Los Angeles gets my vote for Worst Place in the World to Drive, and I’ve driven everywhere from Almaty, Kazakstan, to Rome, Italy. It’s also one of the worst places in the world to ride your bike, especially if you ride to commute.
In South Los Angeles, motorists in their closed SUVs pumped with max air conditioning assume that if you’re on a bike, you’re not riding by choice, but because you’re homeless (and therefore don’t really have anyplace special to go while people who own cars and SUVs must get to work) according to The New York Times‘ Sunday, June 24 news section.
Cycling groups led by Ted Rogers, of the BikingInLA blog <bikinginla.com>, are lobbying the L.A. City Council for safer bike lanes following the tragic death of Frederick “Woon” Frazier, casualty of a hit-and-run by a woman in a Porsche sport/utility.
Earlier this month, Charles Pickett was sentenced to 35- to 55-years in prison for killing five when the pickup truck he was driving plowed into a group of nine bicyclists out for a regularly scheduled ride. Pickett had methamphetamine, muscle relaxers and pain medication in his system when he hit nine cyclists in June 2016, a forensic scientist had testified. He was driving 58 mph in a 35 mph zone, and apparently did not hit the brakes until he hit the first of the cyclists on a rural two-lane highway outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Now a proposal in the Michigan state legislature would require that motorists allow no less than five-feet distance before passing cyclists on certain roads. But even with potential gains in car-centric states like Michigan and California, bike commuters and recreational bikers will remain caught in the middle, between motorists and pedestrians. Yes, some people do walk in California and Michigan.
There are the selfish motorists who express outrage when cyclists aren’t riding on the sidewalk. And there are pedestrians and dog walkers like me who want cyclists off the sidewalks. Listen to me, not to them. Bikes are street legal on most surface streets.
While I understand how bicyclists, especially the “newbies,” are reluctant to ride on the street or on a local two-lane because of incidents like the two above, the consequences of riding aren’t much better.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were walking from a parking space on a side street near Woodward Avenue, in downtown Detroit. As we approached the corner of a building to turn left onto Woodward, a young couple on two bicyclists whizzed past us, riding fast on the opposite side of vehicle traffic, on the sidewalk. We saw them, and they saw us, only at the last second (assuming they saw us at all). We could have been run down, hard.
A few weeks later, I walked out of a local liquor store that’s close to home, where I picked up a bottle of Chianti to go with some Italian takeout further down the street. As I reached to put the bottle into my pannier, a bicyclist on the sidewalk, to my left, braked hard. It was past dark, and he had no light on his bike, though he was wearing a helmet, I think (I hardly saw him before he biked on). I unlocked my bike and walked it to the street and turned on to the alley just half a block away. My neighborhood is just outside of Detroit, also on Woodward Avenue where I often walk my dogs as the occasional bicyclist passes by.
I try not to give them any space, because State law requires bicyclists dismount and walk their bikes in the presence of pedestrians. But they don’t have to do this. My neighborhood has plenty of bike lanes, and quieter side streets where the speed limit is 25 mph, not 35 mph. You can safely and easily get to your destination by avoiding Woodward, sticking to the streets, and using a smart combination of alleyways and side streets.
I can’t say whether this might work in neighborhoods in South L.A., though in all my extensive travels, I’d bet Metro Detroit is more dangerous for cyclists than any other North American city except for L.A. And it’s the Metro Detroit part that’s important. When I lived in the city, I rode around town and into the nearby Grosse Point old-line suburbs quite extensively, but it wasn’t until I moved into the suburbs that I regularly heard the words “ride on the sidewalk!” from motorists.
I always refused. Do the same, and plot your ride or commute by staying off major thoroughfares. Don’t give in to motorists who believe that bikes don’t belong on the road.
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