat graciously. On the road you have to be ready to switch between these protocols, as you assess whether the motorist has a cat or a bear personality. For the most part, though, my first move is to look like a spiky mouthful.
The defense mechanisms of vulnerable creatures reminded me of road kill I'd seen in different ecosystems. In south Florida, I used to see land crabs crossing the roads. Their reflex when they see a threat is to brandish their claws. "That's right, f***er! Don't mess with me! I've got these!"
Blat. A car is unimpressed by threat displays, and a driver may have no time to react, not notice the creature, or be a sicko who gets off on killing things. In any case, the massive vehicle has the advantage. Sometimes the heavy shell of a large specimen can actually puncture a tire, but the crab didn't win, and the motorist was only inconvenienced.
Up here in the piney woods, porcupines waddle across the roads. When a vehicle charges down on them, they put up their quills. "Bring it," they say.
Blat again. In this case, the porcupine loses completely. The quills will not damage the vehicle.
Crabs and porcupines have only the one strategy. Crabs will sometimes accelerate their scuttle. Given the chance they will flee. If you go into their habitat you can see them run for cover of vegetation or a burrow. But porcupines simply do not run. They have two speeds: slow and slower. In their ancestral environment, they evolved not to need to retreat hastily.
As vulnerable road users, bicyclists can choose among strategic options based on specific circumstances. No matter what we do, our health and survival depend on not getting hit at all. There is no "next level" in a conflict with another road user. In any of our strategies we simply want to avoid contact with another vehicle piloted by another ostensibly thinking, feeling being.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Motorist outreach
We live in unsettling times. In the United States, the illusion of social evolution and increasing enlightenment was stripped away in 2016. As necessary as that was, to reveal the barely buried reality, it also constantly eats away at any kind of peace of mind or confidence.
Is there something you don't like? Attack it openly. It's okay now. Yell racial slurs. Refuse service to gay people. Practice random acts of meanness.
Under the heading of random acts of meanness, a motorist coming the other way on Elm Street gave a friendly, tootly, attention-seeking horn honk. When I lifted my hand to wave and turned my head, thinking that it might be someone I know, an unfamiliar bearded face extruded itself out the driver's side window above an outthrust middle finger.
Suckered into looking right at Finger Boy's insulting gesture, I responded with the universal WTF shrug: an expansive, palm-up gesture indicating that I see the juvenile overture, and I dismiss it. Still, I kicked myself for looking at all. The best response would have been to let him wave his finger at the side of my head as I ignored him completely.
Over the years I have fallen firmly into the habit of never looking directly at or into a motor vehicle. Friends occasionally wonder why I did not respond to a wave, but most of them understand, once I explain. I use my eyes defensively, in combat mode, not socially.
There's little point in making eye contact with motorists, despite what you may have read or heard. I don't want to know what they're thinking. I monitor their vehicles as potentially dangerous lumps moving, about to move, or likely to stop, depending on what might be most inconvenient. I try as much as possible to be emotionless.
Peripheral vision is better at detecting motion than your direct focused gaze is. You can learn to turn most of your field of vision into peripheral vision by letting your focus shift out into the classic thousand yard stare. I look at the road in front of me, scanning for small hazards like glass, metal, broken pavement, or chunks of blown tire that drop little pieces of wire from their reinforcing belts. I take snapshots of vehicles, noting make, model, color, and license plate. I don't retain the memory unless something makes me focus on it. For instance, Finger Boy's car looked like a 1980s Renault Alliance, white or pale blue. It had New Hampshire tags.
Even if there's an incident, it's hard to remember all the details. And without facial ID of the driver it's all worthless anyway, because police won't prosecute. So really, driving as if you're among computer generated characters in a game works just as well. We're all just matter in motion, trying to avoid collision. Most of us are trying to avoid it, anyway.
Is there something you don't like? Attack it openly. It's okay now. Yell racial slurs. Refuse service to gay people. Practice random acts of meanness.
Under the heading of random acts of meanness, a motorist coming the other way on Elm Street gave a friendly, tootly, attention-seeking horn honk. When I lifted my hand to wave and turned my head, thinking that it might be someone I know, an unfamiliar bearded face extruded itself out the driver's side window above an outthrust middle finger.
Suckered into looking right at Finger Boy's insulting gesture, I responded with the universal WTF shrug: an expansive, palm-up gesture indicating that I see the juvenile overture, and I dismiss it. Still, I kicked myself for looking at all. The best response would have been to let him wave his finger at the side of my head as I ignored him completely.
Over the years I have fallen firmly into the habit of never looking directly at or into a motor vehicle. Friends occasionally wonder why I did not respond to a wave, but most of them understand, once I explain. I use my eyes defensively, in combat mode, not socially.
There's little point in making eye contact with motorists, despite what you may have read or heard. I don't want to know what they're thinking. I monitor their vehicles as potentially dangerous lumps moving, about to move, or likely to stop, depending on what might be most inconvenient. I try as much as possible to be emotionless.
Peripheral vision is better at detecting motion than your direct focused gaze is. You can learn to turn most of your field of vision into peripheral vision by letting your focus shift out into the classic thousand yard stare. I look at the road in front of me, scanning for small hazards like glass, metal, broken pavement, or chunks of blown tire that drop little pieces of wire from their reinforcing belts. I take snapshots of vehicles, noting make, model, color, and license plate. I don't retain the memory unless something makes me focus on it. For instance, Finger Boy's car looked like a 1980s Renault Alliance, white or pale blue. It had New Hampshire tags.
Even if there's an incident, it's hard to remember all the details. And without facial ID of the driver it's all worthless anyway, because police won't prosecute. So really, driving as if you're among computer generated characters in a game works just as well. We're all just matter in motion, trying to avoid collision. Most of us are trying to avoid it, anyway.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Whose freedom takes precedence?
In rural areas there are no unimportant roads. Some of them may fall into disuse and neglect, but the ones that actually connect are important arteries, regardless of their size. My commute to work uses one of these arteries, Elm Street. In Ossipee it even has a double yellow centerline. No shoulders, and narrow lanes, but a double yellow centerline. The road I live on, without painted lines or a shoulder, is a virtual expressway for the locals. Their speed and aggression often reflect this.
This morning, driving back from taking the cat to the vet, I met a logging truck with multiple wheels on my side of the double yellow line on Elm Street. It was one of a small group of vehicles using the road the way normal people do.
The logging truck driver was taking his half of the road out of the middle. Forget cyclists, a vehicle that size can take out much bigger prey. Not that a truck driver wants to waste time having an accident, but intimidation clears the way for higher speeds. Higher speed means shorter time in transit.
We had an inch of snow yesterday. It's damp and raw today, under a gray sky. At one point in my life I would have gone out to train in this. It was years ago, when the population was lower and the political climate was less harsh. I thought I had nothing better to do than keep myself in top physical condition. Meanwhile, normal people were working themselves sick, as we are told to do. Who wants to be the lone lemming on the cliff top, looking sadly down at the others? Sure, you're alive and healthy, but you're an outcast. People hate you for refusing to join their foolishness, whether it's a lifestyle or a war. And they talk about freedom.
There's strength in numbers. To get the best use out of those numbers, they have to be organized. Military forces are a good example. A thousand angry people might make a mob, but a thousand trained soldiers is a battalion. The mob engages in free expression and unrestrained action. The battalion answers to a chain of command and moves with discipline and purpose. There is no free expression and no unrestrained action. Organization of all group endeavors falls on a continuum from the amorphous mob to the highly disciplined military formation. At each higher level, the individuals in the group give up more and more pure liberty for the benefits of participation.
Traffic is not a fully organized activity. The shape of infrastructure and the laws and customs of its use make up the rules of engagement. It is both a cooperative and a competitive activity. The personalities of individual road users determine the balance.
