Written by Portland resident and road safety activist Sarah Risser. You might recall Risser from her work on ghost bike installations or from a recent episode of our podcast. This essay was submitted as part of a community project to keep BikePortland going while BikePortland Editor & Publisher Jonathan Maus is tending to a family medical emergency out of town and unable to work as normal.
It is objectively and indisputably true that people who choose to walk, cycle, scooter, skateboard or negotiate urban roads in a wheelchair are vulnerable to being killed or injured by vehicular traffic. Portland’s roads are dominated by vehicles that are often driven too fast and embody more kinetic energy than any other mode aside from public transit. In Portland, sidewalks and many bike lanes — if they exist at all — merely separate users from vehicles without offering actual protection in the form of physical barriers. In a distracted or angry heartbeat, a driver could veer off the road and onto a sidewalk or bike lane, and the result would be grim. Feeling vulnerable makes traveling outside of a vehicle stressful and less enjoyable at times.
Leaders and advocates should continue to protect the most vulnerable road users with smart infrastructure investments, but they should think equally or more about reducing the danger itself.
But let’s be clear; it’s not the simple act of walking, biking, or otherwise rolling that evokes feelings of vulnerability. I feel powerful and particularly alive when I’m hiking to Angel’s Rest. And walking along the beach at Nehalem Bay or strolling through fields of spring wildflowers at Catherine Creek is peaceful and grounding. Cycling on the Springwater Corridor elicits a deep and pure sense of happiness. Feelings of vulnerability only arise in the presence of danger; there cannot be vulnerable road users (VRUs) without the presence of vehicular traffic. This may seem obvious, but it begs the question: why, when our roads are dominated by vehicles heavy and powerful enough to kill, do we use language that centers attention on the vulnerability of some road users rather than on the danger that threatens all road users?
To be honest, writing this guest article also makes me feel vulnerable. BikePortland readers are smart and involved and I’m pretty sure some will disagree with my take, because the phrase ‘Vulnerable Road User’ is in such widespread use, and it’s accurate even if it’s not very helpful. Also, I think this is a little nerdy compared to all the other guest articles Jonathan’s printed of people biking to fun places and living car-free lives and doing cool things. I hope you’ll hang in there with me.
The widespread use of ‘vulnerable road user’ by road-safety advocates and transportation professionals alike (and yes, I realize the phrase comes from the legal concept of the same name), draws attention to the symptom — that people’s safety is being continually threatened — of our unacceptably dangerous transportation system. This distracts us from focusing on the root cause of our road safety crisis and implies that living with exceedingly high levels of danger on our roads is locked in, something that we are resigned to tolerate forever. This, in turn, prompts leaders, planners, and safety advocates to call for resources to be directed toward managing the symptom at the expense of directly addressing the cause — the real danger — by reducing speed limits, restricting cars access where appropriate, aggressively incentivizing getting cars off the road etc. In no other realm of public life do we tolerate the levels of danger and violence that we see on our roads.
Of less importance and at the risk of being pedantic, the implication that some road users are “vulnerable”, and others are not, diminishes the scope of danger posed by vehicular traffic, which is huge. While being inside of a car makes a person less vulnerable than traveling outside of a vehicle, people inside of vehicles are killed by the tens of thousands in the US every year. In Portland the number of pedestrians killed and the number of people inside of vehicles killed, year to date, is the same. So, while travelling in a Mini Cooper is arguably safer than walking, because the car serves as a shield or armor for its occupants, there is no guarantee that the Mini won’t be hit head on by a Ford F350. This type of thing happens every day. The danger on our roads is so unacceptably high that every road user, to varying degrees, is at risk of death or injury. Every road user is literally vulnerable.
As Dutch traffic safety researcher Marco te Bormmellstroet pointed out in Increase Road Safety or Reduce Road Danger(Traffic Safety Research, March 5, 2024) leaders and advocates should continue to protect the most vulnerable road users with smart infrastructure investments, but they should think equally or more about reducing the danger itself.
When our use of language directs disproportionate focus on potential victims and shies away from calling out ‘Dangerous Road Users’ or ‘Potentially Lethal Vehicles’ we normalize road violence. We’d be more effective if we intentionally used language that centered and called out the danger itself. Let’s continue to demand safe infrastructure for the most vulnerable road users while talking ever louder and more intentionally about reducing the danger that makes them vulnerable. Let’s make it abundantly clear that the level of danger on our roads is unacceptable and that is our most important problem. Without a looming, ever-present, threat of danger there can be no vulnerability.
— Sarah Risser. Follow her on X at @Henryz_mom.
Thanks for reading.
