–Erik Ryberg

p.s. Don’t forget your front light!  Several people that I know have received citations recently for not having a bike light.

-lauren

The study first measured the average passing distance given to a cyclist wearing a helmet versus not wearing a helmet. It turns out you get more room if you aren’t wearing a helmet.

But then:

Walker donned a long-haired wig to see whether there was any difference in passing distance when drivers thought they were overtaking what appeared to be a female cyclist. Whilst wearing the wig, drivers gave him an average of 14 cm more space when passing.

Also:

The study also found that large vehicles, such as buses and trucks, passed considerably closer when overtaking cyclists than cars. The average car passed 1.33 m away from the bicycle, whereas the average truck got 19 cm closer and the average bus 23 cm closer. However, there was no evidence of four-wheel drives (or sport utility vehicles, SUVs) getting any closer than ordinary cars.

–Erik Ryberg

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a several-hundred-mile bike highway, away from traffic, through the desert and connecting, say, Tucson, Globe, Phoenix, Prescott, and Flagstaff? Or along the White Mountains from Payson into New Mexico?

There is an awful lot of state and federal land that could be used to accommodate such a path.

Quebec, let’s remember has 2,500 miles of bike-only highway.

The police report on George Goode Jr.’s fatal accident was released to us today. Reading the brief newspaper story about his accident, it appears that what happened is that Mr. Goode was in the middle (turning) lane on First Ave, waiting for a break in traffic so he could make a left turn, cross traffic, and proceed down a side street. A common situation.

But traffic in the “median” lane–that is, the lane closest to him–stopped to let him pass. Specifically, a large SUV stopped. He accepted the driver’s offer to turn in front of the SUV and proceed across First Avenue.

Tragically, he did not see that a second car was proceeding at about 35 mph down First Avenue in the curbside lane, and the driver of that car did not see him. He was struck by the car and instantly killed.

That’s what the newspaper seems to say, and it is a story that makes a good deal of sense. But it is not what the police report says.

According to the police report, Mr. Goode essentially drove his bike directly into the car. The police report repeatedly says that Goode rode behind, not in front of, the SUV, and at one point it even says “Witnesses said that Goode had crossed 1st Ave and narrowly avoided being struck by the large SUV that was next to the silver Saturn (that struck Goode).”

The report does not name these “witnesses,” but there are only three who were interviewed: the driver of the vehicle that hit Goode, the driver’s passenger, and a woman who saw the whole thing unfold from across the street. Of the many, many paragraphs the police devote to describing the accident from the point of view of the driver and his passenger, they only spend one short paragraph on what this witness (who not only saw the entire thing happen from a neutral vantage point, but is also impartial) has to say.

According to the police report, she too said that Mr. Goode turned behind the SUV and drove into the car that struck him. In other words, an SUV passed him and he then steered his bike straight into oncoming traffic.

So I called this witness to ask her if she would tell me what she saw, and she graciously did so.

And do you know what she said? She said the SUV stopped for Mr. Goode, he proceeded in front of it, and was struck by the car speeding by. She said she saw the entire thing and that it was absolutely horrific to watch, because from her vantage point she knew he was going to be hit and she knew he did not see the car that hit him, because he could not see past the SUV.

Question: why does the police report devote so little time to her statement, even though she was the best witness available? And why do they misreport what she had to say, making it out as if Goode simply drove, suicidally, to his death? Why did they not interview the driver of the SUV? Why are so many pages devoting to telling a story that is not true, a story that makes Mr. Goode out to be someone with a death wish?

The true story–or what I take to be the true story–is a tragic one with no real villains. A driver who thought he was being courteous unwittingly led Mr. Goode to his death. The story told by the police report, on the other hand, is a farce, in which an irrational cyclist mysteriously pedaled his bike straight into oncoming traffic.

Which story do you believe? How do you explain the difference between the police report and the witness?

–Erik Ryberg

Hello All,

This October, Pima Association of Governments (PAG) will conduct its first annual Regional Bike Count in conjunction with its member jurisdictions, the Tucson-Pima County Bicycle Advisory Committee (TPCBAC), and the Greater Arizona Bicycling Association (GABA), among others.

Recently, the Tucson region was again recognized as one of the premier Bicycle Friendly Communities in the nation by the League of American Bicyclists. Our commitment to bicycling has made our region a role model for other communities aspiring to provide the facilities and programs necessary to make cycling a viable alternate mode and a fun and safe recreational activity.