As the truck came at me, with its unofficial escort of smaller vehicles -- all larger than a bicycle -- I imagined a cyclist in the mix. Every driver would have had to navigate around the rider. The cyclist, with every legal right to be out there, would have curtailed the freedom of the motorists to travel freely in ways that motorists can handle, for the most part. I suppose cyclists can handle them, too. Any vehicle that passes cleanly, no matter how close, was not a problem, right? That which did not kill you did not kill you. The shot of adrenaline might even improve your average speed for the day.
We complain about what might happen. I do it myself, and agree with the principle that drivers shouldn't squeeze cyclists for fear of hitting them. But from an impartial viewpoint the goal is to move users through the system at the best speed. That is often not the highest speed, but generally maintains the flow. As long as the majority is motorized, the needs of cyclists will be minimized, and we will be marginalized. But we continue to be accommodated to some degree. You take what you can get while maneuvering for more. It applies to life and to traffic.
The Onion recently posted a piece with the headline, "Study: 90% Of Bike Accidents Preventable By Buying Car Like A Normal Person." At the bottom of the page is a link to another item poking at people who bring their bikes onto public transit.
With all the reasons to dislike cyclists, I'm surprised we don't get mowed down more often. Every bit of media that reinforces the stigma against weirdos who clot up the motorized world brings us closer to another front in the conflict of various interests that has been created by the convergence of overpopulation and mechanization.
Society expects conformity. Tolerance for nonconformity varies on yet another continuum from most hung up to most anarchistic. The use of the term "normal" to describe motorists alerts us to the baseline of conformity from which pedalers depart. Drivers respond with varying degrees of anxiety or hostility based on how much they feel a cyclist has injured society by using a non-standard vehicle. The Onion sets the acceptable upper age limit for bike riding at 12 years.
Satire is not just a joke. Satire is a pointed effort to portray the ridiculousness of beliefs and behaviors. There's good-natured ribbing, and then there's propaganda. Satire is often intended to be persuasive. This takes it from the category of joshing and turns it into social leverage.
Some platforms, like South Park, collect their audience on the principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." They appear to hold no belief or person immune to ridicule. When it's well done, it provokes thought as well as mirth. But when it just looks like a tidal wave of acid rolling across the landscape it becomes depressing. If they're scourging someone you like to see scourged, it's all great. If they're scourging your beliefs, it's unfair and simplistic.
I like the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, but I don't like the character of Jef the Cyclist. Because the strip is read by the general public, and the general public is notoriously prone to generalization, the sole cyclist character being an arrogant snot means that all cyclists are arrogant snots. Do arrogant snots deserve to be accommodated on the public right of way? Only if they express their arrogance in suitably high-powered cars. An arrogant cyclist deserves to be doored or run off the road, because that's how we do things now. Don't suffer fools. Once fools are identified, persecute them until they smarten up.
The properly humble cyclist shuffles and mumbles and nods deferentially. Yes, we are inferior, evolutionary dead ends who will eventually be eradicated. The fact that some of us are overbearing and egotistical stems not from any actual power but from the pathetic posturing of a doomed subculture. You would be more socially acceptable if your human powered commute consisted of climbing tall buildings and then leaping off in a flying squirrel suit to glide to the next and the next, until you reach your destination. If you don't have access to suitably tall structures, too bad.
I have said more than once that bicyclists need to remember that many people will never be able to incorporate any pedaling into their daily routines. A lot of people could start bike commuting or ride bikes on short utilitarian errands, but technology has evolved to make other alternatives necessary. The amount of stuff we move, over the distances that we cross, in the time we have available, make motorized transportation a fact of modern life. Before that it was railroads and boats and big wagons drawn by burly animals. People who pedal have always been a troublesome minority. Even in the various bike booms, the minority became a larger percentage of the population, but never achieved long-lasting respect.
This morning, driving back from taking the cat to the vet, I met a logging truck with multiple wheels on my side of the double yellow line on Elm Street. It was one of a small group of vehicles using the road the way normal people do.
The logging truck driver was taking his half of the road out of the middle. Forget cyclists, a vehicle that size can take out much bigger prey. Not that a truck driver wants to waste time having an accident, but intimidation clears the way for higher speeds. Higher speed means shorter time in transit.
We had an inch of snow yesterday. It's damp and raw today, under a gray sky. At one point in my life I would have gone out to train in this. It was years ago, when the population was lower and the political climate was less harsh. I thought I had nothing better to do than keep myself in top physical condition. Meanwhile, normal people were working themselves sick, as we are told to do. Who wants to be the lone lemming on the cliff top, looking sadly down at the others? Sure, you're alive and healthy, but you're an outcast. People hate you for refusing to join their foolishness, whether it's a lifestyle or a war. And they talk about freedom.
There's strength in numbers. To get the best use out of those numbers, they have to be organized. Military forces are a good example. A thousand angry people might make a mob, but a thousand trained soldiers is a battalion. The mob engages in free expression and unrestrained action. The battalion answers to a chain of command and moves with discipline and purpose. There is no free expression and no unrestrained action. Organization of all group endeavors falls on a continuum from the amorphous mob to the highly disciplined military formation. At each higher level, the individuals in the group give up more and more pure liberty for the benefits of participation.
Traffic is not a fully organized activity. The shape of infrastructure and the laws and customs of its use make up the rules of engagement. It is both a cooperative and a competitive activity. The personalities of individual road users determine the balance.
As the truck came at me, with its unofficial escort of smaller vehicles -- all larger than a bicycle -- I imagined a cyclist in the mix. Every driver would have had to navigate around the rider. The cyclist, with every legal right to be out there, would have curtailed the freedom of the motorists to travel freely in ways that motorists can handle, for the most part. I suppose cyclists can handle them, too. Any vehicle that passes cleanly, no matter how close, was not a problem, right? That which did not kill you did not kill you. The shot of adrenaline might even improve your average speed for the day.
We complain about what might happen. I do it myself, and agree with the principle that drivers shouldn't squeeze cyclists for fear of hitting them. But from an impartial viewpoint the goal is to move users through the system at the best speed. That is often not the highest speed, but generally maintains the flow. As long as the majority is motorized, the needs of cyclists will be minimized, and we will be marginalized. But we continue to be accommodated to some degree. You take what you can get while maneuvering for more. It applies to life and to traffic.
The Onion recently posted a piece with the headline, "Study: 90% Of Bike Accidents Preventable By Buying Car Like A Normal Person." At the bottom of the page is a link to another item poking at people who bring their bikes onto public transit.
With all the reasons to dislike cyclists, I'm surprised we don't get mowed down more often. Every bit of media that reinforces the stigma against weirdos who clot up the motorized world brings us closer to another front in the conflict of various interests that has been created by the convergence of overpopulation and mechanization.
Society expects conformity. Tolerance for nonconformity varies on yet another continuum from most hung up to most anarchistic. The use of the term "normal" to describe motorists alerts us to the baseline of conformity from which pedalers depart. Drivers respond with varying degrees of anxiety or hostility based on how much they feel a cyclist has injured society by using a non-standard vehicle. The Onion sets the acceptable upper age limit for bike riding at 12 years.
Satire is not just a joke. Satire is a pointed effort to portray the ridiculousness of beliefs and behaviors. There's good-natured ribbing, and then there's propaganda. Satire is often intended to be persuasive. This takes it from the category of joshing and turns it into social leverage.
Some platforms, like South Park, collect their audience on the principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." They appear to hold no belief or person immune to ridicule. When it's well done, it provokes thought as well as mirth. But when it just looks like a tidal wave of acid rolling across the landscape it becomes depressing. If they're scourging someone you like to see scourged, it's all great. If they're scourging your beliefs, it's unfair and simplistic.
