Category: Biking in Maryland

For many, rules were never taught in driver’s ed
By Michael Dresser, The Baltimore Sun
A bicyclist is riding in a designated bike lane on the right side of a city street. You are in a car traveling in the same direction in the adjacent travel lane. You want to make a right turn into a driveway or at an intersection where you don’t have a stop signal. What to do?
A: Come to a stop in your current lane, wait for the bicyclist to clear the driveway or street and then turn.
B: Accelerate enough to just get past the bicycle, flash a signal and make a right turn in front of it.
C: After signaling, merge into the bike lane behind the bicycle, slow down and make the turn from the bike lane.
D: Honk to alert the bicyclist to your intentions, then signal and turn from current lane.
E: "I didn’t see that bicyclist, Officer. I swear he came out of nowhere."
For the record, the best choice is C. Choosing A probably won’t hurt anyone but still involves crossing the bike lane (a serious mistake if there’s a second bicycle trailing). B and D could have catastrophic results for the bicyclist. E is the story behind many a fatality.
Chances are, you never saw a question like this on your driver’s license exam. Most likely, the subject of interacting with bicycles got short shrift in your driver’s ed class. Back in the last Ice Age, when I was learning to drive, we saw plenty of gory Ohio Highway Patrol films, but none of them involved what happens to a bicyclist when a driver gets the answer above wrong in a real-world test.
Few of us would stand for being forced to take a refresher course in the rules of the road. Such a proposal would be hooted out of the General Assembly.
But the truth is, many of us could use such a bit of midlife education in the things our driving instructors failed to mention. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the devastating consequences of clumsy interactions between motor vehicles and bicycles.
The dangers were brought home to Baltimore again last month when Nathan Krasnopoler, a 20-year-old Johns Hopkins University student, collided with a car making a right turn in front of him on University Parkway. It’s a type of crash known to bicyclists as a "right hook" — and it can have deadly consequences.
Krasnopoler’s case has been about as close to a fatality you can get and still have a breathing person. He sustained grievous injuries and remained in a coma last week. The crash remains under police investigation, but it has prompted a lawsuit against the 83-year-old driver, alleging that she broke multiple traffic rules while turning into a driveway.
Whether that driver was negligent or not, there is a right way and several wrong ways of making a right turn alongside an occupied bike lane. It can be confusing, though, since the rules differ from state to state.
Peter Moe, bicycle coordinator in the Office of Highway Safety of the State Highway Administration, said the most important step for drivers to avoid a right hook is to be constantly aware of nearby bicycles.
Moe said that while bike lanes are not for motor vehicle travel or parking, they aren’t sacrosanct. In Maryland, it’s OK for a driver to use them as part of an imminent turning maneuver. But if there’s a bike in the lane, it’s up to the driver to make absolutely sure there’s enough space to merge into it safely.
"If there’s any doubt if there’s enough room, wait and let the bicyclist pass," he said. "Whenever you cross a bike lane, either to move over or initiate the right turn, you have to yield to the cyclist."
Generally, cutting across a bicycle lane to turn is a bad idea. Moe said it’s easy for drivers to misjudge how fast bicycles are traveling. They’re often moving at 20 mph-25 mph — or as fast as a car in city traffic.
Honking is bad driving in most cases, but especially around bicyclists. It’s dangerous to startle anyone on the road, but it’s especially hazardous for people on bikes.
The best way to communicate with bicyclists is with signals. Moe is adamant on that point:
"Drivers MUST MUST MUST MUST (a thousand times) USE THEIR SIGNALS," he wrote. "Drivers have to communicate their intention so that bicyclists can adjust accordingly. Bicyclists need to do the same thing. It’s all a part of riding/driving predictably, communicating and negotiating with everyone else on the road."
Some bicyclists, by the way, might erroneously think of the entire bike lane as theirs. When they come upon a car in the bike lane in front of them, waiting to turn right, the worst thing they can do when going straight ahead is to pull alongside the car even farther to the right. The correct move is to pull up behind the car and wait for it to proceed.
Moe said some progress is being made in driver’s education as far as covering interactions with bicycles. He said the Motor Vehicle Administration is including bike-related questions on its licensing test and covering bicycle rules in its manual.
Sometimes, it’s those of us who learned how to drive decades ago who are more of a menace than young people.
I see it all the time in my mail: rants from obviously middle-aged or older drivers who are convinced bicyclists have no place on the road.
But the law says differently. And until that changes, the least drivers of any vintage can do is learn how to make a safe right turn when a bicycle is present.
Pay attention. Signal. Yield. Avoid turning across a bike lane.
And Moe points out something else to keep in mind:
"Bicyclists are people. They’re not objects."
Remember that, and the rest is easy.
Continue reading “Getting There: Right turns and bikes mean danger”

