locutas_of_spragge's blog

As the title on the video says: this video is not about blame. It's about what a close pass feels like on a bicycle. It's a plea for motorists to allow at least a meter when passing a cyclist. I think it may help to make a case for legislation, proposed in Ontario and enacted in a number of American states and elsewhere, to require motorists to give cyclists a meter, more or less, of space.

Doug Ford calls the proposed bike parking station in the City Hall parking lot "gravy". That makes him precisely wrong. Bicycle infrastructure offers the cheapest solution to two very difficult problems that threaten Toronto's future prosperity: the increasing cost of health care, and transportation gridlock in the GTA.

I have another video; this one makes the point that we need better enforcement of bicycle lanes. Too often, drivers seem to think they can legally pull into a bike lane to load and unload, or to take (or make) a cell phone call. It doesn't help when police, as shown in this video, ignore infractions. They don't have to ticket every offender; just speak up and educate the drivers, or at least move them along.

A video I hope will interest my fellow cyclists: a comment on why cyclists take the lane, and why, whoever complains about it, taking the lane does not seriously inconvenience motorists. This video addresses the hazards of passing cyclists and shows, as clearly as I can, why passing a cyclist so rarely accomplishes anything for a motorist.

The Trillium Automobile Dealer's Association has a regular column in the "Wheels" section of the Toronto Star. Usually written by the president of the association, these columns express the collective viewpoint of members of the association. Recently, an article in this column addressed a trend automobile dealers find alarming: the increasing number of young people who have reached driving age but decided not to drive. They don't buy cars. A goodly number don't get their licenses.

Motorists who harass cyclists, by honking, yelling at us, or buzzing us have no excuse. They don't even have the lousy excuse that we hold them up, because we don't. Motorists who harass cyclists do it because they can. They have a steel cage to protect them from the consequences of their behaviour, and an engine to run away. Other people suffer the consequences; often the most vulnerable of road users. To see an example of this, take a look at the accompanying video.

As an idea, you can't argue with it: cyclists shouldn't kill pedestrians. Moreover, cycling culture should take the obligation not to kill pedestrians very seriously indeed, and jurisdictions, from the city to the province, with responsibility for traffic safety should frame a comprehensive strategy to ensure the cyclists who do not understand our shared responsibilities get the message.

So how did the recent Globe and Mail editorial, which tried to make these simple points, do such a bad job? The answer partly lies in the atrocious phrasing the editorial claims cyclists should "know our place". And if we don't, do y'all have a rope, a tree and a bunch of good ole boys to teach us? Some phrases just bring up too many bad memories, and editorial writers should leave such phrases out of their tool boxes. Whoever wrote this particular editorial then added pomposity to their list of rhetorical blunders by writing this: "We do not occupy a planet where cyclist safety trumps all else." I get it: cyclists don't have a right to risk other people's lives to stay safe ourselves.

As the video title suggests, this video shows incidents on a ride from the West End of Toronto to Canada's Wonderland. It shows some good cycling by me and some bad cycling, some good driving and some bad driving, and some road design problems. It happens to provide some excellent examples that show why cyclists find riding in the outer suburbs of Toronto a pretty daunting proposition.