According to a survey released today by AutoVantage, Portland motorists are the most courteous in the nation. The survey also found that Portland drivers are least likely to tailgate.
Topping the list for most road rage, for the second year in a row, was Miami, Florida.
The study was conducted by independent research group Prince Market Research through telephone interviews with consumers in 25 major metropolitan areas.
I wonder if these results have anything to do with how many cyclists we have on the roads? It’s a common truth that motorists tend to be more generally aware when they’re used to seeing bikes on the road.
Of course, cyclists aren’t immune to road rage. Last week I got a tip (that was later confirmed by TriMet) that a cyclist got into a close call with a bus on Sandy Blvd. and ended up getting so upset that he bent back and broke the bus’s rearview mirror (if anyone has more details on that let me know).
Read more about road rage and this survey here.
[Thanks to PoPo for the tip!]
Before the litany of stories about how
“one time this lady in an SUV on a cell phone cut me off…” I’d just like to say that if Portland drivers aren’t the most courteous, they’re certainly among the most courteous I’ve ever encountered. I grew up under one of those bright red stars on the map and can honestly say that Portland’s got nothin’ to complain about.
I got cut off this morning with about 1 foot clearance from being t-boned on my tallbike. But the driver looked like paris hilton and was weaaring those oversized sunglasses, so I’m assuming she’s from miami.
This is good to remember. I recall when I returned to Oregon and was stunned by how polite all the drivers were. It’s good to see the glass as half full sometimes in terms of bike/driver safety.
Think about how often you hear a car horn. In New York or Chicago, it is part of the cacophony of back ground noise. Here, it is a rarity.
Having cut my commuting teeth in Ohio and North Carolina, I can say that the drivers here are MUCH better.
Certainly no place has perfect people, but I would rather ride in this city than any other.
Now if we could just train them to use turn signals.
Here is an interesting story of an un-couretous driver.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/cyclists_head_r.php
The moral: Buy Gyro Helmets
Portland is the most courteous?
Ok, I’ll take your word for it, but is anyone else now simply terrified to go anywhere else?
Turn signals? Do cars still come with those?
Re: the story linked by Spencer in Post #7, I am told that cyclist is the son of Marion County County Judge Paul Lipscomb (for what it’s worth) . .
Yeah, in addition to turn signals, I’d like to see the cars stop at stop signs rather than rolling through. Go sit on the corner of NW 14th and Kearney for an hour and you’ll see 40 cars run that stop sign.
I grew up under one of those red dots too. People here are pretty good, almost to a fault. Please don’t stop in the middle of a busy street to let me cross on my bike.
Great observation about the drivers in NYC and Chicago Spencer, but they are being courteous. I appreciate that they are giving peds/cyclists the courtsey of a warning to get out of their way or you’ll get run over.
They have to be polite – the majority certainly cannot drive well!?!?!
Sheldon, often times what motorists are saying by honking their horn is: “I don’t give a damn if you’ve got the legal right of way, I’m going to use intimidation and a threat of violence to get you out of my way.” It’s illegal (ORS 815.225.b), not to mention discourteous.
I guess that goes to show that Portland drivers may actually be more courteous than those elsewhere…
ADirtMonkey,
Forget it. I will continue to stop in the middle of busy streets for you, and there is nothing you can do about it. Bhaw haw haw! (At least I will during the 10 times a year that I drive)
J Price,
I assume you’re not from here.
I grew up in Detroit, which is not under one of the red dots, and I can’t for the life of me understand why it isn’t. (unless things have changed THAT much in the 7 years I’ve been gone)
Portland’s drivers are MUCH more courteous. And yes, tailgating is not a problem here at all, except for a few drivers like me who grew up in Detroit, where if you leave more than a single car-length between you and the car in front of you, someone WILL pry their way in, even on I-75 at 65mph.
Which is, in part why I ride a bike. 🙂
(Actually the tailgating impulse goes away after about 6 weeks. Unfortunately, when I visit family in Michigan and come back to Portland, I’m doing it AGAIN for another 6 weeks)
Hmmm. I find Portland drivers to be largely passive / aggressive and unpredictable. They will drive 15 miles an hour under the highway limit and then gun the engine to keep folks from entering the freeway. Four will sit paralyzed at an intersection being overly cautious or waving others through until a bike or ped shows up. Then they all break for intersection at once. If you have two car lengths space in Portland, that’s an invitation for other drivers to slide into the gap and create a tailgate as if the commute is some minor league version of NASCAR. Turn signals and rear view mirrors are just for show.
