So What Can We Do To Make It Better, Specifically?

I always read the comments to stories about bicycle-vehicle catastrophes.  Right now, relations between cyclists and drivers in Chicago are tense and strained, to say the least.  The comments consist mainly of drivers attacking the conduct of cyclists and cyclists counter-attacking.  Certain themes emerge on both sides, but not much civil discussion.

This post isn't about who's right and who's wrong, or who is more aggrieved and put upon.  It's simply my personal take on how the bicycle-driver relationship in Chicago could be improved by bicyclists.  I write from that viewpoint because my philosophy is to do what I think I should be doing, regardless of what someone else is doing.  If you want to be a jerk to me on the road, go right ahead.  I will not retaliate.  I will continue to do what I think is safe and civil.  Based on my readings and discussions with drivers, here are some ways that we could improve the situation.  Reasonable minds may differ.  And this is not to say that it wouldn't be nice if drivers made some corresponding efforts:

     1.  Let's push the City Council hard to implement some form of the Idaho stop.  A million times over, drivers complain that cyclists illegally blow through stop signs and red lights.  Of course, they're correct about that.  (And of course they do similar things, but that isn't what this post is about.)  A solution would be to have an ordinance ratifying the existing behavior of cyclists, particularly with regard to stop signs.  There is ample evidence that the Idaho stop is safe.  We should work really hard to have it implemented in Chicago and Chicagoland.  I myself would not extend it to traffic lights.  Blowing stop signs makes drivers somewhat jealous and angry, but cyclists blowing red lights absolutely makes them livid, with considerable justification.  I don't buy the argument cyclists make that they are simply protecting their own safety by running through red lights.  As a driver myself, I think cyclists who run red lights disrupt traffic excessively and scare the bejeebers out of drivers who proceed with the light, only to have cyclists darting in front of them.  In Idaho there probably aren't too many intersections as busy as those here in Chicago.  If an intersection is so dangerous that you think you have to run a red light to survive it, then just get off your bike and be a pedestrian for a few minutes.  There's no shame in that.

With some variation of the Idaho stop being legal, drivers would still be resentful, but would grudgingly concede that cyclists were not lawbreakers for doing it.  In a strange way, I think this would help calm the situation.

     2.  Let's stop riding the wrong way, on both one- and two-way streets.  Again, I see this mentioned time and time again by drivers -- and they are correct.  Drivers have certain expectations about where they should be looking for other motor vehicles and bicycles.  Riding the wrong way makes for a lot of unpleasant surprises, often in the form or collisions or near-collisions.  I know that a long time ago, some people thought that riding the wrong way was safer for cyclists.  That was disproven a long time ago.  A cyclist riding the wrong way alarms and provokes drivers unnecessarily.  We should not do that.  Better to go carefully upon the sidewalk and annoy the pedestrians a little.

     3.  Let's stop riding between lanes of moving traffic.  If there is a long line of stopped cars, I can see, marginally, riding between them and the curb (or parked cars) with great caution.  However, cyclists should not, in the big city, be darting in and out of moving traffic and riding between moving traffic lanes.  Again, this scares the bejeebers out of drivers, and understandably so.  Plus, when you're maneuvering like that, drivers have to try to take into account take every sudden move you might make, not just the ones you are actually making.  Drivers are constantly thinking, "What if he....?"  This is completely nerve-wracking for them, and they are justified in being angered by it.  Plus, a small lapse in judgment by the cyclist and he are she are sliding into or under someone's vehicle.  Riding between lanes of moving traffic, regardless of how savvy you think you are or how many YouTube videos you've seen of messenger races in New York City, does not help the cause of cycling at all.

     4.  Let's use proper lights when riding at night.  In the city, they aren't needed so much to illuminate the way as they are to alert drivers to your presence.  Especially since as likely as not, you're dressed all in black and have no reflectors on your bike, either.  This is another complaint that comes up over and over in the comments, and it's perfectly valid.  Drivers are much better at having lights and turning them on than are cyclists, given an equal level of sobriety.  So gee whiz, spend the pittance it takes to make yourself visible to everybody.  Even Aldi every so often has inexpensive lights that would suffice.     

Maybe some or all of this will seem too conservative to some.  Maybe some will view me as a Neville Chamberlain-type appeaser.  Whatever.  Someone has to offer the olive branch and try to defuse the situation.  If it has to be me, even unilaterally sometimes, I'm willing.  I've never found berating or denigrating other people to be a solution for anything.