I like the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, but I don't like the character of Jef the Cyclist. Because the strip is read by the general public, and the general public is notoriously prone to generalization, the sole cyclist character being an arrogant snot means that all cyclists are arrogant snots. Do arrogant snots deserve to be accommodated on the public right of way? Only if they express their arrogance in suitably high-powered cars. An arrogant cyclist deserves to be doored or run off the road, because that's how we do things now. Don't suffer fools. Once fools are identified, persecute them until they smarten up.
The properly humble cyclist shuffles and mumbles and nods deferentially. Yes, we are inferior, evolutionary dead ends who will eventually be eradicated. The fact that some of us are overbearing and egotistical stems not from any actual power but from the pathetic posturing of a doomed subculture. You would be more socially acceptable if your human powered commute consisted of climbing tall buildings and then leaping off in a flying squirrel suit to glide to the next and the next, until you reach your destination. If you don't have access to suitably tall structures, too bad.
I have said more than once that bicyclists need to remember that many people will never be able to incorporate any pedaling into their daily routines. A lot of people could start bike commuting or ride bikes on short utilitarian errands, but technology has evolved to make other alternatives necessary. The amount of stuff we move, over the distances that we cross, in the time we have available, make motorized transportation a fact of modern life. Before that it was railroads and boats and big wagons drawn by burly animals. People who pedal have always been a troublesome minority. Even in the various bike booms, the minority became a larger percentage of the population, but never achieved long-lasting respect.
Monday, October 02, 2017
It's the traffic, stupid
To be more accurate, it's motor vehicles and the people who drive them. The category is, "Things that make people quit cycling on the road."
There is no last word on this topic. It shows no sign of ever going away. Those who choose to pedal must now and forever deal with the challenges of sharing space with large, fast vehicles, mostly piloted by people with minimal training. And professionalism is no help: truck and bus drivers are notoriously hostile to pedalers. Professionalism may make matters worse, because those drivers are on a schedule and are earning their living by driving. The direct monetary connection reinforces their territoriality against not just cyclists but against all amateur road users.
The solution comes not with a single stroke but with a multifaceted response that has to include a lot of infrastructure changes along with behavior modification. Unfortunately, the system we have evolved developed very naturally along the path of least resistance. People were happy to let their communities be designed around motor vehicle flow. Almost no one questioned it. Forget whatever sinister conspiracies underlay specific things like the destruction of streetcars in favor of buses, and other sabotage of public transit. The proliferation of cheap automobiles relative to rising incomes in the mid and late 20th Century guaranteed that they would dominate our lives. The illusion of freedom was easier to sustain when the consequences, both economic and environmental, could be more easily masked.
We all understand the problem, but it seems as difficult to solve as gun violence. Both motorist dominance and gun violence breed fear, which can then be used to control people. In the case of cycling, fear serves to keep riders off the road.
People who used to ride tell me that they can't anymore. Maybe they quit completely. Maybe they switched to separated venues ranging from mountain bike trails to sedate paths. Most of them express their decision as a matter of maturity and wisdom rather than defeat and surrender.
People who haven't ridden on roads much or at all, who take up cycling or continue it in separated venues also assume the mantle of mature wisdom rather than regretful fear.
We all want to feel good about ourselves. Most of us, anyway. The problem is that the ones who have surrendered have surrendered completely. They've put it behind them and will not advocate for road cycling. I have not met a single quitter who said that they would take it up again if they noticed that conditions had improved. It falls to a shrinking group of experienced riders, augmented by younger people who are still in their riding phase, to keep a scrap of territory available to riders willing to face the existing reality and continue to promote proposals for its improvement.
The inexperience of those younger riders hampers their ability to understand the experience of cycling as the body ages. What was good enough for me in my twenties is out of reach to me in my sixties. It takes a bigger and bigger truck, going slower and slower, to get me to sprint it down. The degeneration has been gradual, but, because I have never stopped riding, I have been able to observe and document it. I guess I do all right for my age, but without the explosive power and grinding endurance I enjoyed from age 20 to about 50. And it shouldn't always be about exploring one's physical limits. Transportation and exploratory cycling should seldom be about exploring one's physical limits, or the limits of one's courage. It's okay for daily life to have a certain serenity.
To make this post self-contained, I have to acknowledge that motor vehicles have their uses. Time, distance, payload, and weather can all make a closed, motorized vehicle a better choice than something powered by human muscle. That has to factor into the system. When you need them, you need them. And what Edward Abbey called "motorized wheelchairs" can accommodate anyone who has decided that it's time to settle into their embrace.
There is no last word on this topic. It shows no sign of ever going away. Those who choose to pedal must now and forever deal with the challenges of sharing space with large, fast vehicles, mostly piloted by people with minimal training. And professionalism is no help: truck and bus drivers are notoriously hostile to pedalers. Professionalism may make matters worse, because those drivers are on a schedule and are earning their living by driving. The direct monetary connection reinforces their territoriality against not just cyclists but against all amateur road users.
The solution comes not with a single stroke but with a multifaceted response that has to include a lot of infrastructure changes along with behavior modification. Unfortunately, the system we have evolved developed very naturally along the path of least resistance. People were happy to let their communities be designed around motor vehicle flow. Almost no one questioned it. Forget whatever sinister conspiracies underlay specific things like the destruction of streetcars in favor of buses, and other sabotage of public transit. The proliferation of cheap automobiles relative to rising incomes in the mid and late 20th Century guaranteed that they would dominate our lives. The illusion of freedom was easier to sustain when the consequences, both economic and environmental, could be more easily masked.
We all understand the problem, but it seems as difficult to solve as gun violence. Both motorist dominance and gun violence breed fear, which can then be used to control people. In the case of cycling, fear serves to keep riders off the road.
People who used to ride tell me that they can't anymore. Maybe they quit completely. Maybe they switched to separated venues ranging from mountain bike trails to sedate paths. Most of them express their decision as a matter of maturity and wisdom rather than defeat and surrender.
People who haven't ridden on roads much or at all, who take up cycling or continue it in separated venues also assume the mantle of mature wisdom rather than regretful fear.
We all want to feel good about ourselves. Most of us, anyway. The problem is that the ones who have surrendered have surrendered completely. They've put it behind them and will not advocate for road cycling. I have not met a single quitter who said that they would take it up again if they noticed that conditions had improved. It falls to a shrinking group of experienced riders, augmented by younger people who are still in their riding phase, to keep a scrap of territory available to riders willing to face the existing reality and continue to promote proposals for its improvement.
The inexperience of those younger riders hampers their ability to understand the experience of cycling as the body ages. What was good enough for me in my twenties is out of reach to me in my sixties. It takes a bigger and bigger truck, going slower and slower, to get me to sprint it down. The degeneration has been gradual, but, because I have never stopped riding, I have been able to observe and document it. I guess I do all right for my age, but without the explosive power and grinding endurance I enjoyed from age 20 to about 50. And it shouldn't always be about exploring one's physical limits. Transportation and exploratory cycling should seldom be about exploring one's physical limits, or the limits of one's courage. It's okay for daily life to have a certain serenity.
To make this post self-contained, I have to acknowledge that motor vehicles have their uses. Time, distance, payload, and weather can all make a closed, motorized vehicle a better choice than something powered by human muscle. That has to factor into the system. When you need them, you need them. And what Edward Abbey called "motorized wheelchairs" can accommodate anyone who has decided that it's time to settle into their embrace.
Monday, September 25, 2017
September is Aggressive Driving Month
September Driver Aggression was a little late this year, probably because the protracted summer-like weather made it easy to forget that the month had arrived. It really hit this week, though.
One hallmark of autumnal aggression is impatience after sunset. I always get honked at more when I'm operating with the lights on, and the honks tend to be a little sharp. With the generator head and tail lights, and two additional blinkies to the rear, plus reflector leg bands, I'm not hard to see. But drivers seem pushier when they pass. This continues after September. On my route, it's worse on the secondary road between Route 16 and my home in the woods than it is on the highways or coming out of Wolfeboro.
