How to conquer the road

MoBikeFed President Rachel Ruhlen is a community blogger for Gatehouse Media. This article appeared May 22, 2015.

It's another hard conversation. Today, I want to debunk an argument I hear from bicyclists about other bicyclists. But first, let me preface this with a disclaimer. I believe bicyclists should obey traffic laws for our own safety. I agree that bicyclists should obey traffic laws. What I disagree with is why we should obey traffic laws. We should obey traffic laws for our own safety, not to prove a point.

"If bicyclists want to have their own lanes, they must obey traffic signals."

"Why should drivers share the road with cyclists if we can’t be bothered to obey the law and do something as simple as stopping at intersections?"

The premise of these statements is that if every bicyclist obeyed traffic laws, we'd be welcomed to the road with open arms. No one would honk or yell or pass too closely. Drivers would miraculously start paying attention and not right-hook a bicyclist who is legally in the bike lane that just happens to put the bicyclist in the path of the right-turning vehicle. Drivers would look as they open their car door and no bicyclist would ever get doored again.

Why should drivers share the road? It's their road to share or not to share. If I'm not in a car, it's not my road. I say this in all seriousness, even though I pay for the road through my tax dollars, because possession is nine-tenths of the law. Automobiles own the road because they have it under their wheels right now.

It wasn't always this way. There was a time when automobiles were new fangled inventions and people hated them. Automobiles were fast and noisy and they killed people. Automobiles conquered the road, and now people love them. Automobiles are still fast and noisy and they kill people.

Bicyclists and pedestrians would do well to study history and find out how automobiles conquered the road. Maybe we could learn a trick or two. Automobiles did NOT conquer the road by saying, "Hey everyone, stop killing people, behave yourselves, and maybe they'll let us on the roads." Automobiles conquered the road by blaming the victim. Automobile interests such as car manufacturers, oil companies, and construction companies created something called the jaywalker in the 1920’s. They got pedestrians banned from roads, restricted to sidewalks and crosswalks, and blamed for their own deaths.

Bicyclists can blame the victim, too--drivers see themselves as victims. When an automobile kills a bicyclist or a pedestrian, the driver is a victim, despite the lack of legal repercussions. I'm not being sarcastic, I absolutely mean that. Most people I know would never be the same if they accidentally killed someone. That would be traumatic. The driver is a victim of a culture that makes it so easy to kill someone.

Bicyclists won't get automobiles to share the road by stopping at stop signs. We’ll conquer the road by blaming victims, blaming drivers who kill bicyclists, not by playing nice. I’m not advocating that strategy or saying it’s right, I’m saying that the evidence suggests this strategy would be effective. Or maybe there is a more palatable path to equity.

Obey traffic laws for your own safety. Stop telling bicyclists that if we play nice, drivers will share their toys--it’s not true.

Read more of MoBikeFed President Rachel Ruhlen's articles on the President's Blog page.