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Thanks for this thoughtful piece. Much of America’s addiction to cars is intertwined with a belief that they are safer than active transport. As one of my friends put it during our January winter storm, “it’s too icy to walk, so I drove.” Friend seriously did not think of how much danger there was in careening around in several tons of metal, glass, plastic, and internal combustion engine. Whether the measure is pollution, climate crisis, cardiovascular health, or vehicular violence, cars make us all more vulnerable. With nearly every one of those measures, that is just as true for the people inside the cars as those outside the cars.
I wish every person who expresses their concern for me by telling me to be careful when I’m bicycling would be as careful about not driving. We’d all be safer.
I believe that thinking about the role of cars in our life as an “addiction” is a complete misdiagnosis, suggesting moralizing-adjacent remedies that are unlikely to change behavior. If, instead, we think of cars as useful but dangerous tools, that leads us to think about ways to make the tools safer, use them less, or replace them with a different tool.
The word “addiction” is so fraught and political it’s almost entirely meaningless in all cases. It’s just a word we use for some harmful activities that we want to socially demonize. That said, I think the desire to drive when you have access to driving really does fit the exact definition most people mean when they say addiction. Being useful is besides the point.
But I agree, useful tools with bad consequences is a less charged way of saying it. Probably more effective, the same way it’s more effective to use that same reasoning for anything else people call an addiction.
I see people from my block driving to the little shopping strip in Hillsdale, which is about 0.2mi away, to get a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread. It literally takes longer to drive there. This does not comport with the view that it’s a “useful tool”.
I don’t know that I would call it an addiction. It’s more like cars have become the default mode of locomotion. Walking, on the other hand, has become something that people plan for. They carefully plan out the route that they think would be safe. Sometimes, they even drive to places where they can walk. It’s fundamentally a different way of life. What can be done to change this paradigm?
I think part of the change can come from within our own social circles. I have a neighbor-friend who had literally never walked to a food cart pod 0.3mi from where we live until I invited him to walk with me. He always just drove – like you said – because it’s how he was socialized to get around. Of course there’s systemic issues, but we can certainly work as individuals to help free others around us from the car-exclusive mindset.
they drive .2 miles in a car, in hillsdale, cause from there they want to drive somewhere else further away, which is along more busy roads. also they drive because there’s no sidwalk. in portland city people will walk on the sidewalk to a coffee shop and then back to their house.
I’ve had neighbors who regularly drove to and from the store (0.2 miles each way) without going anywhere else. Walking is faster, and the walking route is partway on sidewalks, and the rest on a beautiful park path, with only one street to cross (at a signal). I’d leave the store with them, and see them coming back after I arrived home.
Lois,
You know what would make people drive more carefully. Enforcement of our traffic laws and a big fat expensive ticket when they aren’t followed. But we think enforcement is “bad” in Portland right? Until this changes and an end to street camping happens the epidemic of traffic violence will continue to haunt Portland.
(~50% of traffic deaths in Portland are homeless).
It was actually 50% of pedestrian deaths (so 12 of 24) last year, out of 69 total deaths.. (32 people in vehicles died.) So deaths of homeless people (assuming all were pedestrians) were 12 of 69, or 17%.
So, “street camping” was a non-factor in 87% of traffic deaths, and more in the likely case that some deaths of homeless people were unrelated to their housing situation.
On the other hand, impaired driving and speeding were involved in a large percentage of deaths, and 87% of deaths were on streets posted 30 mph or more.
Thank you for the correction. 50% of pedestrian deaths being homeless is a lot. That is just one reason why I like many other Portlanders feel the compassionate thing to do is not allow street camping. The “free for all” we currently have is just not good for anyone. We need to offer shelter and get people off the streets.
If we want to make our streets safe for the unhoused we need to identify and address the systemic and structural causes of our road safety crisis. That so many unhoused are getting killed, again, is a symptom of the larger problem of an unacceptably dangerous transportation system
“Make the streets safe for the unhoused” is a red herring that lets city/county/state/fed leaders off the hook. Rather, NO ONE SHOULD BE UNHOUSED.
Counties, in cooperation with cities, have plans for sheltering displaced people. We’ve seen them activated nearby for wildfires, such as the ones in 2020 and 2017. It’s a lack of … something that prevents counties and cities from helping the unhoused with appropriate speed and scale (yes, local govt. might need to appeal to and cooperate with feds) just because what displaced them to the streets wasn’t a natural disaster.
Well stated, Sarah. I agree 100%. Calling human road users vulnerable is adjacent to victim blaming. Let’s put the blame squarely where it belongs – on dangerous drivers and the infrastructure that supports them. Kudos!
