Impeding Traffic: Looking at the bigger picture
Throughout the Detroit suburbs, cyclists can expect to hear the occasional verbal assault from motorists. The typical theme is “you don’t belong on the road” or “you’re in my way.”
Clearly state law says that cyclists have the same access to all Michigan roads except limited-access highways.
Some argue that since cyclists can’t travel at the speed limit, they shouldn’t be on the road and that bicycles impede traffic. But courts have dismissed that argument since it would effectively ban bicycles (and pedestrians, pack-animals, farm machinery, Amish wagons, etc.) from all roads.
But are motorists really that concerned about being occasionally slowed due sharing the road with cyclists? How much time do Metro Detroit motorists “lose” to cyclists on the roads?
Rather than attempt to answer that question, it’s perhaps more important to step back and judge all the issues that delay motorists.
How much time do motorists lose to:
- Road construction
- Stop lights and stop signs
- Speed limits
- Rush hour traffic
- School buses loading and unloading children
- At-grade train crossings
- Inclement weather
- Emergency vehicles
- Slow downs due to vehicle crashes
- Other cars on the road
Motorists’ time lost to bicyclists is certainly minor compared with most of these. So are these same motorists yelling at school buses and emergency vehicles to get off the road? It seems that if they were so consumed with decreasing their travel delays, they’d focus on the issues causing the biggest delays.
And speaking of travel delays, this past week an apparently careless driver caused a horrific tanker explosion on I-75 which caused over a $1 million in damage and has left the expressway closed for days. This portion of I-75 carries 160,000 vehicles per day and the closure is causing many minutes of delay per vehicle.
This single crash has likely caused more motorist delay than all the cyclists in Metro Detroit combined — ever.
That certainly helps put this all in perspective.
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Tags: impeding traffic, road rage
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July 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
It comes down to perceptions of relative power. Bikes are smaller than cars, so drivers feel comfortable yelling at cyclists. The underlying (and unacknowledged) thought is, “He’s smaller than me, so I can verbally or even physically abuse him without risk.” That’s not so with tanker trucks, SUVs, the weather, or road construction. I know bike paths are controversial among some cyclists, but separating cars and bikes and is a highly effective way of correcting the power imbalance. We aren’t in their way and they can’t kill us — done deal.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:34 pm
latron, I agree with your perception point. The problem with paths is that none are totally separate. They all intersect roads. Many paths or sidewalks in Metro Detroit have far more intersections with little or no design consideration for sight lines compared with roads. And for those paths within road right of ways, half of the time they encourage traveling against traffic. In reviewing bicycle crash information for cities like Royal Oak and Troy, nearly all of them occur on separated facilities or in crosswalks. They rarely occur on roads.
February 21st, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Cars, bicycles, trucks everyone has equal rights to use the roads. I will not get out of their way or respond to stupid horns. Vehicles that act like vehicles get treated like vehicles…bottom line.