(Photo: Jeff Bernards)
In case you haven’t heard, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) is working on a campaign to increase awareness of the need to use lights while biking. They debuted a hilarious video PSA a few weeks ago (and more are in the works) and now they’re teaming up with the City of Portland to do the first-ever bike light count.
The purpose of the count is to better understand what the current levels of bike light usage are, find out whether usage is going up or down, and so on. Here’s more from the BTA:
The data collected in the survey will help the BTA and the City target education and awareness efforts, target enforcement efforts, raise funds to buy bike lights for distribution, and monitor the impact of education and enforcement efforts. It is intended to be conducted annually.
The survey will happen over three days in early March and the BTA needs about 100 volunteers to make it happen. If you want to be a part of this historic count, consider volunteering. There’s an online sign-up form to fill out and a short, half-hour orientation tomorrow (2/23) at the City of Portland building.
Results of the survey will be announced on Friday, March 18th with a press conference at Clever Cycles. Learn more on the BTA Blog and consider volunteering if you can.
Thanks for reading.
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The timing of this meeting is suspicious as there’s a 100% chance of snow. I’m thinking this is a sick joke, asking 100 cyclists to brave the snow for a chance to narc out their fellow cyclists. And no pay. The BTA is already infamous for pricing low-income cyclists out of their events (Alice Awards, etc). It makes you wonder what they do with their money. This leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’ll watch online through the CleverCycles’ CleverCam on Hawthorne!
But seriously folks,this is a chance to do something proactive rather than my usual carping on BP. I signed up for all three evenings.
I have a podium spot for calling out that front red light on the lady’s bike! Ah, the sweet smug taste of comment victory.
Will there really be tactical squads jumping bike ninjas and holding ’em down and then releasing ’em after headlamps are installed on their rides and their dark garments are swathed in reflective tape?
Count me in.
If only it could be done… 😉
I’m hoping there’s at least one person up there running one of these:
http://elektrolumens.com/Kong/Kong-12.html
Just in, study shows that cyclists are not using lights enough! We should make laws to regulate bike trailers and headphone usage, just to make sure they are staying safe.
In all seriousness though, we have the technology to make cheap, easy-to-use, easy-to-recharge LED bike lights. Why manufacturers continue to sell bikes without them concerns me. They should come standard with most styles of bike, at least so they can have the peace of mind that the customers who support their business will be that much safer. If small volunteer groups can afford to give them away on the Hawthorne bridge, so can Trek, Schwinn and all the others.
are you kidding? It’s the middle of freakin winter. Most people have put their bikes away for the season. It will be a bad survey as they are going to only survey the more serious cyclists that may be more inclined to have lights. Why not do it in the warm weather when everyone is out riding.
Damn! I’d love to go, but I will be in Class at that time (for the mandatory meeting)
As much as just having lights, another big issue I see is just getting people to change the batteries in the lights they do have. I see so many barely lit, weakly blinking lights out there, I sometimes wonder why people even bother.
they should survey how many lights are actually bright enough to be effective. A little blinky light is not very visable. There should be a standard for how bright they need to be. I know that in the dark if you are trying you can see those little lights (sort of). Wouldn’t it be better if the light actually lit up the road in front of you?
i wish this had been posted sooner: “tomorrow” wasn’t enough notice for me to get to the mandatory meeting.
I also wish I had more notice on this…mandatory meetings require planning. And I admit that I am currently guilty of having sub-adequate front lights due to low batteries…that I have been meaning to replace for weeks. But admitting you have a problem is the first step, right??
More notice would have enabled a more successful turnout.
What’s the demographic of commuters or any other kind of riders out between 6:30 and 8:30 pm? I’m doing one count, but it seems poorly planned and designed and I’m not convinced my efforts will be of value.