It is crucial that our region track the number of cyclists on roads and pathways for a number of reasons. Among them:

To document the number of people currently cycling, and monitor how that number is changing over time

To help prioritize improvements and find locations needing attention

To identify locations unsafe to cyclists and in need of safety improvements

Step 1: You MUST come to ONE of our quick training sessions (sodas provided). Training should last about half an hour. You do not have to attend both training sessions. Training sessions will be on:

Thursday, October 16, 6:00 p.m., Himmel Park Library

Saturday, October 18, 9:00 a.m., Himmel Park Library

Step 2: Perform a bike count at a predetermined location (we’ll let you know where) between the hours of 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. and from 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. We will be performing the count over a three-day period. Morning and afternoon counts do NOT have to be on the same day, so you can do your morning count on one day and your afternoon count on another. Or you can go count-crazy and do multiple locations on all three days!

Step 3: Mail us your count. We’ll provide you with a pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelop at the training.

The count will take place on:

Tuesday, October 21

Wednesday, October 22

Thursday, October 23

If you have any questions please contact Gabe Thum at gthum@pagnet.org or 792-1093.

-lauren

Another Tucson no-brainer dead.
Was he ticketed for not wearing a helmet postumously? Was he ticketed for
not crossing the street/intersection properly, postumously? I GUESS HE JUST
THOUGHT HE WAS A CAR, JUST LIKE ALL THE
OTHER BIKE RIDER’S THAT ALSO DO THE SAME.

And it kind of fell apart after that.

I witnessed the very same kind of accident yesterday. Cars were backed up on Broadway and two lanes had left room for a driver coming across Broadway to pass in front of them. But the third lane was open and a car sped through and broadsided the driver that was crossing Broadway. This is pretty close to what happened to Mr. Goode.

Here is what one commenter had to say, and I think it is pretty perceptive:

I don’t know all the circumstances of this accident, but this may be a consequence of some drivers being too nice. Have you ever been in a situation where another driver ignores the rules of the road and thinks they’re being courteous to you by doing such things as waving you on, or stopping to let you go because you’d been waiting so long to turn? This may have been what happened here. The cars in the left through lane heading north on 1st probably saw the bicyclist hanging out in the median, waiting to turn, and the motorist stopped to wave the bicyclist through. This caused a blind spot for the bicyclist, and he proceeded to cross and got slammed. You see this all the time in Tucson. Overly friendly people can put you into a dangerous situation, if you accept their invitation. Trust your own line of sight, not what someone’s suggesting you do.

I’ve been in exactly that situation so many times.

I believe the appropriate thing for TPD to do was to ticket the drivers who stopped for Mr. Goode. I am sure they are having a bad enough time with this as it is, but TPD should help make the statement that drivers should not stop for cyclists out of courtesy. The basic rules of the road keep the whole system fairly stable. Cyclists can know how to operate within those rules. But once drivers begin stopping where they shouldn’t, the system loses its stability fast. And in this case, it cost Mr. Goode his life.

I hope we can learn more about Mr. Goode. It seems we have many ghost bikes to install this year.

–Erik Ryberg

–Erik B. Ryberg

It isn’t pretty. Typically things fall apart pretty fast. It shocks me how little it takes for people to resort to panic and violence over a few gallons of gas. But, on the other hand, people are so desperately reliant on this stuff that maybe I should not be so surprised. Of course, I too am desperately reliant on petroleum to grow and ship my food, pump water out of the diminishing aquifer beneath Tucson, and move the coal to fire the turbines to keep this computer running and my cooling system going. (I also need small amounts of it to lubricate my many bike chains and bearings.)

But one thing I don’t seem to need at all is a full gas tank.

The story linked above describes the helplessness so many people feel when they cannot buy gas. I feel for them: they have constructed lives for themselves that cannot be sustained without a daily infusion of the stuff. They live far from anyplace they might ever want to go or be, and their very identities are built upon oil.

When oil really does become scarce and not just our convenience but our food supply is at stake, I fear the fistfights at the gas pump are going to be very least of our worries. Maybe the Mad Max movies were not so far off the mark.

–Erik Ryberg

We did our best to make our office move carbon free, but alas, there were one or two items that were too big for the cargo bikes. Not many though! Here’s a picture of Lauren moving her desk in one of the cargo bikes.

We are now at 312 South Convent Avenue, right off of Cushing Street downtown.

–Erik Ryberg