I’m sure you’ve noticed how the mix of vehicles using bike lanes has changed in recent years. And I’m not talking about cars. I’m talking about all the different types of electric bikes, e-motos, gas-powered mini-bikes, one-wheels, electric unicycles (EUCs), and so on.
What I hear about these vehicles are usually complaints and concerns about the dangers (and annoyances) they pose to more traditional bike riders. Fortunately I haven’t heard about any bike (or e-bike) riders getting seriously hurt (or worse) in collisions with them. Unfortunately there was a fatal collision between a mini-moto rider and an e-scooter rider earlier this month. And while it didn’t involve a bike rider, it did happen in a bike lane and it speaks to the growing number of non-bike vehicles that use them.
According to the Portland Police Bureau, 66-year-old Stephen W. Hicks was riding what officers referred to as a, “gasoline powered mini motorcycle” northbound in the SE 122nd Avenue bike lane. Around the intersection with SE Tibbetts, another man riding an e-scooter was headed southbound (against traffic) in the same bike lane. The two riders collided and Hicks died at the scene. The e-scooter rider sustained non life-threatening injuries. (Both men were wearing helmets.)
I share this case here for several reasons: It’s of a cautionary tale of what’s to come as the vehicle mix on our roads continues to diversify and it shows why we need more space on major arterials like SE 122nd for vehicles that aren’t cars. For many years now, myself and other folks in local transportation reform circles have talked about re-framing “bike lanes” into something more expansive — something that captures a wider range of vehicles. I like “LIV lanes” where LIV is said as “live” with a short “i” sound and stands for low-impact vehicle. I’ve also heard “LIT lanes” where LIT stands for low-impact transportation.
It’s time to embrace the fact that there’s a wider range of two (and even one!)-wheeled vehicles out there and our lane designs should reflect that as much as possible. Or maybe you see this tragic collision as an anomaly and a result of someone who was simply riding where they shouldn’t be?
I’m curious what you think.
Thanks for reading.
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Sadness to hear of this tragic and avoidable incident.
If anyone has access to this crash report, I would be professionally curious if the unique aspect of a ‘head-on’ ** type crash between two vulnerable roadway users contributed to the fatality along with higher speeds: was it a ‘face to face’ impact by which one of the helmeted riders helmet hit the full face of the other? **It made me think back to a similar head-on crash between two bike commuters on the Janzen Beach shared use path (either by Taco Bell or old Safeway location – back in mid 2000s)…no one died in that crash event but the friend involved had months of facial reconstruction surgery and recovery. Their face basically got rammed by the shorter cyclist’s helmet.
Your story doesn’t make clear which person was going the wrong way in the bike lane (or LIV lane).
I mostly don’t care who uses the lane as long as they do so consistently and follow the rules, though we’re going to need special rules for high-powered e-bikes. This very morning I was almost run over by a Rad bike going 25-30 mph.
I get so frustrated by people going the wrong way in bike lanes. I kind of understand why they do it; if you’re walking on a road with no sidewalks, it is safer to walk on the left side, where you can see oncoming traffic. People apply the same logic to riding a bike/scooter or whatever, but it is so much more dangerous because of the speed differential between someone walking or someone riding a bike, even at relatively low speeds.
I don’t know how to fix it. Maybe in the long term having education programs in elementary and middle schools, in the short term educational ads? IDK. I always want to stop and talk some sense into the (usually e-scooter) riders going the wrong way, but there’s no way a cyclist mansplaining how to ride would be received.
Fred,
I think it is clear, but sorry if it wasn’t for you. The scooter rider was going the wrong way (southbound) in the bike lane.
Thanks. I don’t know this area at all, and adding the directions doesn’t help me b/c I assume there are bike (LIV) lanes on both sides of the street.
I think that vehicles that go more than 20 MPH without human power don’t belong in bike lanes. Many of these vehicles should be sharing the general travel lanes where they can follow the speed limit on nearly 100% of the streets in the city.
It probably needs to be just a 20mph limit for anything in the bike lane to have any chance of being enforced (which it probably wouldn’t anyway). Maybe anything with a motor would work. Even though those can be pretty stealthy.
Unfortunately, every time I bike in east Portland bike lanes, I have to navigate obstacles presented by cars parking in bike facilities, debris discarded in bike facilities, people transporting carts full of goods in bike facilities, and people traveling the wrong way or at excessive speeds on all manner of transportation devices. It just goes with the territory. Rarely do these obstacles feel like the most hazardous things that I interact with on a ride (people traveling in cars are way scarier), but they definitely add an element of risk that is less frequently encountered in other parts of the city.
122nd is such a deathtrap. It needs to be redone ASAP. Riding the wrong way is a dumb mistake, but we all make dumb mistakes and dumb mistakes shouldn’t be fatal.
Those streets are so wide, and dangerous to cross, that people usually go the wrong way if they’re within a block or two of their destination, rather than hazard a crossing. I think a lot of people also just go the wrong way because it’s easier. There really needs to be two way bike lanes on both sides of streets of this size.
Maybe dumb mistakes shouldn’t be fatal but when the dumb mistake is riding the wrong way we’re pleading with physics. That particular kind of dumb mistake gives you a closing speed and collision speed (roughly) twice your own speed. It’s a really bad mistake! It sounds like the guy riding the wrong way wasn’t the one who died. If the mistake shouldn’t be fatal, who can we look at that should have done something different? As cyclists we can say: we shouldn’t be making the kinds of dumb mistakes that could cost others their lives. When a cyclist runs a red light and hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk we rightly say that’s recklessness. Riding the wrong way down a bike lane is no different, maybe worse because of the potential for such high-speed crashes. It’s something we can all condemn in the harshest terms.
Maybe a better bike lane could make room for wrong-way riders to make their mistakes with less consequence, but… the one time I saw a wrong-way rider cause a crash it was on a popular “parking-protected” lane in a relatively bike-friendly part of Seattle (the crash destroyed the other guy’s bike but incredibly he didn’t seem to suffer any bodily injury). Even with space for people to get around each other, with that kind of closing speed and no clear procedure, the two might just choose to juke the same direction and have no time to correct the error.
The painted bike lanes do have arrows for the correct direction, but I can sorta understand the thinking of the scooter user whose destination still needs to be identified – 122nd is a huge wide busy stroad that as others have said is a deathtrap – and it really boils down to 4 really horrible choices:
Ride on the sidewalk with cars blocking at several drivewaysRide southbound in the northbound bike lane against trafficRide correctly in the southbound bike lane but must cross 5 lanes of dangerous fast traffic to get thereTake a parallel street 5 block away on 117th/119th which has no shoulder nor sidewalks and equally nasty drivers plus jogs on major stroadsI’d say this crash was inevitable given the design of 122nd, it was just a matter of time.
We should welcome all kinds of Low-impact Transportation devices in bike lanes and multi-use paths, but there should be a speed limit. 20+ miles-per-hour doesn’t mix well with slower vehicles. And all road users should know and follow the rules of the road, such as going in the right direction.