Oregonian says cyclists are “treated like roadkill” in Oregon

Finally! I get so tired of seeing op-eds about how the state should do more for drivers. What about the rest of us who use the roads?

It\’s about time the O got with the times: they ran a full-page ad the other day in the Metro section about transportation and increasing livability in Oregon. It\’s about time they recognized that not everyone drives a car all the time, and that those who don\’t drive still use the road and are more vulnerable than vehicle drivers.

Cyclists and peds need more legal protection from those crazies who drive!

Great to have support from the O for a change. Don\’t know how influential it is anymore, considering how many of its recommendations do not come to pass (changing from the commission form of government, Francesconi (sp?), etc.)

How can we help support House Bill 3314? Who has the info?

Find your Senator here – http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/ .. call and/or email them to let them know your thoughts about the bill.

I hope to get some advance word of when this bill is going to hit the Senate Floor. When I find out I will try and post something to help make a final push. Let me know if you have any other specific questions…

Law breaker, law abider – I don\’t care; cyclists are HUMANS! All life is valuable and judgement of political, social, or religious behavior/persuasion should not be a consideration for respecting that life. Frankly, I struggle to understand the dehuminization of cyclists. What is it that happens in a motorists mind that causes them to stop seeing others as humans- as someone\’s friend, someone\’s spouse, someone\’s child, someone\’s parent? In my view, rare circumstances exist (well, maybe self defense) that justify causing harm to another person. Nice of the Oregonian to take a stand and I read the first paragraph as an awkward way of telling readers that lives ARE more important than frustrations caused by a bad behavior.

I know that there have been times the Oregonian has left me scratching my head. However, I don\’t feel like it\’s fair to paint them as generally anti-bike. The best example that comes to mind is the staff editorial discussed in this post from 2005:

http://bikeportland.org/2005/10/17/the-oregonian-finally-likes-bikes/

Here here, Barbaroo and NIK.

A couple of posts called this an Op-ed. This was actually on the editorial page and there is a significant difference.

The op-ed page is for guest editorials. An editor tries to get a good mix of opinions from outside the paper for the op-ed page.

The editorials on the editorial page are written by the editorial staff and reflect the official position of the editorial board.

This is huge to get this support from the Oregonian.

Way too many cyclists selfishly brake laws all day long

Was that (mis)spelling on purpose?

no it wasn\’t on purpose… just a mistake. ;-).

Dang it! The second paragraph of my post, above, should read:

The thing that really jacked my jaws was the ignorant comments, made by John Phillips, of Newberg, in The Oregonian\’s Letters to the Editor on Wednesday. In it, he suggests that biking on highways is almost always about recreation, not transportation. Excuse me? My other car is also a bike.

\”there is a consequence to grossly illegal moves (i.e. blowing through stop signs when there are people there to see you do it) that we haven\’t thought about. Does it hurt us politically and socially? When there\’s a bad crash, are people more likely to assume that the bicyclist must have done something wrong if they\’ve seen bicyclists run lots of stop signs? Do we lose a little bit of sympathy each time we flout a law?\”

Yes. If cyclists want to be taken seriously as vehicles on the road, they must take seriously the laws of vehicles on the road. Cars do not, even when it feels stupid to wait, blow stop signs or red lights and we all would feel the one who did deserved the ticket. If bikes want equal treatment, it must be the same for bikes.

Here\’s the kind of thing we\’re up against. I came across the following snip on the Portland forum at oregonlive.com:

5833.2. AHHH BIKERS!
by Agreed, 6/12/07 10:30 ET
Re: Naked Bike Ride by HybridsRule, 6/12/07
The Innocent and rather dumb Antelope of the Portland Savannah! Fresh meat for anything bigger than them! It is amusing to listen to meat squeal about road rights!

I hope never to cross paths with this guy as he barrels down the road in his jacked-up 4×4 with the \”Rush is Right\” bumper sticker. Hopefully, most motorists are not as outright hostile towards cyclists as this guy, but I think a good percentage of them are, at best, indifferent.

BTW, has anyone else ever browsed the Portland forum at oregonlive.com? The posts are pretty disturbing, even if a lot of them are lame attempts at humor.

Amen, Mark C. When that happens to me, and I happen to meet up with the cyclist down the road, I let them know how I feel: That their behavior doesn\’t make the rest of us any safer. I\’ve gotten a mix of reactions, from very brash \’Keep your opinions to yourself,\’ to people that seem to listen and take it in.

