Never underestimate human ingenuity

I saw this tragic story on Monday, July 1. From Cement truck mows down Brooklyn cyclist in 15th bike fatality of 2019 by Trevor Boyer , Wes Parnell and Mikey Light in The Daily News.

My immediate read was that this was a tragedy which could be bent to so many agendas.

A cyclist in Brooklyn became the 15th killed on city streets this year when she was run down by a cement truck — and the truck’s owner blamed the tragedy on “too many bikes on the road.”

Devra Freelander, 28, was riding north on Bushwick Ave. in East Williamsburg when the truck, eastbound on Boerum St., struck her at the streets’ intersection at about 12:18 p.m., police said.

Freelander had slowly rolled a few feet into the intersection when the fast-moving truck hit her, video from the scene shows. She was dragged underneath the truck. Medics declared her dead at the scene.

The truck’s 70-year-old driver, identified as Alan Vega, stayed at the scene and was not immediately charged. The crash is still under investigation, said police.

You have everything:

Bikes versus cars

Youth versus age

Female versus male

Mandarin Class education versus lower education achievement

White collar versus blue collar

Ruler breaker versus rule observer

Privilege versus hard-knocks

Depending on your proclivities, you can cut this so many ways. It seemed to me that it was a tragic accident which hopefully would not be taken up for contentious debate. But there was just too much temptation.

The New York Times has their whack. From Cyclist Killed by Cement Truck and 2 Other Deaths Spur ‘Emergency’ by Winnie Hu and John Surico.

A bike messenger was fatally hit by a truck while riding in morning traffic in Manhattan. Three days later, another cyclist was struck and killed by a car in Brooklyn.

And four days after that — less than four miles from the last crash — still another cyclist died after being struck by a cement truck.

The shocking spate of three deaths in a little over a week has drawn anguished cries from cyclists and transportation advocates and has undercut Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature transportation policy to make the streets safer.

“New Yorkers on bikes are being killed at an alarming rate,” said Marco Conner, the interim co-executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group.

Across the city, 14 cyclists have been killed in crashes this year, four more than all of last year, according to city officials. New York’s streets have seen an increase in bicycling while also becoming more perilous, in part because of surging truck traffic fueled by the booming e-commerce industry.

The mayor himself acknowledged on Monday that the city was facing an “emergency.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in 2014 that the speed limit on most city streets would be lowered to 25 miles per hour.

It was Mr. de Blasio, then the public advocate, who as a candidate for mayor vowed to eliminate all traffic-related deaths and serious injuries. And within weeks of taking office in 2014, he unleashed ticket blitzes on scofflaw drivers and successfully pushed to lower the speed limit to 25 miles per hour in most of the city.

Since then, the mayor’s aggressive policy — known as Vision Zero — has become his transportation priority and been copied by cities across the country. Year after year, Mr. de Blasio has heralded its success, as the number of people killed annually in traffic fatalities fell from 299 in 2013 to 203 last year, the lowest level in more than a century.

The soaring numbers of people on bikes have drawn criticism, particularly from some older people, that cyclists can also be menaces, going the wrong way on streets, failing at times to yield to pedestrians and flying through red lights and stop signs.

But after the recent cycling deaths, even Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who is running for president, said the city had to do more.

Then there is Should we ban bicycles in major urban areas? by Tyler Cowen with a lot of interesting commenters.

Bicycles on roads are a contentious issue everywhere and no one has a good policy to address them. They account for less than 5% of transportation by number of trips in most locations; often much lower than 5%. And that is in term of number of trips. If you look at miles traveled, they are less than 1%.

But they have an attractive image - clean and healthful. That has been sufficient to drive many cities to try and make bicycles a priority. The rising number of jurisdictions sympathetic to bicycling and therefore with bicycle lanes has been matched by rising numbers of deaths.

There just isn't much of a compatibility putting bicycles and cars/trucks into the same physical vicinity yet we don't have much alternative.

Consequently we have ended up with debates that hearken back to the great plains cattle versus sheep arguments.

From my perspective, bicycles are a narrow solution to a wider transport issue. It is a good solution for a very narrow demographic under very particular conditions. So narrow, on both counts, that policy support takes on the feel of ideological pandering.

And all of that is exacerbated by the stubborn reality of human nature. Drivers have to learn to accommodate bicyclers and bicyclers have to learn to obey the rules of the road.

Given that bicycling is so infrequent and geographically constrained changing driver habits is hard.

Given that bicyclists in many locations demonstrate a reluctance to obey the rules of the road, it makes it harder still. The huge majority who only drive are frustrated to lose road surface to bicycle lanes, frustrated to have to become more bicycle attentive and most frustrated when the recipient of public policy largesse (bicyclers) then return all their accommodations by refusing to observe the rules of the road.

Here in Atlanta, there are few but very vocal voices advocating bike lanes. Everybody else tends to be fine with that unless or until it interferes with actual driving. Everybody has their angry story about hazardous bicyclists.

I don't follow the issue closely and bicycle deaths are blessedly rare. But when they do occur, it always seems like bicyclist error.

Given that we have had an increasingly vocal bicycle advocacy community for more than forty years, and we still don't have even the most basic strategies for ensuring free flow of traffic AND bicycler safety, I am not hopeful that there is a good solution out there.

But never underestimate human ingenuity.