I had a lot of time to reflect on this today as it was the first thing I read before riding for 5-hours this morning. I am not American but was riding in the US.
The fundamental issue here is people feeling like they have no obligation to the world around them - that they have the privilege to do whatever they feel like without consequence. It is not a deliberate decision either, but something that they just pick up from the world around them. Most people who know them personally would not describe them as bad people (probably not relevant in this specific case).
Im gonna go on my cell phone while driving despite knowing it’s a bad idea because I feel like doing it.
Etc.
This perspective is not unique to people when they are driving a car.
We were at target last night and it was the same thing. The lady in line in front of us talked on her cell phone the whole time. When it was time to pay she just took random bills out of her pocket and put them down and made the cashier figure out when she’d given enough. She started bagging while continuing to talk, dropping her stuff all over the ground. Then turned around and walked into a pillar.
I travel a lot and see this everywhere around the world. But it is by far more common in the US than anywhere else I’ve been. I don’t know why that is, but I suspect this is the root cause of road safety issues in the US.
The contrast is frankly stark when I come here after being elsewhere for the better part of a year. It is like everyone is those people from Wall-E floating around, unaware of the word around them.
Infrastructure improvements are great, but costly. And do nothing to address this root problem. I think reflecting on why people end up this way and then trying to slowly change things to prevent that from happening in the future, are better long-term goals.
Likely because of the volume of cases, and the number of attorneys that will work to restore their licenses! It’s a cottage industry, attorneys that spend their whole day at the courthouse representing client after client, and charging hundreds to thousands of dollars, and they usually win. The judges are overwhelmed, the system is near collapse under the weight, and people show up, and are released. Plus driving and a driver’s license are seen as a near human right. The flip side of this are senior citizens who can barely walk that are not denied their driver license!
If you ever want deeper insight into why there are so many vehicle deaths in North America, I highly recommend the book “There Are No Accidents” by Jesse Singer. It’s very approachable, insightful, and more than a little depressing.
The TLDR is that there are deeply entrenched structural and policy flaws in North American road design and management that have made our roads incredibly dangerous. Particularly that our roads prioritize vehicle efficiency, at the expense of safety for all users, and also at the expense of overall transportation efficiency. And there has been little to no attempts to change or address these issues.
I just found this video that seems to me to be excellent advice for anyone that is, or sees, a car-bike accident. If you see one, do them, and their family a solid by documenting the scene because often the rider can’t. Record and photo everything! The car, the bike, the rider, record the driver if they are acting evil.
But that almost apologizes for the driver that injures/kills a cyclist. In the end, it’s the driver that has the responsibility to avoid hitting the cyclist. They are the heaviest in the equation, and have the ability to see and the duty to avoid the encounter.
Yeah, there are crappy roads, but too often people are distracted and not paying nearly enough attention to their number one task: DRIVING THE CAR SAFELY.
When I was in ground school for a private pilot license, the instructor drilled it in to our heads that he have one clear cut demand: FLY THE PLANE! No matter what else happens, we have to fly the plane. We, as pilots can’t be distracted by external things, we have to concentrate on flying the plane. Fly the plane, DRIVE the car. Fiddling with a radio is not flying the plane or driving the car. Blaming an accident on ‘bad roads’ is a cop out. If there isn’t much vision ahead, SLOW DOWN. But people are too used to driving offensively rather than defensively. And, perhaps far too often, the drivers will actually try to scare the cyclist, and even some who will purposefully HIT the cyclist. I gave up, largely, riding on most roads because of that last point. My original hometown had an article backing stiffer penalties for drivers involved in accidents with cyclists, and the anger and hatred spewed in the comments was horrific! People seeming to openly declare war on cyclists! People anonymously pledging to deliberately hit and kill cyclists! It got so heated, they pulled the hot mess off their website! Supposed police were vowing to let drivers off in such encounters too.
I was sick to my stomach reading the anger/hatred/entitlement… A locally produced newsletter picked up on it, and got even more hatred.
Around here it’s not epidemic, but there have been road raging incidents galore. I think the last fatal car-bike accident was a small kid.
Make no mistake, I think the driver is 100% at fault for these deaths and should be punished accordingly. I like your flight analogy; people really do not take driving seriously and do incredibly dangerous things as a result.
