This article is not meant to either condone or disparage Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD). We can all agree that the safety of cyclists is improved when there fewer impaired drivers on the roads.

One way to reduce the number of impaired drivers is to provide transportation choices beyond cars. Impaired individuals on buses, light rail, bicycles, and foot don’t kill other people. (Of course, being impaired can make it easier to hurt yourself.)

A MADD newsletter concurs: “Europeans do have fewer alcohol-related traffic crashes, probably because they walk and take mass transit (such as the bus, train, or subway) much more often than Americans.”

So it seems MADD should be on board pushing public transit, Complete Streets, and more — but that doesn’t appear to be the case. It’s not part of their four part campaign to eliminate drunk driving nor have they taken any official positions on these topics.

It should be noted that five of their six platinum sponsors are automotive-related, including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, General Motors, Nationwide Insurance, State Farm Insurance, and Toyota.

Does that take the any discussion of reducing vehicle use off the table?

But MADD is not alone on this. Michigan’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan makes the same oversight. None of their strategies to reduce alcohol/impaired driving involve making it easier for people to drive less.

Mt. Pleasant is a little outside of m-bike’s geographic range, but this recent editorial in the Morning Sun really speaks to an issue we face in Metro Detroit.

MDOT, instead of looking back at its storied past and pulling solutions out of the 1950s, needs to look to the future. The future is something called a complete street – with places for pedestrians and bicycles as well as motor vehicles.

Instead of cranking up the speed, a complete street calms the traffic. Instead of forcing people to zap across multiple lanes of traffic to make turning movements, it allows them to flow naturally.

It’s an unconventional solution, but it works. It’s not surprising that MDOT has been reluctant to propose an unconventional answer, because unconventional ideas don’t seem to go over real well in Michigan.

In Metro Detroit the issue has been less with MDOT and more with cities and road commissions, such as the Road Commission for Oakland County. They give vehicle mobility a higher priority than safe bicycling and walking.

But the Michigan Complete Streets movement is starting to take hold. Cities like Lansing and Flint are leading the way.

We certainly could use more Complete Streets editorials like the Morning Sun’s.

Senate Bill 276, aka the Fuzzy Dice Bill, passed the Michigan Senate unanimously.

According to the Detroit News:

Fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror would no longer be outlawed under a bill that won passage in the Senate today.

The chamber voted unanimously for a measure that strikes down a law that says items dangling from the rearview mirror are a no-no.

“We understand there are many distractions in cars, such as cell phones or GPS systems, but we did not feel that a rosary or air freshener was in the same league,” said Sen. Ron Jelinek, R-Three Oaks, sponsor of the bill. “This will help make it legal to do what thousands of Michigan residents already do — hang a memento from their mirror.”

Great job!

Now let’s look at some bicycle safety bills the Michigan Senate has not passed or voted on.

• Senate Bills 529 & 530 which “enhance penalties for moving violations causing physical injury or death to bicyclists and other vulnerable roadway users” according to the League of Michigan Bicyclists.
• Senate Bill 531 which stipulates that driver education “shall include information concerning the laws pertaining to bicycles and shall emphasize awareness of the operation of bicycles on the streets, roads, and highways of this state.”

Bicycle advocates in the state of Washington are also pursuing a Vulnerable User Bill. (Seattle PI via How We Drive)

Advocates for a new law argue that families of those killed or maimed deserve greater sense of justice than a traffic ticket brings. However, a conviction for negligent driving doesn’t carry much steeper punishment. Typically, a first-time offender gets probation or a deferred sentence.

“Do they need an automatic license suspension or do they need driver retraining. These are the questions that we should ask,” Hiller said. He noted that people who don’t control their vicious dogs face more criminal culpability than drivers for negligence behind the wheel.

We’re not sure if that last sentence is true in Michigan.

But, if the Michigan House and Governor follow the Senate’s lead, fuzzy dice will be safe again Michigan.

A common message from bicycle organizations and advocates is bicyclists must follow all the rules of the road.

We believe that those who stand firm by that message (a) aren’t doing as they say, or (b) don’t live in urbanized areas with stop signs on every other residential block, which makes cycling impractical. This message is the easy way out since it puts the burden on bicyclists.

Instead, that message needs to be turned around. It should be that we need to change the rules of the road and our road infrastructure to better accommodate bicycling. This message requires more effort and puts the primary burden on bicycle advocates and local governments.

We’ve already highlighted one change to the rules of the road that would be highly beneficial to bicycling: rolling stops. Rolling stops could improve cycling safety according to a recent BBC article, which notes that “an internal report for Transport for London concluded women cyclists are far more likely to be killed by lorries because, unlike men, they tend to obey red lights and wait at junctions in the driver’s blind spot.”

And, you can’t have group bike rides without rolling stops.

