by Gordon Black
Feature

Some Riders Are Weighed Down By The SR Factor

Photo by Tai LeeFollow the rules of the road and stop at red lights; it’s safer for all.
One of the great things about my job working for a bicycle advocacy organization is that I get to meet lots of people—bike riders of all kinds, politicians, members of the public. My job doesn’t involve wearing a sign inviting people to unburden themselves, but it seems to happen anyway. Sometimes the conversation goes like this: “I was driving home the other day when this guy on a bike shot through the intersection against a red light.” Or, “How come bicyclists sneak up the inside when there is a line of cars waiting at an intersection? I nearly hit someone who just appeared where I didn’t expect him to appear.”

Now, while I won’t proclaim myself a model citizen, I’m a reasonable fellow. I separate my recycling, compost my veggies, pick up trailside litter, bring sacks to the grocery store, pet dogs whose tails are wagging and follow 99 percent of traffic laws when I’m driving or riding. (Mea culpa—there is one uphill stop on my commute route that I slow for but don’t come to a complete halt at.)

Since I can’t in good conscience pressure politicians to better accommodate bicycling and spend more money on bike facilities without demonstrating good riding behavior myself, I’ve become a close observer of other riders’ road etiquette. Here’s what I have noticed: many of you stink. Not all of you, but more of you than should statistically be the case. You run stop signs, fail to signal, ride the wrong way on one-way streets, show discourtesy to pedestrians, jump ride lights and a host of other inappropriate road behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no apologist for the motoring public. Many drivers are lousy—drive too fast, too aggressively, too distracted and sometimes drunk.

But just because there is a universe of bad drivers out there doesn’t make it right for you to flout the rules of the road when you are riding your bike either. A case in point: I was driving a car and about to turn right on a rainy, dark morning. I was being careful to look for pedestrians even though I was turning onto a state highway and there are few walkers crossing the road there. As I was preparing to turn, a bicyclist who had run the light that had changed to red came barreling through the intersection. He was headed for the ferry to Seattle. I caught up with him on the ferry and mentioned that he might be wise to not run a light, especially on a dark and wet morning with low visibility. His response: “Wanted to make that ferry.”

He was clearly irritated by my suggestion that it would be safer to wait (he had plenty of time to catch the ferry) and then became somewhat sarcastic. In other words, he didn’t like having the truth pointed out. He behaved extremely foolishly and, had another driver not been as careful, there is a good chance he would have been hit. The brief exchange got me thinking about what I call the SR Factor: the self-righteousness of riders. Here’s a quick quiz to test your own SR Factor.

Which of the following statements best represents your view of the world?

The internal combustion engine is ruining the planet. Cars are stinky. Bikes are great and ...
A. Traffic laws are for car drivers.
B. Traffic laws can be interpreted flexibly when on a bike.
C. Traffic laws are to be obeyed by all road users.
D. What traffic laws?

Yeah, yeah, we’re rebels bucking the invasiveness of cars, raising a finger to convention and saving the planet, too. We’re healthy (drivers are not); we’re slender (drivers are fat); we’re active (drivers are lazy); we’re cool (drivers are not); we are The Answer (drivers are not).

It may come as a shock to some bike riders, but there are some members of the public that don’t quite have the same view of the world as they do. In a tone of reasonableness, let me offer some advice to those with high SR Factor—advice, incidentally, that I happily dispense to my teenaged daughter: get over yourself.

Members of the public don’t see self-styled saviors of the planet tooling a single-speed through streets clogged with the spawn of Big Oil and Detroit. They see scoff-laws with an attitude problem.
State laws in almost every part of the union give bicyclists the same legal rights as drivers of motor vehicles. There’s not a cyclist in the Northwest who doesn’t want car drivers to follow the laws of the highway—pass bicyclists safely, signal turns, scan for bike riders when making left turns, observe cross-walks, drive the speed limit, etc. Is it then not reasonable that bicyclists also follow the rules that we want those behind the wheel to obey?

It’s never too late to hone your skills as a model rider of road etiquette. Most car drivers who also bike are better drivers because they have a heightened sense of what it is like to be a bicyclist. All of those who ride should also put ourselves metaphorically in the driving seat and see the world also from that point of view. We all have to share the road together—it would be good to get along better.

[The correct response to the quiz question is C.]

Gordon Black is executive director of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington. Visit their website at www.bicyclealliance.org.

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