Canada and the US are 2nd and 3rd for drunk driving deaths per capita. But neither even cracks the top 30 for alcohol consumption. Although Americans drive a ton, if you look at driving rates, there isn’t much correlation between driving rates and drunk driving rates in other countries.
My personal view is that there is simply a lack of alternatives to driving in most places in North America, and this results in people making very poor decisions and driving drunk due to a lack of alternative options. Our poor road design leads to these poor decisions having serious consequences.
Someone published the idea of an elevated ‘bike parkway’ that would run over some of the major highways around the state, and they were pilloried in the public square. Laughing stocks for an idea I personally loved. Would I want to have ridden my bike to Metro airport, not really, but to ride to other cities, and just to have the option would be so amazing… Not to mention such systems in cities! (I’d really groove on a system here that would allow people to ride without worrying about cars and trucks!)
Which is more achievable/practical: changing human behavior across the population so that driving safety is prioritized OR implementing cycling/pedestrian separation and safety infrastructure across our road and highway system?
Unfortunately change in either feels incredibly unlikely to me, as I’m feeling pessimistic about America today
Increasing punishment and culpability for the drivers is only part of the solution IMO, making it harder for cars to physically touch other road users being the other
I can’t remember where it was, but there was a town that put up big flexible bollards that were made to make it obvious that it was a separate area and not for cars. They were designed to inflict ‘sizable damage’ to whatever vehicle hit them.
So of course a stupid human hit them at a high rate of speed and took them all out. Then threatened to sue because they caused so much damage to their vehicle. That’s why I like what Manhattan did: They used those behemoth solid concrete blocks that are more commonly used to demark road construction. They were placed end-on in the beginning of the obviously heavily fortified bike paths so that anyone trying to get into it from the end would have to somehow get passed them. The side facing the roadway was also fortified. That was after the monster drove a van down one years ago, killing several bikers.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t think it’s a cop out. They both go hand in hand.
Just like for drug addiction you could easily say “They shouldn’t have taken those drugs and then they wouldn’t have been addicted.” But it’s bigger than that. Pharma companies pushing pills on doctors, doctors pushing pills on people, societies with little to no safety nets so when people fall on hard times they have no way out and they feel that drugs are the only escape.
People are highly susceptible to environmental cues. And people speed in part because they get on their local road that was designed like a mini highway and their brain tells them it’s safe to go that fast. etc etc.
Obviously this case has the extra factor of drunk driving which no bike lane or infrastructure will protect against. But it’s also naive to say that better infrastructure won’t help solve the problem
So it sounds like they eventually did redesign the road in a way to mitigate speeding and bad drivers.
Obviously stuff like that will never completely fix stupid, drunk, etc drivers. But there are many many examples of areas redesigning the roads with protected bike lanes, traffic calming devices, narrower lanes, etc that produce safer travel for all road users.
And I also understand this instinct and I think it’s a part of the larger picture but it doesn’t solve the problem at hand. There are tons of people who use their bikes (or would use their bikes) to commute and get around populated areas where completely separate rail trails just aren’t possible and by treating cycling as a purely recreational activity that needs to be kept off the roads shouldn’t be the end goal.
I totally agree, but the popularity (or not) of rail trails and MTB parks can serve as an indication that cycling IS popular, and doing more for cyclists can be advantageous when elections come around. (Having a major corporation with a guilty conscience works too)
Anything that can increase the visibility and voices of cyclists is important to the goal of being taken seriously and being valued as human beings and constituents.
And, yes, they did eventually redesign that road, that should have been redesigned when the rail tracks were removed decades prior. Laziness… And I would have never ridden that road, and still wouldn’t after the refurb/redesign.
But people are too used to driving offensively rather than defensively. And, perhaps far too often, the drivers will actually try to scare the cyclist, and even some who will purposefully HIT the cyclist. I gave up, largely, riding on most roads because of that last point. My original hometown had an article backing stiffer penalties for drivers involved in accidents with cyclists, and the anger and hatred spewed in the comments was horrific! People seeming to openly declare war on cyclists! People anonymously pledging to deliberately hit and kill cyclists! It got so heated, they pulled the hot mess off their website! Supposed police were vowing to let drivers off in such encounters too.