Too bad I wasn’t rich . . .
Would love to pay for a billboard that would list leaders of ODOT, PDOT, Governor, and Mayor and put beside their names the number of deaths on the roads that happened during their time in office and put on it the words something to the effect. . .
You are in charge; these deaths are because of you and your inaction to make our streets safer.
Oh to have money.
Agreed, Sarah. Language matters, as does who the intended audience should be. My kids’ school just had a blurb in the newsletter about Bike To School Week in May. After listing the positives (better health, fun, etc.) the article then focusing on safety through the lens of victim behavior. Wear bright clothes, pay attention when crossing the street. At no point does it address drivers and their behavior. No suggestions to put our phones down, pay attention, slow down, nothing to imply that we’re operating multi-thousand pound vehicles moving at high speed and have responsibilities not to kill each others’ kids. I really wish agencies that have marketing budgets (school districts, PBOT, ODOT) would finally get serious and focus their communications and outreach efforts on our deadly driving culture, and stop telling victims how to behave. A parallel (hopefully not too hyperbolic) would be the unfortunate behavior of men telling rape survivors that they shouldn’t have worn anything that wasn’t a nun outfit to a party.
One small but significant difference between your examples (besides the obvious), is the newsletter blurb was forward looking (“here are things that will reduce your chances…”) vs. backwards looking (“you shouldn’t have…”). I do not accept that reminders for how to reduce the chances of bad outcomes (which we do all the time, in many contexts*) constitute victim blaming.
“Kids, remember to look both ways” is not the same as blaming a kid for getting hit by a speeder on their cell phone.
*”Buckle up!”, “Remember your safety glasses!”, “Don’t leave valuables in your car!”, “Don’t use a cable lock!”
I think you’re missing the point here.
Yes, it’s always a good idea to recommend behaviors that avoid bad outcomes, but so much official advice OMITS the behaviors that actually cause the bad outcomes and focuses entirely on what the victim can do to thwart the bad actor.
Our entire transportation system – you could argue ODOT’s overriding design mentality – excuses the bad actors their bad behavior and tells people on bikes and on foot that they had better do this or that minor thing, and if they don’t – well, you get what’s coming to you.
I see the point; while you believe that safety advice is always good, you and Alan think that by not simultaneously admonishing drivers, the offer of safety reminders blames victims for anything bad that happens.
Maybe I’m just immune to it for some reason, but I’ve never once felt that such advice blamed me for anything.
While I’ve heard cops tell many groups not to leave anything in their car to avoid a break-in, I’ve never once heard one tell people not to not smash windows and steal from cars. Are these cops also victim blaming? What’s different?
Without enforcement bad driving behavior will not change. It’s so Portland to think that we can awareness-campaign away bad human behavior. Did
“20 is Plenty” stop many drug addicts in stolen vehicles or the hundreds of cars driving down MLK and Interstate everyday without license plates, from speeding? How about the Fast & the Furious street takeovers? We have to be realistic about who it is on these City’s streets creating most of the
problems. There are real criminals in this City driving with no regard for their own lives,
let alone anyone else’s. There are homeless people on flakka stumbling out of their minds into oncoming traffic. It’s happening everyday. But some people on this thread seem to want to wish away the ugly truth.
I’m not against campaigns to remind drivers to be more
careful , but to suggest any campaign could eliminate all the danger on Portland roads is so naive and irresponsibly ignorant of the realities Portland is facing. It’s an Ivory Tower point of view of someone in Irvington who rides a $2000 bicycle. This City had one Traffic Enforcement officer between Feb 2021 and May 2023. Now it has 14. That’s woefully inadequate. Where are the calls from Bike Portland to increase traffic enforcement? This city can’t afford to have a constituency as educated and well-resourced as Bike Portland’s ignoring the elephant in the room or self-righteously ranting about Us vs.
Them the way this article does. But also, yeah, Don’t
text and drive. https://www.opb.org/article/2023/05/09/portland-oregon-police-reinstating-traffic-safety-division/?outputType=amp
https://kpic.com/amp/news/local/portland-one-of-few-major-american-cities-without-proactive-speed-traffic-enforcement
Somewhere, someone at a DOT said “we need to come up with a better-sounding name for peds and bikes than ‘obstacles…'”
Because that’s what you are to a traffic engineer, as defined by their manuals: an Obstacle in the Clear Field. Something to protect drivers from getting hurt by, like a telephone pole. You were forced off the streets in the 1920s, and that’s where you should have stayed!
Until engineers are taught to maximize incentives for safe driving, rather than reduce consequences for UNsafe driving, as you note everyone on the road is a ‘vulnerable user.’
