Today's picture: Meet the "Invisible Bicyclist" – Liz Morrell, 35, lives in the Highlands and commutes four or five days a week to Java Brewing Company at Fourth and Muhammad Ali. Her boyfriend is a bike messenger. Liz is pictured with her old Bridgestone touring bike, recently converted to single speed with a coaster brake. But if you're busy texting your friends, you might not see Liz or her custom bike.
"I moved here from Chicago and I noticed right away that drivers in Chicago are more used to – and friendlier toward – cyclists than they are here," Liz observed. "Drivers in Louisville will yell things at you or try to cut you off as you ride downtown. Drivers don't pay as much attention to you here as they do in Chicago. But there are so many more bicycles in Chicago. That's a big part of it.
"Growing up in Seattle, we had bike messengers delivering packages when I was a kid in the seventies and the eighties. Louisville just now has five bike messengers total. So people are not accustomed to seeing bikes and following the rules of the road. This goes for pedestrians, too. They walk right out in front of bike commuters."
Liz brings up the same point of concern for safety raised in a New York Times Well Blog article "Do More Bicyclists Lead to More Injuries?" by Gretchen Reynolds. Apparently surgeons and emergency room doctors see a troubling trend in cities like Denver, Colorado: more cycling injuries and more severe cycling injuries.
But this seems to go against research in the U.S., Canada, and Europe that consistently found when the number of cyclists increases, the likelihood of accidents declines. This surprising result is known as the "Safety in Numbers" effect. In case after case, the likelihood of injury decreases as walking or bicycling increases.
When a tipping point is reached, motorists learn to adapt to more cyclists and pedestrians – and they begin to respond more appropriately. A British report concluded: "Making cycling safer requires that it become more popular."
Cycling Safety's Vicious Cycle
So, here we are in Louisville, in the very early stages of becoming a bicycle-friendly city, where:
* Injuries may increase
* Injury severity may increase
* Drivers may not yet be ready for the influx of two-wheeled traffic
* Early-adapter cyclists will not be ready to ride confidently in traffic
* Potential riders who hear about injuries and deaths will be scared off
* Fear could blunt the rise in ridership – making it less safe for current cyclists
The Well Blog piece arrives at no real answer or solution to the vicioua cycle above, except that "individual responsibility seems the best response. Bicyclists must obey traffic laws and assume that motorists' driving behavior will always remain unpredictable, if not perverse.
I do have a solution to Cycling Safety's Vicious Cycle: It's simple – more people get out and cycle.
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PS: Remember, every lane is a bike lane. Share the road.
freewheelin
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Enjoy the ride home.
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Today's picture: Meet the "Invisible Bicyclist" – Liz Morrell, 35, lives in the Highlands and commutes four or five days a week to Java Brewing Company at Fourth and Muhammad Ali. Her boyfriend is a bike messenger. Liz is pictured with her old Bridgestone touring bike, recently converted to single speed with a coaster brake. But if you're busy texting your friends, you might not see Liz or her custom bike.
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bikecommuter