I have not commuted anywhere but here since the late 1980s, so I don't know what other riders may experience. When I commuted year-round by bike in the Annapolis, Maryland area, between 1979 and 1987, the percentage of jerks seemed pretty stable, day or night, in any season. During my bike commuting period there, it was getting steadily more urbanized and sprawled out. Of course this new growth was designed around motor vehicles exclusively. There might be token signage and a bit of width designated for cyclists in a few places, but the motorists knew that they were the top predators in that food chain. I don't think any of my old racing buddies still ride around there anymore. When I would visit from up here, even though the motoring public actually seemed less aggressive than during the early 1980s, the traffic volume made riding stressful. To be dangerous, drivers don't have to be maliciously aggressive, just self-centered and unaware.
Drivers may think that a cyclist can't see them as well in the dark. The opposite is true: a motor vehicle has powerful floodlights on the front of it, and it still makes as much noise as ever. I hear them and I see them, or at least I see the light thrown by them.
The closer passing and increased tendency to honk make me think that drivers believe that the darkness cloaks their identity. I suppose that is somewhat true, since most people's license plate lights don't work. But I have a terrible time seeing into cars and trucks in daylight, let alone at night, because of the reflections on the glass. In a lot of developed countries, hitting a cyclist day or night is basically a freebie. They don't need to be cloaked. Reasonable doubt shines down on the whole encounter.
Since I've had close encounters in the dark even when the motorist and I were the only vehicles on a stretch of rural road with decent sight lines, I think that the darkness and seclusion might also stimulate predatory instincts in some borderline folks. And I'll bet that a lot of us are closer to that borderline than we will admit even to ourselves. A twitch of the steering wheel is all it takes to assuage a little impulsive blood lust. So a super low traffic volume is not necessarily a selling point.
I've mentioned before that I feel helplessly conspicuous, riding on a trail in the dark, with my bright lights making deep shadows outside their glare. When I don't need to be seen by others, night vision goggles would be the better choice. And here we go with another gear purchase. More likely I rely on statistical probability and just keep on with the visible illumination.
One hallmark of autumnal aggression is impatience after sunset. I always get honked at more when I'm operating with the lights on, and the honks tend to be a little sharp. With the generator head and tail lights, and two additional blinkies to the rear, plus reflector leg bands, I'm not hard to see. But drivers seem pushier when they pass. This continues after September. On my route, it's worse on the secondary road between Route 16 and my home in the woods than it is on the highways or coming out of Wolfeboro.
I have not commuted anywhere but here since the late 1980s, so I don't know what other riders may experience. When I commuted year-round by bike in the Annapolis, Maryland area, between 1979 and 1987, the percentage of jerks seemed pretty stable, day or night, in any season. During my bike commuting period there, it was getting steadily more urbanized and sprawled out. Of course this new growth was designed around motor vehicles exclusively. There might be token signage and a bit of width designated for cyclists in a few places, but the motorists knew that they were the top predators in that food chain. I don't think any of my old racing buddies still ride around there anymore. When I would visit from up here, even though the motoring public actually seemed less aggressive than during the early 1980s, the traffic volume made riding stressful. To be dangerous, drivers don't have to be maliciously aggressive, just self-centered and unaware.
Drivers may think that a cyclist can't see them as well in the dark. The opposite is true: a motor vehicle has powerful floodlights on the front of it, and it still makes as much noise as ever. I hear them and I see them, or at least I see the light thrown by them.
The closer passing and increased tendency to honk make me think that drivers believe that the darkness cloaks their identity. I suppose that is somewhat true, since most people's license plate lights don't work. But I have a terrible time seeing into cars and trucks in daylight, let alone at night, because of the reflections on the glass. In a lot of developed countries, hitting a cyclist day or night is basically a freebie. They don't need to be cloaked. Reasonable doubt shines down on the whole encounter.
Since I've had close encounters in the dark even when the motorist and I were the only vehicles on a stretch of rural road with decent sight lines, I think that the darkness and seclusion might also stimulate predatory instincts in some borderline folks. And I'll bet that a lot of us are closer to that borderline than we will admit even to ourselves. A twitch of the steering wheel is all it takes to assuage a little impulsive blood lust. So a super low traffic volume is not necessarily a selling point.
I've mentioned before that I feel helplessly conspicuous, riding on a trail in the dark, with my bright lights making deep shadows outside their glare. When I don't need to be seen by others, night vision goggles would be the better choice. And here we go with another gear purchase. More likely I rely on statistical probability and just keep on with the visible illumination.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
New England, where trends go to die
Fads and fashions in the rest of the country tend to take a while to reach northern New England. By the time they're hip and hot here, they're on the way out everywhere else. So here it is, 2017, and some idiot in a truck finally tried to roll coal on me as I rode to work on Sunday.
Rolling coal is the practice of setting up your diesel truck to spew out copious quantities of thick, black smoke in defiance of the prissy wussies who give a shit about clean air. It is childish, vindictive, and one of the clearest indications that the human species might as well kill itself off now as later.
After laying down a rather thin smokescreen, the brave road warrior appeared to try to tail-whip his truck at me, but he was too far past. Off he went in triumph, having put me in my place. I rode in the fumes for a half-mile or so before the air cleared or I got used to the higher pollution level.
I have to remind myself that evolution is a long-term thing, and that I have no control whatsoever over the outcome. A human lifespan is too short for the big trends to matter, unless your span happens to line up with a sudden accumulation of the consequences of a few generations of ignorance and greed. Even then, you can't do anything about it. If massed ignorance and greed wants to keep going, thoughtful people can do nothing but endure the spectacle of destruction that so many people seem to embrace and enjoy. As much as I feel a surge of rage at the antics of destructive idiots, I have to remember that human existence is itself pointless, and that life has been fairly cushy in spite of the looming collapse of a nation that has chosen to live up to its potential to be a nest of spoiled brats rather than the thoughtful, diverse and interesting culture that the advertising led us to believe was possible.
I can only hope that the arrival of coal-rolling in northern New England signals its rapid decline elsewhere, and that the trend here falters and dies out in the face of ingrained cheapness and practicality. When it comes to flamboyantly destroying motor vehicles, however, the famous New England frugality goes right in the crapper. The American love affair with smoke, flames, and loud noises overcomes any restraining convention in this age when restraint is scorned. And the belief that the best expression of freedom is to offend as many people as possible guarantees that offensive behavior will enjoy rampant popularity.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Another side to Trump supporters
In this year's dismal race for the presidency of the United States, supporters of Republican nominee Donald Trump have been portrayed as violent, bigoted, ignorant thugs. While he does seem to poll very well with that demographic, that makes my roadside observation all the more thought provoking.
You might expect a violent, bigoted, ignorant thug to drive in violent, bigoted, thuggish ways. But on my bike commute, where I am exposed to every passing vehicle, cars and trucks emblazoned with Trump stickers have been among the most careful and polite on the way by. That's not to say they have been the majority of the careful and polite, only that they have been notably so.
This fact does not shed any kinder light on the rhetoric and leadership potential of Trump, or the greater wisdom of his supporters. If I rode long enough on the right roads, I might well encounter some of the more violent and thuggish ones. But it does indicate that a significant number of the voters who have chosen The Donald in fact possess a level of human sensitivity that gets bleached out in the harsh stereotyping of political propaganda. Not only is this unfair to them, it also oversimplifies the issues any candidate -- and eventual leader -- needs to deal with. It turns diverse humanity into a homogenized lump, to love or loathe, to join or eradicate.
Beware the dehumanizers. Once you put all the bad stuff under a label and apply the label to a bunch of others, you can too easily develop a false sense of immunity to your own evil. You lose the ability to consider all the human psychology that leads to these concentrations of destructive tendencies.