Stop signs don’t calm traffic

One beneficial change to the road infrastructure includes removing unnecessary stop signs in residential neighborhoods.

Most of these signs were installed because there was a perception that it would slow speeding motorists. Studies show that that perception is wrong. Motorists actually speed more between stop signs to make up the time lost to stopping — actually only slowing in most cases. These stop signs are not warranted according to state and federal guidelines. They waste fuel, create more pollutants, and help create more noise.

And in most cases, these stop signs are irrelevant for cyclists. We’re not the ones speeding through the residential streets and putting children, pets, and pedestrians at risk. Cyclists, pedestrians, horses, and street cars were doing fine for 36 years without any stop signs. Stop signs were invented in Detroit in 1915 to deal with the mass adoption of motor vehicles.

Removing stop signs

Yesterday’s Free Press has an article on cities removing stop signs in residential areas. Livonia has removed an estimated 1,500 stop signs. Other cities are doing the same, though to a lessor extent.

Grosse Pointe Woods has removed 18 stops signs since November, and Livonia police Sgt. Dave Studt, the person in charge of his city’s traffic bureau, said Farmington Hills and Novi have expressed interest in Livonia’s efforts.

“By removing these stop signs, we’ve just made it safer for a pedestrian to cross the road,” Studt said. He noted that drivers tend to roll through intersections without stopping completely when a street is oversigned or they speed between stop signs in order to make up time.

He said signs are removed only where they are unwarranted because of traffic flow and other factors.

As a member of the Traffic Safety committee in Royal Oak, we see a half dozen requests for new residential stop signs annually. What the residents really want is a means for slowing speeding motor vehicles while reducing cut-through traffic and noise. On some streets, the majority of motorists are speeding. Royal Oak does not have the resources to police this. The residents need real traffic calming solutions, like neckdowns and roundabouts. Those can be implemented in ways that accomodate bicycling.

Menace to Society

Distracted driving by motorists certainly has gotten much media coverage of late due to a recent national summit. The Detroit News reported yesterday:

Secretary Ray LaHood kicked off a two-day summit on distracted driving this morning, calling it a “menace to society” and a “deadly epidemic.”

LaHood wants to crack down on texting behind the wheel and other activities that take drivers’ focus from the road as the government issued a report that said 6,000 deaths last year were linked to distracted driving.

We agree. Distracted driving is a menace to society and the ones who are most likely to pay the price are the most vulnerable: cyclists and pedestrians.

What we haven’t seen in print is the role road agencies play in accommodating distracted driving. Groups like the Road Commission for Oakland County provide wider roads and remove roadside trees in the name of safety. This PBS article discusses recent studies that show these forgiving roadways in more built up areas actually decreases safety.

Unwilling to accept Responsibility

According to the AAA Foundation, motorists have a “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” attitude.

American motorists blame other motorists for unsafe driving, despite the fact many admit to doing the same dangerous practices themselves, according to a new report out today by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. For example, Americans rated drinking drivers as the most serious traffic safety issue, yet in the previous month alone, almost 10 percent of motorists admitted to driving when they thought their blood alcohol content was above the legal limit.

And that same AAA study found:

• 82 percent of motorists rated distracted driving as a serious problem, yet over half of those same individuals admitted to talking on the cell phone while driving in the past month, and 14 percent even admitted to reading or sending text messages while driving.
• Over seven out of ten motorists rated red light running as a serious problem, yet over half of those same individuals admitted to speeding up to get through yellow lights, and 5 percent even admitted to having run a red light on purpose in the past month.
• Nearly three out of every four motorists rated speeding as a serious problem, yet 40 percent of those same individuals admitted to driving 15 mph or more over speed limit on the highway in the past month, and 14 percent even admitted to having driven 15 mph or more over the limit on a neighborhood street.

Since this is a self-reporting survey, the numbers are likely under reported.

Need further proof? WCBS has video coverage of the distracted driving issue, which includes their reporter driving while reporting! (via Streetsblog)

Blaming Bicyclist Behavior

Clearly a significant number of motorists practice unsafe driving habits and either fail to recognize it or take responsibility for it. They are an unreliable source for opinions on road safety.

It seems this is lost on some bicycle advocates and organizations who tell us that bicyclists must earn the respect of motorists. This is pure nonsense.

Bicyclists that practice unsafe cycling or who break the “rules of the road” are not a menace to society. They rarely if ever cause harm to other road users. The safety priority needs to be placed on motorists and road designers.

We need to ensure our road agencies design safer, livable roads that require the driver’s attention.

For perspective, today a motorist ignored a bus stop sign and hit two school children in Rochester Hills. From a safety standpoint, this single crash is perhaps more egregious than the sum of all objectionable Michigan cyclist behavior — ever.

Any focus on bicyclist behavior must be redirected to the real menace to society.