We’re told that 81-year-old actor Gene Hackman got away with a few bruises after he was walloped by a pickup truck. What unbelievable luck! Especially considering he was riding without a helmet. And…who would think Gene Hackman could possibly be 81, anyway?
Bicycling is great exercise and fun. I love to ride around the neighborhood on the wonderful purple bike my friends gave me a year or so ago. And I must say, I’m not fond of wearing helmets either, and don’t. Even though I stay inside the neighborhood and avoid even the feeder streets, I’m still wary—it’s very dangerous.
One of the local peccadilloes that I can not figure out is the habit of getting on a bike and traveling on the main drags around here, effectively daring the nutcase drivers to run you down. People get into the traffic lanes where the speed limit is 40, meaning most people drive 45 to 50, and putz along at 20 or 25—not bad for a bicyclist, but exceptionally annoying if you’re running late and you get stuck behind one of them. Even though the law treats bicycles as vehicles and so bikers are expected to obey the traffic laws, too many ignore them, crossing against the red and weaving across main drags, apparently expecting drivers will just naturally stop for their wonderful selves.
It’s hard to tell which is more annoying, too: a biker who behaves like a jaywalking pedestrian or one who obeys the law and thereby clogs the traffic lanes. To go east or south out of my neighborhood, you have to get through one of two truly interminable signals. Because Arizona allows right turns on red, you can get around a several-minute wait by turning right at one of these signals, then going south to an east-bound main drag.
The other day, I was late as usual and headed for Scottsdale. As usual, the light turned red, and there was a bicyclist, bundled against the cold and helmeted up like a gladiator (which she needed to be, to live through her ride), parked in the right-turn lane. She blocked me from turning right as we sat there and sat there and sat there and sat there and SAT there waiting for the signal to change. Could she have lifted her bike onto the sidewalk? Of course, but that would violate the law, which says her bike is a vehicle. Could she have stood in the left-and-straight lane, where she would not be impeding southbound drivers’ progress? Of course, but that would make sense.
Yes, car and truck drivers do this all the time (more often, they take up their half out of the middle of the road, so no one can get around them on either side). But a car driver has a half-ton of metal and plastic between herself and her enraged fellow roadies.
Biking enthusiasts have persuaded the City Council to rip out a lane each way, northbound and southbound, of Central Avenue from Dunlap to Camelback. It’s imagined that hordes of commuters will jump on their bikes, ride across to Central on the canal banks, tool down to the train stop at Central and Camelback, and jump on the lightrail train from there.
Goofiest thing I’ve ever heard.
In the first place, because Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, the flanking north-south main drags, are no-left-turn streets during the rush hours, the only way to go east or west out of the North Central district is to wend your way through neighborhoods to Central Avenue (I have to navigate three neighborhoods to do this), from which you can turn onto the east-west main drag of your choice.
Second, and far more important, is that cowboy drivers do not give one thin damn about bike lanes. You’re scarcely safer behind a white line on the asphalt than you are riding in the unmarked street. Sooner or later you are going to get hit if you ride on a main drag, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in a bike lane or not.
And third, that stark fact is the reason virtually no one rides a bicycle to work around here. Well. That and the 118-degree heat. You would be crazy to do a thing like that.
Will Phoenicians start biking to work when gas reaches $5 a gallon? I kinda doubt it. What part of 118 degrees do our city parents not understand? When gas reaches $5 a gallon, Arizonans will drive to work in hybrid and electric plug-in cars. And they’ll resent having two lanes of a key artery torn out while they’re driving their high-mpg cars as much as they’re going to resent seeing that happen right now.
I’m glad Mr. Hackman came away almost unharmed. Wish every bicyclist who tangles with a vehicle could be that lucky!
I had a collision with a car once while riding a bike. I went flying across the hood, and rolled to a stop clear on the other side. Gene Hackman was lucky indeed, and how did he get to be 81?
Wow! Thank goodness you’re still with us! Bike riders are so vulnerable… It’s so much fun to ride that you put that out of your mind. But it’s still an unfortunate (and dangerous) fact.
It was almost Hollywood-ish, like a planned stunt. 🙂
My daughter had an accident like that and she STILL won’t wear a helmet.
I had a fairly bad accident once, too. I was wearing a helmet, but my bike got quite messed up and I ended up flipping over the handlebars onto the trunk of a cab. For more than a year if I put my elbow down a certain way I would feel a sharp pain. http://awindycitygal.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/oooff/
I’m not sure what the laws are like in Arizona, but in Chicago that cyclist who was sitting in the right turn lane would not be complying with the law. Unless she was also turning right, she should have been stopped in between the right turn lane and the other lane to go straight/turn left. She should have left room for cars in both lanes to continue as needed.
As for the weather, I know I wouldn’t cycle in such high heat. But I do know people who do so. My dog walker cycles every day, even in the cold and snow. I admire that, but I would rather take the bus on inclement days when it is really hot/cold or raining sideways/snowing.
Ohhhhh the whole bicycle accident thing scares me even more than the motorcycle accident thing. You’re so frail and so invisible to motorists and then there are the chuckleheads who actively hate people on bicycles. Augh!
@ Linda: I think the law in Arizona is similar, except I don’t think you’re expected to perch between lanes. In theory, you’re supposed to “drive” on the road exactly as you would drive if you were in a car. So, the way I understand it, if you’re going to turn left, you belong in the left-turn lane. If you’re going straight, you should be in the center lane.
As a practical matter, these rules are mostly honored in the breach. Cops ignore them. And I think many people don’t know bicyclists are regarded as cars. In addition, riding on the streets here is so dangerous that many bikers will go on the sidewalk as a safety matter — no one walks around here, and so there’s no good reason not to use the sidewalks as bike lanes, as long as you bear in mind that people coming out of driveways aren’t watching for you. And, of course, assuming you stop your bike, get off, and stand aside when the odd pedestrian comes along.