Starting well before the Trump phenomenon, I have noticed exemplary passing behavior from people whose bumper stickers make me despair for the future of the human species. The stickers still make me despair for the future of the human species, because they reflect beliefs that are going to tear civilization apart, but in the meantime the people themselves seem strangely kind.
I don't know what I look like to a motorist. Maybe I'm so obviously a white guy that the bigots figure they'll cut me a break, even though I am clotting up the motorway with my bicycle.
Nearly everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. Maybe some of the more egregious sleazeballs know on a deeper level that they are fooling themselves, but at least they go to the trouble of rationalizing their behavior on a conscious level. The leaders who send their minions to do hideous, hopeless things tell their followers that it serves a greater good. The greater good of an evil cause is still evil, but below the leadership level it can be hard to sort out the level of zealotry in the ranks. The leaders might well be cynical manipulators, using their followers like toilet paper. The toilet paper stays neatly rolled in uniform squares, loyally waiting to be pulled off and expended.
The fact that Trump can appeal to people who are not violent, bigoted, ignorant thugs could help to propel the violent, bigoted, ignorant thugs to publicly visible levels of power, rather than functioning as the dark and deadly undercurrent they've been up to this point. More likely, they will be turned back at the election, and subside into the jagged landscape scarred by philosophical fault lines, to be forgotten until they snap. The fact that they are so numerous today proves that you cannot force people to evolve by mandating certain behaviors. You can stigmatize the behavior so that a wise bigot tries to blend in just to get by. Over time -- a very long time -- the quality of alienation may fade. But humans have many centuries invested in our differences, and really only decades in pursuit of something more inclusive.
You might expect a violent, bigoted, ignorant thug to drive in violent, bigoted, thuggish ways. But on my bike commute, where I am exposed to every passing vehicle, cars and trucks emblazoned with Trump stickers have been among the most careful and polite on the way by. That's not to say they have been the majority of the careful and polite, only that they have been notably so.
This fact does not shed any kinder light on the rhetoric and leadership potential of Trump, or the greater wisdom of his supporters. If I rode long enough on the right roads, I might well encounter some of the more violent and thuggish ones. But it does indicate that a significant number of the voters who have chosen The Donald in fact possess a level of human sensitivity that gets bleached out in the harsh stereotyping of political propaganda. Not only is this unfair to them, it also oversimplifies the issues any candidate -- and eventual leader -- needs to deal with. It turns diverse humanity into a homogenized lump, to love or loathe, to join or eradicate.
Beware the dehumanizers. Once you put all the bad stuff under a label and apply the label to a bunch of others, you can too easily develop a false sense of immunity to your own evil. You lose the ability to consider all the human psychology that leads to these concentrations of destructive tendencies.
Starting well before the Trump phenomenon, I have noticed exemplary passing behavior from people whose bumper stickers make me despair for the future of the human species. The stickers still make me despair for the future of the human species, because they reflect beliefs that are going to tear civilization apart, but in the meantime the people themselves seem strangely kind.
I don't know what I look like to a motorist. Maybe I'm so obviously a white guy that the bigots figure they'll cut me a break, even though I am clotting up the motorway with my bicycle.
Nearly everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. Maybe some of the more egregious sleazeballs know on a deeper level that they are fooling themselves, but at least they go to the trouble of rationalizing their behavior on a conscious level. The leaders who send their minions to do hideous, hopeless things tell their followers that it serves a greater good. The greater good of an evil cause is still evil, but below the leadership level it can be hard to sort out the level of zealotry in the ranks. The leaders might well be cynical manipulators, using their followers like toilet paper. The toilet paper stays neatly rolled in uniform squares, loyally waiting to be pulled off and expended.
The fact that Trump can appeal to people who are not violent, bigoted, ignorant thugs could help to propel the violent, bigoted, ignorant thugs to publicly visible levels of power, rather than functioning as the dark and deadly undercurrent they've been up to this point. More likely, they will be turned back at the election, and subside into the jagged landscape scarred by philosophical fault lines, to be forgotten until they snap. The fact that they are so numerous today proves that you cannot force people to evolve by mandating certain behaviors. You can stigmatize the behavior so that a wise bigot tries to blend in just to get by. Over time -- a very long time -- the quality of alienation may fade. But humans have many centuries invested in our differences, and really only decades in pursuit of something more inclusive.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
You'd be wise to stay out of the way
This video of a massive icebreaker cruising into Helsinki in the 1920s stirred up all kinds of thoughts and feelings.
The first thought was, "What is wrong with those idiots? Give that thing some room!" How could the crowding spectators know that the ice would not crack laterally, dumping them into the frigid water? How could the ones skipping beneath the bow know that they would not slip or trip and go for an unplanned dive beneath that charging hull? The propellors would not be kind.
It must have been amazing to stand that close to the beast as it cut through the ice. But it's also the stuff of nightmares.
Whoever was conning the ship wasn't wasting a lot of concern on the people clustered in the vessel's path. That kind of mass is not going to stop or swerve sharply. It was up to the crushable, but highly mobile, people on the ice to keep themselves from being crushed. If one or more had failed to evade, no one would have blamed the icebreaker's skipper and crew.
To the non-riding majority, we who ride our bicycles on the street look like the idiots playing chicken with that icebreaker. Whether an onlooker is rooting for us to fail or hoping that we don't, when a rider gets crushed it seems inevitable, unavoidable, and entirely the responsibility of the small person who should have known better than to impede the great machine. The critical differences are lost in the glaring and deceptive similarities. And not all the similarities are deceptive.
Machines like big ships and railroad locomotives don't have the maneuverability and stopping power of even a large tractor-trailer. The people running around that icebreaker knew it would not accelerate sharply or swerve abruptly. They could calculate its speed and direction intuitively. The little people and the big ship's crew seem unconcerned about each other because they can be. The disparity of the relationship imparts its own stability, barring an unfortunate crack in the ice.
Elements of traffic on a street, road, or highway are closer in size and highly variable in speed, mass, and maneuverability. The aquatic analogy is demonstrated on any crowded lake on a summer weekend: swimmers, paddlers, sailboats, and motorized vessels in a range of sizes dart around like water bugs. The biggest vessels move ponderously compared to the smallest, but everything is more fluid, if you will.
This summer, a bicyclist was crushed by a tractor trailer in Conway. The driver left the scene. The story was misleadingly reported in all media. Initially, the cyclist was portrayed as avid and experienced. The vehicle was not described. The stark facts were that a cyclist was run down and it was hit-and-run. As details emerged, the rider emerged as somewhat less than meticulous in his riding tactics. The truck driver may not have been aware that his vehicle hit someone. A cyclist has to know something about the limitations faced by drivers of various-size vehicles and take the initiative to stay out of danger zones as much as possible.
When drivers talk about cyclists on the road, some of them display a blanket prejudice, while a handful of others display an undiscriminating concern. In between are all the ones who sound like someone trying to describe how they're not a racist, but... They have my sympathy, because cyclist behavior plays a huge role in safety. It will not protect you from someone who has decided you deserve to be killed just for being out there, but it will keep you whole in nearly every other circumstance. Riders who do dumb things provide talking points for the haters and huge anxiety for the compassionate.
Dumb things. On one level, it's dumb to be out there at all, just as it was dumb to run right up to a massive icebreaker charging ahead with its bow designed to crush whatever is in its path. Let's assume also that none of those people needed to be out there to use the ice for their own purposes as the ship came through. That's a critical factor.
When we're using the roads we all pay for, we all have a stake in the infrastructure and deserve benefits from it. These are your tax dollars at work. The methods we use to move greater numbers of people and volumes of cargo have led to the different size vehicles using the public right of way, but it is public, and putatively designed for the use of all.