A few weeks ago a 20-year-old Johns Hopkins student was riding his bicycle in the bike lane on West University Boulevard in Baltimore when a car turned right across the bike lane, heading toward a driveway. The bicyclist, Nathan Krasnopoler, ended up under the car, and in critical condition. He’s recovering, but the incident underscores the questions: Despite laws it has passed, how bikeable is Maryland – and what would it take to improve safety for all Marylanders on the roads.
Stu Sirota is an urban planning consultant and president of TND Planning Group, a Towson-based firm that designs and plans walkable, bikable, and transit-friendly communities. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Bike Maryland, a statewide bicycle advocacy organization. We talk with him about how bike friendly Maryland actually is and what can be done to improve transit for all commuters.
Listen to the broadcast: https://mdmorn.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/3-18-11-how-best-to-bike/

From Jeffery Marks
Your column is convincing me that right turn on red should be greatly restricted. Your argument that allowing right on red leads to a continuous flow of traffic that makes it dangerous for pedestrians, cars, and bicyclists to cross is excellent. I can relate to that on Pk Heights. I find it much easier and safer to cross Pk Heights at Clarinth (whether on bike, foot, or car) during the school day when Fallstaff has no right turn on red than after 4pm when rights on red are permitted. I agreee with you. One needs gaps in traffic to cross Park Heights. Traffic engineers tend to only think about whether allowing right on red causes crashes at the intersection and neglect the dangers to traffic trying to cross the main street a block or two away.
Reference: "Dangerous" NYC intersections for peds are tame by Maryland standards https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110322171239729

As many of you know I am in NYC right now and I was surprised to see Bike Snob highlight an intersection that is near my new apartment as "unsafe." While by New York City standards this is a messed up intersection but it’s far safer then most Maryland intersections I’ve walked as a pedestrian in Maryland.
Why is that? The number one reason is there is no right-on-red here. There are (usually) no cars blocking the crosswalk and 99.9% of the cars stop for you when you start to cross. No Maryland style honking or "I’ll run your foot over if you don’t let me hurry past you." or other aggressive driver moves.
Yet traditionally Maryland does not eliminate right-on-red to improve safety for pedestrians. And further there is no benefit for the motorized transportation network as a whole in allowing right-on-red (unless there are a lot of people travelling in clockwise circles) as any benefit at one light gets canceled when you wait at the next light and then there is the other people downstream from the right-on-red trying to pull out/in to driveways that now have to wait for traffic traveling at lower density then queued traffic (they have to wait longer for fewer cars.)
All right-on-red does is exasperate impatience and encourage more jackrabbit starts. Yet Maryland says we "need" to keep right-on-red while our pedestrian fatality rate is refusing to go down while our other crash stats are.
Continue reading “"Dangerous" NYC intersections for peds are tame by Maryland standards”

from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space by Richard Layman
…
What I think is inexcusable is that the BRAC process fails to consider transportation impacts and fails to provide funding to mitigate the transportation impacts and needs it creates. Where’s the editorial about that?
First, the BRAC military base consolidation process specifically ignored transportation impacts of changes in the location of military installations.
…
Continue reading “BRAC – More transportation problems”

Via Stop the Maryland Unsafe Driver:
Md. woman sentenced to more than 4 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in car crash :: The Republic
According to trial evidence, more than two hours after the crash, a blood sample obtained by authorities indicated a blood alcohol level of .09 percent. Maryland’s blood alcohol limit is .08.
https://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StopTheMarylandUnsafeDriver/~3/xGcIdYcX3aI/

from Stop the Maryland Unsafe Driver by Driver
Fatal crashes at intersections with traffic lights are up in Virginia but declined over the last five years in Maryland and the District, a new report shows, and experts credit the use of red-light cameras for the drop.
via Fatal crashes up in Va., down in D.C., Md. | Ben Giles | Virginia | Washington Examiner.
(You know of course what this implies Maryland? You’re not smart enough to drive safely You require mother government to force you into rational behavior.
We believe Marylanders might be smarter than this. What do you think?)
Continue reading “Fatal crashes up in Va., down in D.C., Md. | Ben Giles | Virginia | Washington Examiner”

“Both traffic crashes that involve pedestrians and injuries suffered by pedestrians have declined in Maryland in each of the last three years.” – Beverley K. Swaim-Staley Secretary of Transportation

So while pedestrian injuries have gone down 10%, what she fails to mention is that pedestrian fatalities have gone up 20%. But what’s even more alarming is how Maryland compares to other states:

2006 The base year (Note: A rank of 1= the highest pedestrian fatality rate.)

2007 The first year

2008 The second year

2009 The third year

MY MAIN POINTS MISSED BY MDOT: Please do MORE. Please make BIKE/PED FEDERAL AID EASER for the LOCALITIES to obtain for projects that are designed to reduce bike/ped crashes. OTHER STATES are improving faster then Maryland.

