Lots of Boston drivers, particularly those who have never navigated congested roadways on a bike, mistakenly believe that cyclists are not allowed to ride in line with vehicles. Cyclists, likewise, think they do motorists a favor by weaving around traffic or moving through red lights if an intersection appears clear. Contrary to popular belief, the safest way for cyclists to travel city roadways is to ride as if they were driving a motor vehicle.
During October, the Massachusetts Bicycling Coalition (MassBike) will pilot their Same Roads, Same Rules campaign in and around Boston. The campaign’s message is that, in order to safely share the same roads, cyclists and motorists must abide by the same laws.
Until last year, Massachusetts defined bicycling as a recreational activity not liable to traffic regulations. But in January, the State passed the Bicyclist Safety Act, standardizing procedures for ticketing cyclists who ignore traffic laws, and making certain motorist actions finable offenses, including opening a car door into a cyclist’s path (known as “dooring”), cutting in front of cyclists after overtaking them, forcing cyclists onto the shoulder, and cutting off cyclists when turning left at an intersection.
While the Bicyclist Safety Act was a boon to both local and national cycling advocates, the challenge lies in getting already-overburdened police departments to enforce the new regulations. Police in Cambridge are known to ticket cyclists moving illegally at particular busy intersections, but authorities in Boston can’t begin ticketing cyclists for moving violations until the Registry of Motor Vehicles updates its computer system in 2011.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Board, about 700 "pedalcyclists" are killed each year, which represents about 2% of US roadway fatalities. Massachusetts had 10 cyclist fatalities in 2008, out of a total 363 traffic deaths (a little higher than the national average). The majority of bike crashes occur under a very discrete set of circumstances. According to the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, the "typical" bicyclist casualty is a sober male aged 16+ riding without a helmet, between intersections, on a major urban road on a summer evening. More specifically, male cyclists are 7 times more likely to crash as females, 91% of bicycling fatalities occur when the cyclist is not wearing a helmet, and most crashes occur at urban intersections, between the hours and 5 and 9 pm, from June through August.
Cyclists can substantially reduce their risks, then, by wearing a helmet, obeying traffic signals at intersections and riding vigilantly, with a light, in the evening. Yet any Boston bike commuter will tell you that she sees cyclists violating the principles of safe riding, not to mention traffic laws, on a daily basis.
Beyond passing traffic regulations, the government can prioritize infrastructure investments that affect travelers' behavior, and increase cycling safety. When gasoline prices briefly topped $4/gallon last year, increasing numbers of commuters around the country took to their bicycles in response. But Washington’s inclination to keep fuel prices artificially low figures prominently in America’s car-centered culture. In European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, where gasoline costs $7/gallon or more, more than 50% of residents commute to school or work on a bicycle. This dwarfs the rates in America's most bike-friendly cities - Portland and Seattle - which register 6% and 3%, respectively.
In 2007 Boston hired a Director of Bicycle Programs to coordinate its efforts to make the City more bike-friendly. Since then, the city has made infrastructure changes aimed at increasing safety and convenience, including new bike lanes, bike cages and racks and regular promotional events, like the Bike Friday meetups held last summer, where cyclists could commute into town en masse and receive a free breakfast before heading to work. Next year the City plans to introduce a bike sharing program to provide 3,000 communal bicycles at various points around town. But Boston will also have to prioritize resources to enforce traffic regulations if it really means to engender respect about the importance of sharing the road.
Ironically, increasing the number of cyclists on the roadways ultimately makes them safer for all travelers. Road fatalities in developed, bike friendly countries occur at about half the rate they do in the US. But an appreciation for sharing the road can only be cultivated incrementally, through consistent penalization of traffic violations and increasing numbers of law abiding cyclists confidently taking to the road. Efforts like MassBike's Same Roads, Same Rules project, which educate all travelers about their rights and responsibilities, are a small step in this direction.
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