Month: March 2011

by Rob Kasper
In the springtime bicyclists flood the streets, some hauling their bikes out of winter storage, other hardy souls simply changing their riding garb.
As the number cyclists increases, so do the chances of crashes. In Maryland over the last five years there was an average of 773 bicycle crashes resulting in 644 injuries and eight fatalities each year. Forty percent of these police-reported bicycle crashes occur in the late afternoon and evening, between four and eight o’clock. Twenty-four percent happen in Baltimore City. These data come from the State Highway Administration.
When a car and a bicycle collide, the cyclist always suffers. One of the most dangerous collisions result from the so called “right hook” turns in which a vehicle in front a cyclist makes a sudden right turn into the cyclist’s path. In the past year two incidents involving right hook turns in Baltimore resulted in the death of one cyclist and put another in a coma. John R. Yates was killed after he was crushed by a large truck making a right turn off Maryland Avenue onto Lafayette Ave., and Nathan Krasnopoler, a John Hopkins student, has yet to wake up after colliding with a car that made a right turn in front of him on University Parkway. In both cases the cyclists were traveling in bike lanes.
Motivated by these crashes and by the fact that police failed to cite the drivers of either vehicle, bike advocates are pushing for better laws and increased efforts to educate motorists about how to safely interact with cyclists.
This week in Annapolis, a manslaughter bill that bike advocates say is designed to stop motorists involved in fatal bicycle crashes from getting off with a minor traffic court violation, cleared the House of Delegates and was sent to the Senate. This legislation would give prosecutors another option for charging motorists who cause fatalities by driving in a criminally negligent manner while sober. The offense would still be considered a misdemeanor and would carry a maximum penalty of three years in prison and/or a fine no higher than $3,000.
This is a more sensible approach to the current options of a prosecutor either sending the case to traffic court or charging a motorist with the difficult to prove felony manslaughter, subject to a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
While enacting a misdemeanor manslaughter law makes sense and follows the modern penal code used by many other states, it alone won’t improve bike safety. The possibility that a negligent motorist might face a stiffer penalty than traffic court advances the cause of justice, but it is unlikely by itself to make drivers more cognizant of bicyclists, and that is what it will take to make our roads safer.
Education and publicity are the most effective tools we have. One idea, offered up by the cycling group Bike Maryland, is for state motor vehicle administration to include a sheet in driver’s license renewal forms that would spell out how to safely pass cyclists, reminding them to give cyclists at least three feet of clearance when passing, in accordance to a state law passed last year, and not to drive, park or stop in designated bike lanes. Putting more signage on roadways heavily used by cyclists is another smart suggestion. Training police officers on the rights of cyclists is yet another.
This is a two-way street, and cyclists have to do their part by following the rules of road, including obeying traffic signals, giving clear hand signals, wearing bright clothing and when riding after dark and equipping their bikes with strong lights. Veteran cyclist advises fellow riders to assume that they are invisible to cars and to make to plans to react to motorists’ movements.
There are many types of cyclists and motorists on our roads, those who follow the rules and those who flaunt them. The rule breakers ride at their peril. Guidelines for how the rest of the motorists and cyclists should share the road need to be clearly stated and regularly repeated. Both groups have the rights to use the roads and both need to be accountable for their actions.
Continue reading “A call for better bicycle safety”

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”