This article is excerpted from an article at Arlington Transportation Partners.
Not too long ago, I was biking down 14th Street and was halfway doored by an SUV that had pulled partially into the bike lane to drop off some passengers. I say halfway because I was able to slow my speed enough that the impact wasn’t completely jarring and only caused me to fall in the sense that I stepped through the frame and did that little hop-jump landing.
The passenger who opened the door did ask if I was okay and apologized, but I was so rattled that all I could manage to say was “You have to be more careful!” In reality, my adrenaline was pumping so hard that I wanted to curl into a little ball, as I was terrified of what had happened.
After I arrived at my destination and the adrenaline cooled, a thought I’ve had for the last few months, came bubbling up to the top:
The vast difference in driver education and biking/pedestrian education is what causes this rift between modes.
And the sad reality of it all is that you’re not likely to care about another mode (especially if you don’t use it yourself), until someone you know is injured or worse.
So What Can We Do?
A lot of things, actually.
1. Equal Education
First and foremost, we need to rethink the driver/bike/pedestrian education process. There needs to be an overall sense of inclusiveness, instead of caution and warning. Admittedly, it’s been well over 15 years since I took my driver’s education course in North Carolina, and where I grew up, there are no such things as bike lanes. In fact, we had one bus that ran a single loop with three stops. Needless to say, biker/pedestrian safety and awareness wasn’t a major factor in my driver training.
So I perused Virginia’s driver-education requirements and while it does mention safety and awareness, the driver’s manual only dedicates a half page in a 40-page document to sharing the road.
Avoiding mistakes and being aware of pedestrians and people on bikes just isn’t the same type of education that many bike education/advocacy groups distribute.
I recently read Safe Riding Tips from our friends over at BikeArlington and number six on the list is to make eye contact with motorists and pedestrians before crossing paths. This is a great tip and one I use daily, in any mode.
Another great driver education tip comes from the Netherlands where they teach the “Dutch Reach,” which requires drivers to open the car door with their opposite hand, forcing their body to turn to look for cyclists.
Cities left and right are asking their drivers to learn this simple trick. LA Mag, for instance, posted an article on bringing the reach to Los Angeles. Seems to me that driver education could incorporate even more tips like these to ensure safety for everyone. The organization I work for, Arlington Transportation Partners is holding our inaugural shared street pop-up event on August 22, which will be a block party aiming to introduce many of these kinds of tips to people who likely don’t already employ them.
2. Change Safety Messaging
Safety messaging in regards to active commutes often blame the person walking or biking in an accident, typically taking a lot of responsibility off the driver. If anything, such fear-mongering discourages people to walk and bike. Only in the past few years have cities, transportation demand management agencies, and advocacy groups called out the blatant condemnation of these campaigns.
A Washington D.C. campaign termed “tired faces” was one that missed the mark with its messaging.
Ultimately blaming a person for wearing black and not even discussing the actions of the driver is 100 percent wrong. For fun, I did a little mock up to answer my internal question of “What if cars were ad-shamed in the same way as pedestrians or people on bikes? What would that look like?” It would probably look something like the one to the right.
Does it even make sense? No! That’s how ridiculous pedestrian-shaming ads are. If people want to talk about a smart-street campaign, then let’s look at People for Bikes and its Travel with Care campaign, in which they gave life to a mode. Or even this great video from the Port Authority of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh.
With a little humor and a great voiceover, sharing the road is easy to talk about and memorable without being reduced to finger pointing.
Simply put – there needs to be more campaigns like Pittsburgh and People for Bikes and less tired faces.
3. On-Demand Education for On-Demand Services
I don’t know for certain, but I think the SUV that pulled into the bike lane I was riding in was dropping off passengers as part of an on-demand ride-hailing service. Similar to providing equal education for drivers, pedestrians, and people on bikes, ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft should invest in safety education for their drivers, so they can pass it on to passengers.
Honestly, I’ve targeted this group as ripe for education simply because of sheer volume and the probability that, like me, many didn’t grow up in a city with such a strong emphasis on bike and pedestrian infrastructure. Even a sticker on the inside windows reminding passengers to watch for cyclists, other cars, and pedestrians could go a long way in preventing incidents like mine.
It would be nice if those companies took a stronger community interest and went as far as to offer new-driver webinars, speaking to the importance of sharing the road and what that statement actually means for on-demand drivers.
Conclusion
For this topic, advocacy and education can look different for everyone. Maybe all it takes is being one of Bike Arlington and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s PAL Ambassadors or simply opting to have real conversations on the topic with friends.
Either way, we all need to start caring about other modes now. It shouldn’t matter whether you’ll never ride a bike. We need to care enough to prevent crashes and near-misses from happening. We need to care now.
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