The whole idea of the clear zone is so wild to me. Like with how much crash safety in cars has improved, stopping and/or redirecting the vehicle should be priority #1. Not to mention just slowing vehicles down in the first place.
Vision Zero is predicated on reducing consequences for unsafe driving. I don’t mean this in a snarky way, it’s a critical underpinning of the whole approach.
Please elaborate….
First point from “What is Vision Zero?”:
https://visionzeronetwork.org/about/what-is-vision-zero/
Huh, looks like either the manual I read used a different term, or I remembered it wrong; the Roadside Design Guide calls it a “clear zone.’
In any case, here’s the relevant issue:
The Roadside Design Guide (RDG) defines the clear zone as the unobstructed, traversable area provided beyond the edge of the through traveled way for the recovery of errant vehicles. The clear zone includes shoulders, bike lanes …”
You are part of the system designed to protect drivers from their errant ways – be proud of your sacrifice!
Funnily enough, here are the suggestions for improving the clear zone by priority:
Remove the obstacle. Redesign the obstacle for safe traversal. Relocate the obstacle further from the roadway (or move the roadway further from obstacle). Reduce obstacle severity (make it breakaway). Shield the obstacle with a traffic barrier or a crash cushion. Delineate the obstacle if the above alternatives are not feasible.1 is rude; 2 is impractical. 3 would be nice. PBOT claims the manual says they can’t do number 5 (so they lied, obviously). 6 is wands. Guess we’re stuck being number 4.
Comment of the week!
100%. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
Humans are dangerous. Let’s ban humans.
Current: “We need to protect vulnerable users from vehicles”.
Better: “We need to protect people from dangerous road users”.
It makes sense.
Best: “We need to eradicate dangerous road users.”
This is a really smart article. Thanks for writing it.
Recently I noticed a large number of roadway excursions (the official name for a vehicle leaving the roadway) on the stretch of SW 45th Ave running through Woods Park, and it occurred to me that vehicles have left this roadway over the ENTIRE STRETCH – in some places multiple times.
In other words, if you stood at any point along the side of the road for the past couple of years, a car would eventually leave the roadway and hit you.
Yet this situation has become so normalized that we don’t even think about it anymore.
I remember that hearing in Salem a few years ago when someone testifying had the audacity to mention “traffic violence” and a legislator stopped her and tried to correct her: “It’s not violence – we’re just driving.” There it is – the normalization.
It’s an astute observation. If I had a dime for every time I read on NextDoor how cyclists are so vulnerable and one has to be crazy to endanger themselves as they do. The emphasis, of course, is on the cyclist. Commenters go out of their way to point out how their vehicle is more than ten times heavier than a person on a bicycle, so in the case of a collision, the cyclist “loses”. Again, the implication being that people who choose to cycle in traffic are…well, dumb and reckless. Such commenters blithely ignore the fact that even in their hulking SUV they share the road with vehicles that are an order of magnitude heavier, e.g. large trucks. They expect due diligence from other drivers; however, they are not so keen on extending it to cyclists and other non-drivers.
So, we get bicycle lanes separated by protruding spheres. City planners who came up with that never attempted to commute in their life. Now, I get stuck behind slow-moving bicycles or pedestrians with no ability pass them. At the same time, it doesn’t really prevent drivers from inattentively jumping those barriers.
If non-motorists are viewed as vulnerable, then the solution is to create protected spaces for them, which are akin to “wildlife refuges”, where motorists are not allowed to hunt cyclists. Whereas I think that the solution is both try and reduce driving and force drivers to become aware and attuned to non-drivers. Towards that end, here’s an interesting idea: https://thecityfix.com/blog/naked-streets-without-traffic-lights-improve-flow-and-safety/
The same people who drive in a way that endangers people walking and biking usually also drive in a way that puts them at risk around large vehicles like semis. So there’s that.
Also love how you had to slip in a little “slow moving cyclist” shaming in there. Cars have to be patient behind people on bikes but I guess Lycra guys don’t, huh! I’ll take a concrete protected bike lane where I might have to go a little slower over nothing any day.
On that stretch of Beaverton-Hillsdale hwy, on which I used to commute, there was no way to pass another cyclist for 3mi or so because of those “protective” lane separators. None. That’s not reasonable. Where do you see shaming here? Do you consider this a sensible design?
Thanks for this article. I’ve never thought about it very much but the VRU term absolutely does come across as victim-blaming. I’m not sure what a better alternative is, but words absolutely do matter. My experience has been that people who try to shut others down for being “pedantic” are usually not arguing in good faith anyway.
