By Frank Wooten
wooten@postandcourier.com Sunday, June 19, 2011
Riding a bike is good for you.
Getting hit by a motor vehicle while riding a bike is bad for you.
Bad attitudes by motor-vehicle drivers about bicycle riders, and vice versa, are bad for both -- though it's often amusing to watch them exchange unpleasantries, including creatively delivered obscene gestures.
Unfortunately, though, needless tragedy transcends such comic relief. And the rise in bicycle ridership in the Charleston area, which is already plenty crowded with cars, SUVs, trucks and motorcycles, has inevitably been accompanied by a rise in the risk of fatal accidents.
When hotheaded folks on both sides of this divide play what is, in effect, a game of high-stakes "chicken" with each other, that road hazard climbs even higher.
Too many bicyclists rile drivers by riding two, three and more abreast, filling up not bike lanes but car lanes.
Too many drivers rile bicyclists by honking at them, crowding them, and in extreme cases, venting their road-hogging wrath by shouting crude insults at them.
When pushed tempers come to potentially disastrous shove, this traffic problem boils down to a powerful physics problem: Mass times acceleration equals force.
And when a one-ton (or more) mass of steel and glass moving at even a relatively moderate pace strikes a bike, that frequently equals serious injury or death.
A recent letter to the editor, citing this mismatch, condemned "self-centered" cyclists who "continually criticize the operators of the cars for whom the roads were designed." His solution: "For safety's sake bicycles should be banned from roads with speed limits above 35 mph unless a dedicated bike lane is provided."
However, swelling ranks of cyclists pedal not for just fun and exercise but for transportation to and from school, work or shopping. The high price of gas will keep fueling that trend. Many of the routes cycling commuters must follow don't include bike lanes. And bike lanes, while nice, are no panacea. It's scary enough for motorists having to trust fellow motorists to stay in their lanes. Yet if they weave wayward, the damage is typically limited to insurance rates.
If a bike weaves wayward into a car's path, or a car weaves wayward into a bike, the damage all too often requires death rites.
While bicycle helmets, though not mandated by S.C. law (yet), save lives, they can't always overcome the terrible impact of that physics formula.
At least the Cooper River bridge has a three-foot concrete barrier -- not just a painted line -- separating its bike/pedestrian and car lanes. At least there's growing awareness that following -- and enforcing -- safety regulations lower the bike-carnage toll. Cyclists should ride in the direction of car traffic, stay to the right, have front and rear lights at night, and obey traffic signs.
Motorists, under S.C. law, must maintain "a safe operating distance" from cyclists. Also under state law, "it is unlawful to harass, taunt or maliciously throw an object at or in the direction of any person riding a bicycle."
Hey, don't throw anything un-maliciously, either.
Back to "safe operating distance": Though not quantified in our state law, it's generally defined across the nation as three feet.
Math problem: A car going a scant 30 miles per hour travels three feet in less than 7/100ths of a second.
A bicyclist hit by a car usually goes down hard.
Eleven months ago, Edwin Gardner of Charleston, a cycling advocate, was killed on Montagu Street when his bike was hit by a Jeep. He was 64.
Thirteen days ago, Christina Genco of Newton, Mass., who a week earlier had begun a cross-country Habitat for Humanity cycling trek here in Charleston, was killed on Alabama's Route 35 when her bike was hit by an SUV. She was 22.
The driver who hit Gardner was charged with following too closely. No charges have been filed in Genco's death, but an investigation continues.
Winning the legal blame game, however, offers limited consolation when you're on either end of a bike-vs.-car crash. So be careful out there.
And if you must express disapproval of cyclists, or motorists, do it from a truly "safe operating distance."
Frank Wooten is assistant editor of The Post and Courier.
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