It\’s a good excercise to spend some time at an intersection that has stop signs. Watch how many cars actually do STOP when there is no cross traffic. Most all of them cruise thru the stop sign at bicycle speed. Stop-sign blowing bicycle riders are usually drivers too. Why do we catagorize people by their mode of transport? If you have ever rolled thru a stop sign in your car, why would you criticize a bicycle rider who does it?

Portland is being infiltrated by scofflaw outsiders.

Uh…can I get a grizzled old man on the porch with a shotgun in tow shrieking \”Go back to Californie!\”?

Seriously, as far as real-live traffic scofflaws go, I\’d just chalk it up to people who don\’t care, people who aren\’t aware, and those self-proclaimed rebels who think that blowing stops is a political act but won\’t take ten minutes to write a letter to their legislators as they believe in \”working outside the system\” or however they\’re putting it this week. Which is possibly the one reason why I\’m glad motorists *aren\’t* the minority out there – could you imagine the sharp increase of fatalities with that type of behavior from those behind the wheel of a car? Suddenly it\’s not just folks on bikes and defensless peds, it\’s whole families and big chunks of congregations getting mowed down (at certain intersections to remain nameless). ;P

Okay, heavy handed sarcasm aside: (w)rite, report, and above all else, ride.

I hope folks have also been writing in to the Oregonian to thank them for their positive bikey coverage in the editorial. Let them know who their readership base is, and hopefully they\’ll cater increasingly to them!

Re; Phil Hanson, aka the pedalphile\’s reference (post 18)to the John Phillips, of Newberg, comment in The Oregonian\’s Letters to the Editor on Wednesday. The newbergian\’s comment was a classicly self-indulgent denunciation of cyclying that would seem to deliberately ignore any beneficial impact cycling has on transportation issues, solely for the purpose of reserving streets and roads to motor vehicle use only.

I don\’t have a the letter, but as I recall, Phillips, in his letter, literally equated cycling on streets and roads as \”playing\” on streets and roads, not being thoughtful enough to mention the many, many motor vehicle operators on the road for no other reason than to have fun driving around. And, if we\’re going to be petty, between the two, motor vehicles and bicycles, which one likely represents the greater danger to everyone?

On the part of motor vehicle operators, contempt for and impatience with cylclists sharing the road may truly be widespread. MVO\’s are used to driving largely unrestricted by slower moving vehicles. Also, their faster, heavier vehicles do pose a physical danger that at least some MVO\’s are aware of and concerned about. This represents potential stress that manifests itself in a variety ways.

I don\’t like dead stopping at stop signs while on the bike, but especially when there are cars and other people around, it\’s the best policy for a lot of reasons. For one, MVO\’s really need to know a cyclist is stopping before they get their own much heavier vehicles rolling, or that an intersection will be clear while a vehicle with right of way gets through it.

As others have essentially said, even when other MV\’s are not at an intersection a cyclist comes to, when a cyclist blow through a stop sign or light, it allows for a really negative psychological impression on people nearby that see this.

\”It\’s a good excercise to spend some time at an intersection that has stop signs. Watch how many cars actually do STOP when there is no cross traffic. Most all of them cruise thru the stop sign at bicycle speed. Stop-sign blowing bicycle riders are usually drivers too. Why do we catagorize people by their mode of transport? If you have ever rolled thru a stop sign in your car, why would you criticize a bicycle rider who does it?\”

Hmmm… is this really true? Am I the only goody two-shoes that stops? I have a hard time believing this. I might not stop for the full 3 seconds, but I definitely reach zero momentum before pressing on the gas again. Bicyclists sometimes don\’t even slow down.

The law says bikes are vehicles too, and can, for example, use any lane they want!

Not true.

In Oregon a single rider must ride as far as is safely possible to the right side of the road unless they are avoiding hazards such as parked cars.

Single riders may also ride as far as safely possible to the left on one way streets.

If multiple riders want to take up a lane they may do so, only if they do not impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic.

ORS 814.430

814.430 Improper use of lanes; exceptions; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of improper use of lanes by a bicycle if the person is operating a bicycle on a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic using the roadway at that time and place under the existing conditions and the person does not ride as close as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway.