Debate simmers, seethes, and occasionally rages about who should be included in "all." Money drives. It has a disproportionate voice in design discussions. Meanwhile, in the real world, people find very good reasons to use a bicycle or to walk from place to place. Intelligent life is not always displayed by complete embrace of the most elaborate technology. But money talks. Whether we're talking about preserving the environment that supports all life, caring for the sick, or creating safe walking and biking accommodations in our entire transportation network, if you can't show a monetary gain you will not get anywhere. Tell me again about intelligent life?
A rider in traffic, or on a road where traffic could occur, takes a calculated risk. Any traveler takes a risk, but the cyclist or pedestrian is particularly exposed to other people's judgment. On the other hand, we are particularly free to bend and break rules to improve traffic flow and enhance our safety. It's a thoughtful dance at all times. We are also able to bend and break rules selfishly in ways that unnecessarily antagonize other users, whether we're on the street or a separated path. Bicyclists are in the middle, between those on foot and those in motor vehicles. Did you have any idea that something as simple as riding a bike brought such responsibility with it?
Responsibility is optional. Everything in life is optional. You may choose to stop, rot, and die at any time. You may choose to be a flaming asshole and call it a blazing torch of liberty. Responsibility can be ducked. It can be chucked. It can be ignored. We could go out in a blaze of selfish anarchy. The universe doesn't care. Why should you?
That's a question you have to answer for yourself. Evolution will note the results.
The first thought was, "What is wrong with those idiots? Give that thing some room!" How could the crowding spectators know that the ice would not crack laterally, dumping them into the frigid water? How could the ones skipping beneath the bow know that they would not slip or trip and go for an unplanned dive beneath that charging hull? The propellors would not be kind.
It must have been amazing to stand that close to the beast as it cut through the ice. But it's also the stuff of nightmares.
Whoever was conning the ship wasn't wasting a lot of concern on the people clustered in the vessel's path. That kind of mass is not going to stop or swerve sharply. It was up to the crushable, but highly mobile, people on the ice to keep themselves from being crushed. If one or more had failed to evade, no one would have blamed the icebreaker's skipper and crew.
To the non-riding majority, we who ride our bicycles on the street look like the idiots playing chicken with that icebreaker. Whether an onlooker is rooting for us to fail or hoping that we don't, when a rider gets crushed it seems inevitable, unavoidable, and entirely the responsibility of the small person who should have known better than to impede the great machine. The critical differences are lost in the glaring and deceptive similarities. And not all the similarities are deceptive.
Machines like big ships and railroad locomotives don't have the maneuverability and stopping power of even a large tractor-trailer. The people running around that icebreaker knew it would not accelerate sharply or swerve abruptly. They could calculate its speed and direction intuitively. The little people and the big ship's crew seem unconcerned about each other because they can be. The disparity of the relationship imparts its own stability, barring an unfortunate crack in the ice.
Elements of traffic on a street, road, or highway are closer in size and highly variable in speed, mass, and maneuverability. The aquatic analogy is demonstrated on any crowded lake on a summer weekend: swimmers, paddlers, sailboats, and motorized vessels in a range of sizes dart around like water bugs. The biggest vessels move ponderously compared to the smallest, but everything is more fluid, if you will.
This summer, a bicyclist was crushed by a tractor trailer in Conway. The driver left the scene. The story was misleadingly reported in all media. Initially, the cyclist was portrayed as avid and experienced. The vehicle was not described. The stark facts were that a cyclist was run down and it was hit-and-run. As details emerged, the rider emerged as somewhat less than meticulous in his riding tactics. The truck driver may not have been aware that his vehicle hit someone. A cyclist has to know something about the limitations faced by drivers of various-size vehicles and take the initiative to stay out of danger zones as much as possible.
When drivers talk about cyclists on the road, some of them display a blanket prejudice, while a handful of others display an undiscriminating concern. In between are all the ones who sound like someone trying to describe how they're not a racist, but... They have my sympathy, because cyclist behavior plays a huge role in safety. It will not protect you from someone who has decided you deserve to be killed just for being out there, but it will keep you whole in nearly every other circumstance. Riders who do dumb things provide talking points for the haters and huge anxiety for the compassionate.
Dumb things. On one level, it's dumb to be out there at all, just as it was dumb to run right up to a massive icebreaker charging ahead with its bow designed to crush whatever is in its path. Let's assume also that none of those people needed to be out there to use the ice for their own purposes as the ship came through. That's a critical factor.
When we're using the roads we all pay for, we all have a stake in the infrastructure and deserve benefits from it. These are your tax dollars at work. The methods we use to move greater numbers of people and volumes of cargo have led to the different size vehicles using the public right of way, but it is public, and putatively designed for the use of all.
Debate simmers, seethes, and occasionally rages about who should be included in "all." Money drives. It has a disproportionate voice in design discussions. Meanwhile, in the real world, people find very good reasons to use a bicycle or to walk from place to place. Intelligent life is not always displayed by complete embrace of the most elaborate technology. But money talks. Whether we're talking about preserving the environment that supports all life, caring for the sick, or creating safe walking and biking accommodations in our entire transportation network, if you can't show a monetary gain you will not get anywhere. Tell me again about intelligent life?
A rider in traffic, or on a road where traffic could occur, takes a calculated risk. Any traveler takes a risk, but the cyclist or pedestrian is particularly exposed to other people's judgment. On the other hand, we are particularly free to bend and break rules to improve traffic flow and enhance our safety. It's a thoughtful dance at all times. We are also able to bend and break rules selfishly in ways that unnecessarily antagonize other users, whether we're on the street or a separated path. Bicyclists are in the middle, between those on foot and those in motor vehicles. Did you have any idea that something as simple as riding a bike brought such responsibility with it?
Responsibility is optional. Everything in life is optional. You may choose to stop, rot, and die at any time. You may choose to be a flaming asshole and call it a blazing torch of liberty. Responsibility can be ducked. It can be chucked. It can be ignored. We could go out in a blaze of selfish anarchy. The universe doesn't care. Why should you?
That's a question you have to answer for yourself. Evolution will note the results.
Tuesday, July 05, 2016
When you can't please everyone...
I considered a post titled "Don't ride like an asshole," but I realized after a nanosecond's thought that riders who draw attention by flamboyantly anarchistic behavior are only the excuse that motocentric road users throw up to justify their hostility. Many bad habits that ignorant or stubborn riders use, like riding against traffic, are embraced by the motocentric, because they reinforce the stereotype of the wheeled pedestrian. Bike riders belong somewhere, anywhere, other than in the lane, taking up valuable space and demanding a traffic flow that respects their humanity. Humanity ends at the door handle, pal. Once the motorist is sealed in the capsule, the only things that count are horsepower and cunning.
People who are generically hostile to bike riders will take exception to nearly anything a rider does. Add this to the hostility between biking subcultures themselves and nothing ever gets fixed. And I don't imagine it ever will. No single solution or workable set of solutions will please everyone. The yammering will continue, with occasional blood drawn, mostly from riders who get caught in the crossfire.
The cellist and I were ordered off the road this morning, by a motocentrist in a shit brown and pond scum green step-side pickup truck coming the opposite way. He was defending the rights of the poor motorists I had trapped behind me while I waited for the oncoming truck to clear the lane. To their credit, the motorists behind me took it all calmly, and passed safely and methodically once the oncoming driver had made his statement and gone on. It reminded me that angry people with simplistic points of view can throw a little or a lot of tension into what should be simply a normal piece of traffic flow. The offended truck driver would say the cellist and I were taking excessive liberties because we did not wobble along the right rim of the pavement, allowing any driver to pass at any time. Good luck explaining anything to someone like that.