I would ask you to write but it seems MDOT is more interested in covering their rear ends then making measurable improvements with an implied “We don’t look at traffic fatalities, just crashes. If more people are dying in fewer crashes then that’s a good thing. ” The suggestion of writing to Tom Hicks, Director of Traffic and Safety personally I find offensive. The guy should have retired several decades ago with his 1950 road safety mentality. Not to mention being the runner up for the prestigious award of “The Most Ludicrous Statement by a Public Official on Bike/Ped Issues” with his opposition to bicyclists having the right-of-way in bike lanes in 2009 because of “The problem of striping a bike lane through an uncontrolled intersection.” (A fictitious joining of unlikely to happen striping with rare intersection type.) (To be fair at least Delaware cyclists like him.)

On the left: Tom Hicks, Director of Traffic and Safety — Michael Jackson, Director of Bicycle and Pedestrian Access – on the right.

…with an implied “We don’t look at traffic fatalities, just crashes. If more people are dying in fewer crashes then that’s a good thing. “

Maybe it is unfair of me to put words in someone’s mouth but how do you address the continued avoidance of answering the hard questions. What am I to think about the redirection from fatalities to injuries. What am I to think about the mention of Maryland’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan and how it is supposed to address these issue but there is no mention of pedestrians nor bicyclists on this page. On further reading the SHSP has some “idealistic” mention of improving pedestrian safety but with no mention how money is supposed to get this stuff on to the ground to make things better. A plan with no funding is the same as no plan at all. One way we have tried to do that is by law and to create Bicycle-Pedestrian Priority Areas and finally after a decade we get one and just one in an area with a low pedestrian fatality rate (Montgomery County.)

Current 5 year bike/ped project plans are probably at an all time funding low but the real issue is most of these projects DO NOT address reducing bike/ped crashes nor are they in areas of high pedestrian fatality rates. Is this a problem of the localities not willing to spend the money on improving the situation or MDOT in administrating Federal funds for bike/ped safety is just not willing to spend Federal money on this issue? (To be clear MDOT is under obligating all Federal funds that could be used to help problem areas, sans Safe Routes to School but that is a very tiny pot.)

The Secretary also mentioned crosswalk sting operations, are there pedestrian sting operations going on in Montgomery County? Sure but in Baltimore County we just ticket j-walkers. Again note the difference in pedestrian fatality rates between the two counties.

Overall the Secretary seems to be saying MDOT is doing something, for sure but there is a world of difference between doing things that have PROVEN to be effective and doing things that blame the victim. Further reading: Blaming the pedestrian won’t solve the problem.

Read more for the Secretary’s letter.
Continue reading “Secretary of Transportation Responds – Things have gotten better in the last three years”

from TheWashCycle by washcycle

WABA reports that PG County Executive Rushern Baker’s transition team wants to remove M-NCPPC from the review process of roads in an effort to make the process more efficient. DPW&T would do all of the reviews on their own.

To minimize the ability of [M-NCPPC]’s qualified bike and pedestrian planners to provide input on the need for road improvements and the nature of those improvements is to undermine the very improvements in bicycle and pedestrian connectivity and livable, sustainable development that County Executive Baker has extolled.

DPW&T remains, by and large, a traditional, automobiles-first transportation agency, and has been reluctant to take the steps necessary to improve roadways for the benefit of cyclists–even going so far as to recommend that a cyclist not travel a certain roadway in the county with his child due to its unsafe conditions, while refusing to make improvements.

Hopefully Baker will not follow this recommendation (and will add a bike/ped coordinator position at DPW&T).

Continue reading “PG County wants to remove bike/ped planners from road review process”

A few comments; not all Transportation Enhancement Funding has been spent on bike/ped through 2010 only $79,641,268 has been spent on bike/ped. To get a rough idea of how much sales tax cyclists have contributed over the same time span, Retail sales * 17 * 5% = $84,430,500 and this is only one small aspect of the benefit cycling brings to Maryland.

Continue reading “Biking and Walking in Maryland”