(2) A person is not in violation of the offense under this section if the person is not operating a bicycle as close as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway under any of the following circumstances:

(a) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle that is proceeding in the same direction.

(b) When preparing to execute a left turn.

(c) When reasonably necessary to avoid hazardous conditions including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, parked or moving vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards or other conditions that make continued operation along the right curb or edge unsafe or to avoid unsafe operation in a lane on the roadway that is too narrow for a bicycle and vehicle to travel safely side by side. Nothing in this paragraph excuses the operator of a bicycle from the requirements under ORS 811.425 or from the penalties for failure to comply with those requirements.

(d) When operating within a city as near as practicable to the left curb or edge of a roadway that is designated to allow traffic to move in only one direction along the roadway. A bicycle that is operated under this paragraph is subject to the same requirements and exceptions when operating along the left curb or edge as are applicable when a bicycle is operating along the right curb or edge of the roadway.

(e) When operating a bicycle alongside not more than one other bicycle as long as the bicycles are both being operated within a single lane and in a manner that does not impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.

(f) When operating on a bicycle lane or bicycle path.

(3) The offense described in this section, improper use of lanes by a bicycle, is a Class D traffic violation. [1983 c.338 §701; 1985 c.16 §339]

Tasha, I had a similar experience the other day with a biker who was clearly in the wrong giving me a dirty look. My kids were playing on the empty sidewalk outside an ice cream store. A cyclist crossed the street and decided to ride onto the sidewalk. I quickly got my kids out of the way and apologized while he gave me a dirty look and rode off down the sidewalk. The second he was gone I realized that my kids had teh right to be on the sidewalk and he didn\’t! And what was I doing apologizing to him???

And the same thing happened on a different street going for a walk with a dog and a stroller and a couple of kids. A cyclist came up on the sidewalk and had to wait while we hurried to move our entourage to the side so he could get by. He looked very annoyed, but there was a BIKE LANE right next to the sidewalk!!! The friend I was with made the comment that \”the bike lane is not just a suggestion.\”

I think there is some weird sort of the victim becoming the bully thing going on. Cyclists are treated like roadkill by drivers, so they turn around and make the sidewalks dangerous for pedestrians. Nice.

I don\’t know about your experiences, but I think car drivers and peds have become much more bike-friendly over the last four years. I used to get yelled at monthly by drivers – more often than not, I couldn\’t figure out why, but it scared the crap out of me. That hasn\’t happened in a lonnng time. As for peds, now they *apologize* to me and jump out of my way even when I\’m on the sidewalk. I know, it\’s crazy.

I\’m not saying its a bike paradise out there. A lot needs to be done to better protect peds and cyclists. But the atmosphere on our roads is just so much better than it used to be. And you don\’t have to have an elephant\’s memory to see the difference.

eric (#29), the problem with your philosophy is that it is very selfish and egocentric. Me, me me. I, I, I. As long as you ride that way, it makes drivers think that they have a right to make my life more difficult because I get lumped in with you as a \”cyclist\”.

I would also point out that while it is true, you have more to lose in a collision, it is not just \”scratched paint\” that will be damaged if you slam into someone because you are breaking the traffic laws. Accidents usually leave people with psychological trauma in proportion to how bad the accident was. Not how bad the damage to their vehicle was but how bad the accident was. If a cyclist were to ever crash into me, I don\’t care if I was completely in the right, it is going to have an effect on me in a negative way.

Lastly, I\’ve read several posts (not on this thread) by cyclists who say \”I don\’t have to slow down, I can hear traffic coming from a mile away.\” I have a hybrid car and when I am going slow the engine turns off and I run off a battery. The car is totally silent except for tire noise which is minimal. No less than a half dozen times in the two years that I\’ve had the car have I had people step right off the curb (in front of banks, grocery stores, etc.) right in front of me, not looking. They always say the same thing \”Ohhhh, sorry, I didn\’t hear your car\”. Don\’t ask me why they are listening instead of looking while they are talking on the phone, in a conversation with someone else, or just plain not paying attention. So please, for everyone, be aware you can\’t always hear these new cars from a mile away, or sometimes even yards away (in my case even feet away).

I\’m happy to see most people posting here are like I am and want to see cyclists get the respect we deserve as an equal road user. The laws, as annoying as they often are, are there for a reason. I would guess that many cyclists who like to ride by \”their own laws\” would not be happy if drivers did the same thing.