Courteous? Perhaps. Skilled? No way.
The glass is half full! That is great news. But it is only half full. Why not 3/4 or more?
It is good here now, but it was better not long ago. Today you can witness a deliberate, dangerous act like blowing through a red light within minutes while observing any busy intersection.
Not too many years ago that was unheard of. It was so rare that people would stop and gasp at what they had seen. Later they would relate it to friends and family with moral outrage, as though they had witnessed death defying act of incredible hubris. (They had.)
Folks, we have it good. Others have it worse. Let’s not let them set our standards. We are a mostly great city of conscientious citizens. Let’s work to keep it that way and even work to do better.
In terms of car/bike relationships, we may be achieving a sort of ‘saturation’ level, where pretty much most drivers either ride a bike themselves, or know someone who does, so they may be more likely to see and give respect to bikers.
In regards to Detroit, the only place I’ve been that comes close to being more dangerous would be Houston. How people in either one of those cities rides a bike is beyond me. I don’t think I’d risk it.
I don’t know if Portland is the best, but I do think Miami is one of the worst places I have spent time driving. The “pull wrecked vehicles off roadway” signs they have 500 feet on the roads should tell you something 🙂
I am surprised LA always gets such a bad rap though. Sure it’s busy and people are stressed from sitting in traffic so much, but in the whole time I lived there I don’t think I saw anything as bad as what you see in a week long vacation to the east coast.
Michael’s comments may seem fantastic, but they’re true. Some out-of-town drivers warm to our mellow ways, but others are like an invasive species. They ruin the entire roadway ecosystem based on some preconceived notion of driving they developed elsewhere. The whole system works better if everyone follows the natives’ lead.
Regarding methodology… how is it that Portland jumped from not even being on the top-5 list in 2006, to the #1 position in 2007?
Did we cut someone off?
😉
cheers,
~Garlynn
This is the best city in which I’ve ever lived.
Prost! to Portland!
It ain’t so bad, check Caracas or Nairobi for traffic hell.
When I lived closer in I thought Portland was a bicycle dream come true, with amazing car and bike traffic compared to any other area I’ve lived in and biked – but now that I get to enjoy commuting across Eastgate Plaza/82nd/Powell environs, I’ve lost those starry eyes. Oh to return to a downtown job where coffee and doughnuts await on the bridge…..
Garlynn (Post #22) – it’s my understanding that Portland was not included in the 2006 survey.
Cecil, I knew you were an OPB listener.
i would definitely say that Portland is on the upper end of commuting bliss (if one discounts foster rd. and hummer-land aka Beaverton). i can say that commuting in thailand amongst 14-year olds on motorbikes is NOT on the top of my biking list, though the adrenaline rush coupled with red bull certainly makes for an energetic traveling experience!
A.O. – and I *know* you meant that as a compliment
I can’t remember when we weren’t a great city to drive or ride a bike in. Soon maybe that will be a high priority on a criteria list for people getting transferred or thinking about moving here. There’s certainly much more that can be done to make P-town the best place just to get around in period.
I agree mostly that Portland is a courteous car city, especially compared to New York, Miam, etc. But there are always exceptions! But I’d rather live here than anywhere else in America, so I won’t complain too much about those exeptions. Yes, I also agree with ADirtMonkey, that we should all obey the traffic laws; it actually kind of annoys me when cars are TOO nice and stop at intersections when they have the right of way and I have the stop sign. It just gets confusing…
mmmm……and how many bicylists have I seen go through stop signs without stopping? Zip in and out of traffic (like we see some cars do)? Proportionatly more than cars. There’s “bad apples” in every group, be it cars, motorcycles, or pedestrians. No one group is bad…it’s just selfishness in general…and all groups are quilty.
I do think Portland drivers are pretty courteous and I think that’s why we really notice when someone is NOT courteous.
There is one place where I think we suck though and I consistently see this happening – passing on the right. This is soooo dangerous AND it is frustrating when you are in the middle lane, signalling to get over because you need to turn right and car after car on the right just passes you. It is rude, dangerous AND illegal.