I do believe there is a right way to ride on the public streets. I just know better than to put it forward as the one true path. It IS the one true path, but my advocacy will not hasten its discovery. Its own truth will guide riders to it, if they ride for enough years. It's a wide path, with probably half a dozen One True Alternate Routes and a couple of dozen special exceptions, but it's true. Perhaps the growing population of people with riding experience will infiltrate the motoring population to the point where cooperative behavior becomes a reflex.
Many motorists already do remarkably well. But then, the fact that many places don't get shot up by a miserable attention whore with an assault rifle is little comfort when you are in the place where it happens. Same deal when you're riding along and you meet the wrong sorehead driver. There's no defense, really. You just have to keep living in a way that sets a good example, and hope it becomes the universal choice.
There is no battle. There is no war. There is only patient teaching, endurance, and luck.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
A time to herd, a time to let 'em run
Even with a massive investment in road improvements, a lot of places in this country will still have narrow roads shared by all users. Terrain, geology and well-established land uses encroach on rights-of-way.
On my commute, Route 28 gets narrow and bendy as it comes into Wolfeboro. The token shoulder disappears. In theory, no motorist can safely pass a cyclist without putting themselves and oncoming traffic at risk.
As I developed my own theories about traffic management a couple of decades ago, I started taking a position further and further into the lane. When the law in New Hampshire made that formally legitimate I experimented with strict herding in that twisty section.
After a couple of seasons I abandoned that method. It made impatient motorists do hideously dangerous things and cranked up the flame under hotheads. Now I ride to the far right through there. It's as close to serene as it will ever be. Granted, I've had some big stuff breeze past my elbow. But when I herded I still had some big stuff go by my elbow, and they weren't breezing.
I would rather have a driver skinny past me, knowing that they don't want to waste time on an accident, than have them seething behind me, wanting more and more to kill me. In nearly every case, I get a bit more room when I let them slide. Because the road is twisty, they aren't screwing around with their phones or other distractions. I figure my odds are about as good as they're going to get.
Further in, where the road straightens and is further constrained by curbs, I move back out into the lane to inhibit stupid passing behavior. The pitch of the road allows me to maintain a speed around 20 mph -- faster when I'm fresher -- so I don't feel like I'm imposing quite so much. Mind you, 20 mph in a car feels wretchedly slow, but soon enough we get to a wide place where I can release the herd to run freely again -- as freely as anything gets to run in Wolfeboro in the summer, anyway. What really happens is that I let them go and then hop in behind them as we all tool along at a very bikeable pace, with them happily in front of the "slower" vehicle.
In a region of narrow, country roads, I ride nearer the right than the center most of the time. I want to be in the forward field of view, even for someone with windshield-induced tunnel vision, with a little wiggle room to the right to ease a squeeze. That one's tricky, though. One squeezer at or near the head of a line can open the space for a convoy to come through in a flying wedge. Even with a rear-view mirror you can't always tell how many vehicles are building up back there. You have to watch the road ahead more than the reflected view. You also have to make some psychological assessments before you open -- or close -- the gate.
The simpler method is to hold that right-of-center, left-of-right position tenaciously. If a driver really pushes the point, use your wiggle room and look for a place to slingshot as many followers around you as you can.
When you get swept aside you may have to slow down a lot. In congested areas with driveways, intersections and parked cars, if you can't stay out in the flow you have to go slowly enough to be ready for ambushes from the side. I hardly encounter urban congestion at all. Where I do, I can keep up with the motor vehicles well enough to stay in the lane. In Wolfe City it's only for a few blocks. In the height of summer's crowds, a bike rider needs to be ready to stop in an instant anyway, because the next bonehead could come from any direction, on two wheels, four wheels, or walking.
On my commute, Route 28 gets narrow and bendy as it comes into Wolfeboro. The token shoulder disappears. In theory, no motorist can safely pass a cyclist without putting themselves and oncoming traffic at risk.
As I developed my own theories about traffic management a couple of decades ago, I started taking a position further and further into the lane. When the law in New Hampshire made that formally legitimate I experimented with strict herding in that twisty section.
After a couple of seasons I abandoned that method. It made impatient motorists do hideously dangerous things and cranked up the flame under hotheads. Now I ride to the far right through there. It's as close to serene as it will ever be. Granted, I've had some big stuff breeze past my elbow. But when I herded I still had some big stuff go by my elbow, and they weren't breezing.
I would rather have a driver skinny past me, knowing that they don't want to waste time on an accident, than have them seething behind me, wanting more and more to kill me. In nearly every case, I get a bit more room when I let them slide. Because the road is twisty, they aren't screwing around with their phones or other distractions. I figure my odds are about as good as they're going to get.
Further in, where the road straightens and is further constrained by curbs, I move back out into the lane to inhibit stupid passing behavior. The pitch of the road allows me to maintain a speed around 20 mph -- faster when I'm fresher -- so I don't feel like I'm imposing quite so much. Mind you, 20 mph in a car feels wretchedly slow, but soon enough we get to a wide place where I can release the herd to run freely again -- as freely as anything gets to run in Wolfeboro in the summer, anyway. What really happens is that I let them go and then hop in behind them as we all tool along at a very bikeable pace, with them happily in front of the "slower" vehicle.
In a region of narrow, country roads, I ride nearer the right than the center most of the time. I want to be in the forward field of view, even for someone with windshield-induced tunnel vision, with a little wiggle room to the right to ease a squeeze. That one's tricky, though. One squeezer at or near the head of a line can open the space for a convoy to come through in a flying wedge. Even with a rear-view mirror you can't always tell how many vehicles are building up back there. You have to watch the road ahead more than the reflected view. You also have to make some psychological assessments before you open -- or close -- the gate.
The simpler method is to hold that right-of-center, left-of-right position tenaciously. If a driver really pushes the point, use your wiggle room and look for a place to slingshot as many followers around you as you can.
When you get swept aside you may have to slow down a lot. In congested areas with driveways, intersections and parked cars, if you can't stay out in the flow you have to go slowly enough to be ready for ambushes from the side. I hardly encounter urban congestion at all. Where I do, I can keep up with the motor vehicles well enough to stay in the lane. In Wolfe City it's only for a few blocks. In the height of summer's crowds, a bike rider needs to be ready to stop in an instant anyway, because the next bonehead could come from any direction, on two wheels, four wheels, or walking.
Sunday, August 03, 2014
Nightmares and dreams come true
On Friday morning I pulled out of my driveway feeling unambitious. But when I pulled onto Elm Street I fell in behind a mini van stuck behind a road grader. The grader was in transit, not grading anything. As the motor vehicles accelerated into the 20s I tucked in behind the van and drafted along with them.
On the little rise beyond the Pine River Bridge the grader dogged out and the mini van yanked around it. Without thinking, I went with the breakaway and stayed behind the van. Without the grader to restrain it it rapidly dropped me. But now I was in front of the snorting yellow beast. And I was opening a gap, but for how long?
The driver of the grader did not seem inclined to push it, but he wasn't backing down, either. I didn't want to look back, so I just kept pushing. On the level I could hold my gap. On the climbs I could actually gain if I stayed on the edge of anaerobic. On the descents I just had to hope I could stay out enough to regain my lead when terrain worked in my favor.
The whole time I could hear the grumble of the monster chasing me, like something in a nightmare.
I made it to Route 16 and stopped at the gas company to pay my bill. When I came out the grader was just coming down 16. For a moment I considered sprinting out in front of him again, but I was afraid he might not share my sense of humor. I took an extra few seconds fiddling with my toe strap until he went by.
On the way out of Wolfe City on Saturday after work I got to witness a delectable bit of instant karma.
He
was not in sight at the end of Bay Street. I swept the right and
grunted to the crest of the downhill. I tucked and let it rip down
around the bend. There he was at the intersection. In fact, he was at
kind of a weird angle.
