Carhead and Allen Johnson
The best source of news on Officer Allen Johnson has been KVOA. The driver still has not been charged in that incident, but from the tone of the Pima County Sheriff’s Dept., I am thinking she eventually will be.
One comment on the KVOA site caught my eye. It said:
Cycling in Tucson streets is dangerous. The lanes don’t have three feet (much less five feet) to give. Even if I wanted to give a cyclist three feet when I’m driving down Pima/Craycroft, the guy in the lane next to me won’t budge to make room for me. We could, as a community, be much more respectful and courteous of each other on the road. Cyclists included.
As much as my knee-jerk reaction is simply to revile this person, I have to say that it is probably worth paying some attention to the underlying problem here. This person is basically saying that if there were a way to give a cyclist more room without slowing down at all, they would do it, but sometimes it is impossible, and they are thus forced to carry on and strike or terrify the cyclist. It’s just the reality of driving in Tucson.
This is what we call “carhead.” The mindset where cars are so firmly implanted in our life-experience that everything we do or say comes from the perspective of the car. We are car-centric. Carhead is why it does not even occur to us that maybe we could slow down or use some other form of transportation, or construct our cities in ways that do not require cars. Carhead is the mindset that cannot even see, much less acknowledge or confront, the immense price we pay in order to have cars in our lives. Carhead is why in news reports cyclists are always colliding with buses and drunk or sleeping drivers, even when hit from behind. It is never a bus that hits a cyclist, always the reverse. It’s why if a cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet, that fact will be reported no matter how little difference it would have made.
The person who wrote the comment up above was not trying to provoke anyone. They were just expressing, from their carhead prison, a problem they have seen and their frustration that there is no good way out of it. What to do? What are you supposed to do when there is a cyclist on your right and another car on your left, and the car on your left won’t move over? Carhead has prevented this person from seeing that the solution to their problem is to wait a moment and then move over.
–Erik Ryberg
March 18th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I agree.
The lack of civil concession and elemental
driving skills is what defines a carhead.
The effects of ‘carhead’ perspective need to
be identified everywhere and every time
they happen.
‘Carhead’ perspective is ingrained in
everything…even cyclists exhibit
some of it once in a while.
The standard phrase is, “Well, people
are always going to drive cars.”
And it’s true, but not dismissive.
What’s true is more and more people
are utilizing bicycles as tranportation
and that’s how I answer it.
Maybe eventually the idea that cyclists must
be accommodated will stick.
We need something other than ’scaredy cat’
finger pointing from the media, however.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
People who live with out a car can see this clearly.
Motorist have one of the fastest transportation models, and only wants to be faster not safer. While the people with slower transportation models are for the most part content and happy with their overall human speed and enjoy the safety it represents.
March 19th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Interesting timing. As a recent bicycle tourist to Tucson one thing that became apparent was that Tucson car lanes are narrow. While it is wrong for a 1+ ton vehicle to endanger an unprotected vehicle, it became obvious to me that many cars were treating bicycles just like they treated other cars–that is, if you drive within 3 feet of other cars, why not within 3 feet of the bike? Eeks.
Many cars gave us room, slowed down and/or changed lanes, but when a large truck screams by at 55mph and all I have is a debris strewn “bike lane”…..that was frightening. Alas, I began to understand the outrage of this column a little too personally.
It is too bad. Tucson has a good climate for year round commuting. It also has a good start on trying to include bikes on all roads (e.g., at least an attempt to mark a lane and bike lanes that go to the left of right-hand turn lanes). But until a bike feels safe on those roads, I suspect you won’t see the traffic congestion reducing bike volume you should. Nor will you get cars to pay attention–a classic Catch-22.
Besides drivers that don’t yield and pass too close, other non-driver stoppers most likely include not street sweeping the lanes (gravel and glass don’t mix well with bikes), not repairing bike lanes (where do you go when you have a pot hole and traffic is heavy?) and not differentiating “red” roads on the bike map–all roads marked red are not created equal; some are nicely ridable, but others have 3 foot lanes, 1.5 feet of which is gutter and traffic flow speeds in excess of 55.
It was an interesting week. I found Tucson city riding to be more comfortable than my Milwaukee home, but, I agree, it isn’t what I’d consider Platinum-level.
May the police start enforcing your laws.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
*
2) HB2546 “motor vehicles; bicycles; operation requirements”. Contains a bunch of things. It contains several of the same elements of HB2503 (46th 1st regular session, you MUST “change sessions” FIRST before clicking the link) that died in 2003.
Whatever happened to this bill?
We got all excited and then let down on the other bill what is going on with this bill?
It would address the Assault with a baseball incident bat Erik??
I need to send my congress woman another email. She replied back thanking me for pointing these two bills out.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Thanks to Recent Bike Tourist for some fascinating perspective from an outsider. RBT is right about the maddening bike-lane discrepancies. In many cases, these aren’t bike lanes at all. On northbound Campbell, just north of Sixth, for example, the “bike lane” can’t be wider than 22 inches, and the adjacent car lane is no wider than 8.5 feet. Trying to separate car/bike traffic here is at best a haphazard sop tossed to Tucson’s bike community — at worst, murderous. Novice bicyclists in particular will think, “Well, there’s a line of paint on the ground, therefore taking the lane isn’t allowed or necessary.” I’m no road engineer, but even a child can see this is a recipe for tragedy.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:25 am
“Whatever happened to this bill?”
The bill is stuck, and looks dead for this session, see 2) here:
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/bicycle-legistation-introduced/
March 20th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Thanks I might have missed that.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:11 am
The question that Erik has found is something I have heard asked many times, even by people I otherwise think highly of. Therefore, I think that many of these people might not be as arrogant as they seem, but are simply in need of better education. Perhaps we should try to incorporate “waiting until it is safe to pass” into the “give 3 feet” campaign, because without that clause, asking for 3 feet seems to be fruitless. As things currently stand, I am not brave (or reckless) enough to ride on any trafficked road without a bike lane or shoulder.