Cars vs. Bikes vs. Pedestrians

I’m not sure how many of my readers are DC-based, but every summer there’s an annual food fight between those who drive to work, those who bike to work, and those who walk to work. This year’s was sparked by the tragic deathof Alice Swanson, a biker run down by a garbage truck; over at DCist there are already more than 100 comments on the original post. People get really fired up by this sort of thing, and the arguments typically break down thusly:

• Car drivers hate bicyclists because they slow down the flow of traffic when they drive in the streets and have absolutely no regard for traffic laws; they also hate pedestrians because jaywalking is so rampant and peds often have the temerity to get upset when almost hit in a crosswalk
• Bicyclists hate car drivers because car drivers don’t understand that bikes have just as much right to be on the streets as cars; they also hate pedestrians because peds often have the temerity to complain about the fact that people doing 20+ mph on the sidewalk is probably unsafe
• Pedestrians hate car drivers (as well as Metrobuses), because the commuters/bus drivers in this city appear to try to hit them as they enter the crosswalk; they also hate bikers because of their haughty, uppity, ‘we-know-better-than-you’ attitude and their predilection for turning sidewalks into a BMX meet.

I think the proper response to every one of these arguments is: a pox on all your houses. Car drivers are almost certainly careless when it comes to bikes, which is bad, but they are such because bikes shouldn’t be on the road. There’s a very important truth about traffic, and it’s this: “Speed doesn’t kill–speed differential kills.” So, for example, when you have some idiot doing 50 in the left lane on a highway where the speed limit is 65 (and most everyone in the passing lane is doing 80), you’ve created a hazard; right or wrong, people will swerve around the blockage, and when people start cutting in and out of lanes you have problems. The same basic rule is at work with bikes: if you’re doing 15 mph and everyone else is doing 30 (cars on the streets), you’re causing problems; if you’re doing 15 mph and everyone else is doing 2 (pedestrians on the sidewalk), you’re causing problems. Combine that with the fact that I’ve never, ever, EVER seen a bike come to a complete stop at a red light or a stop/don’t walk sign, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Pedestrians: when a crosswalk sign is flashing the little red man, it means DON’T GET INTO OFF OF THE SIDEWALK. There are usually cars trying to make a right turn on green, and they use the little break in pedestrian traffic at the end of the cycle to do so. When you enter the sidewalk after the light starts flashing red, you’re causing gridlock. Get over yourselves and obey the traffic laws like drivers do.

Car drivers: your SUV can mow down anyone on a bike or on foot, we get it. Do us a favor, though, and look down from your mighty perch every once in a while (like, say, when you’re getting near a crosswalk), okay? That’d be great.

If everyone just obeyed the traffic laws, we’d all get along fine. They’re there for a reason.