His car was stalled dead, right in the middle of the
intersection. He had traffic blocked in both directions. As I breezed
past him I said, "Wow, doesn't THAT suck!"
Waaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
A truly noble person would have stopped to help the driver push his derelict car out of the intersection, but I wasn't wearing my car-pushing shoes. Besides, such nobility is really self-aggrandizing anyway. Other motorists were already leaping out of their cars to help clear the street. The best thing I could do was get the heck out of there. I actually held my laughter until I was out of sight and earshot.
On the little rise beyond the Pine River Bridge the grader dogged out and the mini van yanked around it. Without thinking, I went with the breakaway and stayed behind the van. Without the grader to restrain it it rapidly dropped me. But now I was in front of the snorting yellow beast. And I was opening a gap, but for how long?
The driver of the grader did not seem inclined to push it, but he wasn't backing down, either. I didn't want to look back, so I just kept pushing. On the level I could hold my gap. On the climbs I could actually gain if I stayed on the edge of anaerobic. On the descents I just had to hope I could stay out enough to regain my lead when terrain worked in my favor.
The whole time I could hear the grumble of the monster chasing me, like something in a nightmare.
I made it to Route 16 and stopped at the gas company to pay my bill. When I came out the grader was just coming down 16. For a moment I considered sprinting out in front of him again, but I was afraid he might not share my sense of humor. I took an extra few seconds fiddling with my toe strap until he went by.
On the way out of Wolfe City on Saturday after work I got to witness a delectable bit of instant karma.
On Bay Street I pulled out to cover the lane because
there was oncoming traffic and I heard a car coming up behind me. The
car behind me, a little blue MG B, decided to cram his way through
anyway. Pretty ballsy move for a low-riding car with no top, but drivers
are not rational. I yelled something about how he should slow down and
wait, but he ignored me like a gnat.
I did not try to sprint him down, but I kept my speed up in case I got lucky and caught him.A truly noble person would have stopped to help the driver push his derelict car out of the intersection, but I wasn't wearing my car-pushing shoes. Besides, such nobility is really self-aggrandizing anyway. Other motorists were already leaping out of their cars to help clear the street. The best thing I could do was get the heck out of there. I actually held my laughter until I was out of sight and earshot.
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
A study in motorist psychology
If you want to understand a culture, live in it for a while.
I had not lived as a motorist since high school. I began my transition to predominantly cycling as I started college. Its advantages compounded over the years so that I came out of college car-free. Although motor vehicles made their way back into my life, I have considered myself a bicyclist who drives sometimes rather than the opposite.
This long, cold, snowy winter combined with other circumstances to make me a driver. I'm not proud of the tendencies that too easily turn me into a dickhead behind the wheel, but I'll use my own descent into hell to illuminate the psychology of the habitual driver.
Let's start by saying bluntly that there's no excuse for rude and dangerous piloting no matter what you're steering. I know myself well enough to head off the behavior even if I lack the spiritual advancement to avoid the desire to act impatiently or aggressively in the first place. But immersion in circumstances that inspire the feelings gives the analytical mind plenty to consider.
The average driver steeps in a broth of impatience. The situation that made me a driver this winter also made me concerned with scheduling. Transit time suddenly mattered more than it had for years. On the bike my travel time is very consistent. But in the car it can vary ten to 25 percent due to circumstances beyond my control. That's a significant range. So leave earlier. That's the simple answer. But what if the normal chaos of life delayed departure? We can still save this if everything goes right! Let's go!
Peel out of the driveway and the blockers move in. They take many forms. School busses are obvious. Stoners, texters and the inexplicable weavers, wobblers and wanderers mysteriously sprout from the very heaved and potholed pavement itself. Maybe an opportunity to pass comes up. Probably it does not. All the while I wish I was on my bike.
I don't live in a six lane highway kind of place. It's two lane blacktop, baby. Not that it makes a huge difference. We all know that more lanes just breed more traffic. The impatience that afflicts drivers acclimated to Gridlock Land probably springs more from the hideous realization that they're pissing away years of their lives sitting in traffic. That's right, buddy. You're growing old and dying in the driver's seat, delicately holding ridiculous horsepower to a crawl.
Cars represent independence to people. How ironic is that?
So the big revelation is that motorized transportation is a perfect breeding ground for judgmental resentment. Drivers judge each other. They act aggressively. And there we are, one more thing. And we're small, slow and without armor. Time to vent!
This is obvious. Obvious, obvious, obvious. But put yourself in that frame of mind. Really absorb the character of the undiluted habitual driver. After only about three months I could feel the beginning of a sense of entitlement trying to take hold. Think how pernicious the infection must be in people who act on impulse without questioning their motivation.
Generations have grown up with the automobile as an undebated necessity of life. Look both ways before crossing the street, kids. You don't want to get in the way of a driver! Let's get going! We want to get a good parking place. Road trip! Hippies started bike touring. Questionable people.
Argue all you want about the true demographics of cycling. Drivers don't see statistics through their windshield. They see things that might slow them down. You don't have to be the worst offender to draw their ire. You're an easy target. That's all that matters.
I had not lived as a motorist since high school. I began my transition to predominantly cycling as I started college. Its advantages compounded over the years so that I came out of college car-free. Although motor vehicles made their way back into my life, I have considered myself a bicyclist who drives sometimes rather than the opposite.
This long, cold, snowy winter combined with other circumstances to make me a driver. I'm not proud of the tendencies that too easily turn me into a dickhead behind the wheel, but I'll use my own descent into hell to illuminate the psychology of the habitual driver.
Let's start by saying bluntly that there's no excuse for rude and dangerous piloting no matter what you're steering. I know myself well enough to head off the behavior even if I lack the spiritual advancement to avoid the desire to act impatiently or aggressively in the first place. But immersion in circumstances that inspire the feelings gives the analytical mind plenty to consider.
The average driver steeps in a broth of impatience. The situation that made me a driver this winter also made me concerned with scheduling. Transit time suddenly mattered more than it had for years. On the bike my travel time is very consistent. But in the car it can vary ten to 25 percent due to circumstances beyond my control. That's a significant range. So leave earlier. That's the simple answer. But what if the normal chaos of life delayed departure? We can still save this if everything goes right! Let's go!
Peel out of the driveway and the blockers move in. They take many forms. School busses are obvious. Stoners, texters and the inexplicable weavers, wobblers and wanderers mysteriously sprout from the very heaved and potholed pavement itself. Maybe an opportunity to pass comes up. Probably it does not. All the while I wish I was on my bike.
I don't live in a six lane highway kind of place. It's two lane blacktop, baby. Not that it makes a huge difference. We all know that more lanes just breed more traffic. The impatience that afflicts drivers acclimated to Gridlock Land probably springs more from the hideous realization that they're pissing away years of their lives sitting in traffic. That's right, buddy. You're growing old and dying in the driver's seat, delicately holding ridiculous horsepower to a crawl.
Cars represent independence to people. How ironic is that?
So the big revelation is that motorized transportation is a perfect breeding ground for judgmental resentment. Drivers judge each other. They act aggressively. And there we are, one more thing. And we're small, slow and without armor. Time to vent!
This is obvious. Obvious, obvious, obvious. But put yourself in that frame of mind. Really absorb the character of the undiluted habitual driver. After only about three months I could feel the beginning of a sense of entitlement trying to take hold. Think how pernicious the infection must be in people who act on impulse without questioning their motivation.
Generations have grown up with the automobile as an undebated necessity of life. Look both ways before crossing the street, kids. You don't want to get in the way of a driver! Let's get going! We want to get a good parking place. Road trip! Hippies started bike touring. Questionable people.
Argue all you want about the true demographics of cycling. Drivers don't see statistics through their windshield. They see things that might slow them down. You don't have to be the worst offender to draw their ire. You're an easy target. That's all that matters.
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