Only recently have guns passed car crashes as the leading cause of death for young people. If the incidence of head injuries in motor vehicle transportation were clearly considered in a legislature motoring helmets might be mandated. Would that have any sobering effect on drivers?
I agree with the writer on almost all points. Nevertheless I’ve lately been selecting from my shelf of hi-vis articles to the extent of wearing my brilliant green winter gloves in the spring. Why? Because average people pursuing mundane errands continually take my life in their hands. I give them a little help however I can.
Fascinating!
Being human of course normally entails a degree of vulnerability to various bodily insults.
Maybe we don’t think of it that way normally, because, in spite of our vulnerabilities, humans often live for 75 years or more. So it’s not like we’re all that vulnerable!
However, when the conversation turns to transportation, we unconsciously think of drivers, cyborg-like in a motored, protective shell, as “normal,” and non-cyborg humans as particularly vulnerable.
To create an environment that destroys human bodies, and then label the humans inside “vulnerable” *is* backwards!
I love that you chose the picture of the lone person on a bike, surrounded by cars draining into and out of the car sewer. When I am that person, I certainly feel very vulnerable.
On the other hand, I really like the feeling of being in a group of bikes on a neighborhood greenway, with like 1 car on the street. Drivers are so much more respectful when they feel outnumbered and “vulnerable”.
How is an electric scooter not like a car ?
…
..
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It’s harder to ban cars.
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..
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https://www.npr.org/2023/09/01/1197167800/paris-is-the-first-european-capital-to-ban-rentable-electric-scooters
https://www.nprillinois.org/2024-02-02/an-effort-to-reduce-congestion-in-the-streets-of-paris-goes-before-voters-on-sunday
If cars were a new technology, they would never be approved by cities.
The danger that cars pose in the hands of irresponsible people demands strict regulation of automobile manufacturers for maximum speed, acceleration, adherence to the speed limit and crash detection. Cities should have an extensive camera system that focused on speeding and red light running. People who are irresponsible behind the wheel should loose privileges, their car should be impounded and crushed if they injure anyone.
The legislative process is about what is achievable based on some real salesmanship. I’m proud of being a vulnerable road user because it was a long, arduous process to even get a bill passed with that term in the title. It’s lots easier for a legislator to vote yes on a bill protecting the “vulnerable road users” than for protecting “self-righteous, unpredicable, a++*%les on wheels.” Unfortunately, the VRU statute doesn’t seem to attract much support from DAs around the state.
Thanks for the thoughtful commentary. re terminology, when I was a regular bike commuter, I always kept an especially close eye out for “UAVs”…Urban Assault Vehicles aka those oversized SUVs and pickups that seem to come with low gas prices.
Reductionist oppressive mindset that has been proven to have failed. The result is that we have poor infrastructure because of this mindset. A wonderful opportunity has been squandered, along with a ton of money and good will. We need better roads and that advocated here will not bring that. Properly designed roads allows all modes in an accessible, usable and safe manner. Stop pushing for these same failed policies…
The same failed concepts have been pushed for far too long. There is the still monthly attack put out on vehicular cycling (coöperative cycling) and John Forester despite what he warned about having now come true. It doesn’t help that bicycling advocacy groups not only sold out to land developers, yet abandoned cyclists as well.
Cyclists have abandoned these ideas and the extreme advocates that keep pushing them. They have diminished cycling. They have created even more dangerous situations.
Cyclists remain outlaws as they have no real support.
“Take the lane for safety, if needed!”
More navel gazing about language while Rome burns.
More unconstructive criticism.
You won’t want to miss this piece then, which is also linked to in today’s BikePortland Monday Roundup:
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2024/04/22/five-car-culture-euphemisms-we-need-to-stop-using
It also mentions “vulnerable road users”.
Personally I think actions are impacted by language, so these pieces have value.
I don’t think this is nerdy. It’s a dose of perspective we so severely lack, and it’s well written. Thank you!
The sad part is that we have had the perfect mechanism to deal with this danger for almost 100 years now: required licenses that don’t have to be issued, and negligent driving points that can suspend or revoke licenses from too many interactions *before* someone gets killed.
The sad part is that we don’t use that system to keep the roads safe because people are so entitled to their “right” to drive. It should be way harder to get a license, harder to keep one, and driving without a license should result in vehicle confiscation.
It’s 100p the average hood-height increasing. How else can we make the math make sense here. We have more cars than ever with pedestrian and cyclist detection and auto braking, we have lane keeping, etc. BUT when these cars do hit people they are doing it with much taller hoods that kill instead of break legs.