And as long as I’m ranting, I should say that I see bicyclists passing cars on the right all the time. Again, so dangerous, especially at intersections where cars might be turning right and you are in their blind spot. I feel like you are just asking to be hit. It is not general habit for drivers to look behind them when turning right – you look to the left when you are turning right and so a cyclist who tries to sneak past is putting himself in danger. But I see it all the time.
Okay, just had to get that out, I feel better now. I do think Portland drivers are great. My case in point – getting on the sellwood or Ross Island bridge. Those intersections are horribly designed and would not work at all if the cars without a yield didn’t let the cars in with a yeild. But because of this accepted kindness, those intersections work, sort of.
The study did not claim that all drivers in portland were angels, it just said that, by far and large, they’re amoung the best in the nation. And you know what? They’re right. Yes there are drivers who break the mold of pleasentry and act like total jerkwads, but they’re a minority.
I am very thankful to live in this city, in large part because I feel safe nearly all the time when I’m on the road. I’d still be a cyclist if, for some unknown but surely extremely compelling reason, I were to move to another city; but I would be scared. And I’d probably invest in an air horn.
Sanity, #33:
You rant about bicyclists who pass on the right (presumably, not in a bike lane), because of the danger to them from cars turning right.
I couldn’t agree more.
That’s why, on a two-lane street, given a choice, I will usually pass on the left.
Why?
Drivers are on the left. They *see* you. They might be a bit surprised to see you, but they see you. You can always bail out between some cars if it looks like there’s not going to be enough room because of a bus/truck/etc., and it’s usually easier to tell if a vehicle is about to turn left than right (besides, you don’t want to do this *through* an intersection, just *between* intersections).
Furthermore, I believe it’s the more *legal* thing to do than to pass on the right.
A.O., what do you think?
I guess that if you have amazing reaction times and feel super confident, go with it, but I personally, on a bike, prefer to take my turn in the line of traffic. I know the car behind me can see me – but the car ahead of me may or may not see me. If you pull up to an intersection where cars are already lined up – I would let the first car go before you do anything because again, that first car might not have seen you, but the cars behind you have seen you. Don’t trust drivers, seriously, rant all you want about them not doing what they are supposed to, but I would not trust drivers to see you unless you’ve made eye contact or are directly in front of them. I guess that passing on the left is safer than passing on the right, but there is still a moment during the passing when you are in the car’s blind spot and that freaks me out.
Sanity-
Agreed completely. I’m just sayin’ — often, bicyclists don’t even consider passing on the left, when in many situations, it is the *much* safer option. Not always. Bicyclists discretion advised. Doesn’t work so hot at intersections. But, sometimes, especially on really congested, slow-moving, 2-lane 2-way streets (such as NW 23rd Ave), it’s really a pretty good idea.
Brad is spot on about Portland drivers, and I would like to add my own observation:
They drive the speed limit in the left lane. I get the impression that this is to be society’s “cop” and keep people from going fast in the fast lane. They don’t realize that it is actually against the law as slower traffic is supposed to keep right. I think this is the definition of passive aggressive or maybe self-righteous.
The passive-aggressive factor is likely why there aren’t that many instances of road rage here. Instead of getting angry and doing something aggressive when they feel like they have been wronged, they just glare and grumble to themselves.
And then they go 35 mph in the left lane.
And what is up with parallel parking on the street facing the wrong way?
Under what circumstance does a cyclist find himself passing a car safely on the left? I have been a bike junkie for over 16 years now I can\’t imagine doing this. Most intersections on the major bike boulevards have a \”Right Turn Yield to Bikes\” to remind drivers. I see no reason to cross a lane of traffic to get around a car that is waiting on the same light as me. Isn\’t it just as likely that a driver would forget to signal a left as it is a right.
As far as passing on the right in a car… Why do people insist on going 10-15 miles an hour under the limit in the left lane? If you find yourself getting passed on the right a lot I would say you should probably hang up your phone and get over to the right.
I find it hard to believe that Portland is the most courteous city in the US.
Everything I need to know about riding I learned in kindergarten.
10 years later, my father taught me to treat every gun as if it\’s loaded.
30 years ago trusting the car driver was possible.
These days ultra quiet interiors,cell phones,GPS & cup holders, make trusting any driver a lesson in mortality.
Being on a Bicycle can give you so many advantages, it\’s easy to take them for granted.
How many Impala\’s you hear about passing
Lion\’s on the left…or Right.
Ride safe, be seen..Take the lane if you need it.
Even then there\’s a pothole hiding under a pile of leaves.