I’m a motorcyclist, and I don’t get how this works for you in real life.
If I’m riding down the road and there’s a car stopped at a stop sign or intersection, and we make eye contact, yes I assume they see me. I do not come to a full stop in the middle of the road to let them turn just in case they forget we looked at each other. There’s no way to ride that defensively and not get hit by car drivers behind me, or make weird illogical trade offs that otherwise increase my risk of being hit. Yes, we can all ride defensively, but at some point we’re trusting other drivers to behave logically.
Cyclist rather than motorcyclist here, and that's correct. You read the body language of cars. If you pay attention - full attention with your head up on the situation, and not on your music or phone conversation - you can read what cars don't notice you, which ones do and will yield, and which ones do but will aggressively move first. You adjust your speed and path to accommodate for that as best as you can, case by case.
Holding to your line every time you know you have the right of way is stupid, because some drivers will violate it either intentionally or inadvertently. It should be the [motor]cyclist's right, but realistically it isn't because we're the ones not shielded by two tons of crumple zone. But defensively yielding every time is also stupid, because some drivers will indeed respect your right of way, and that impedes other users on your same right of way.
The right approach is to judge it case by case with your full attention on how best to react, which changes with every situation.
I think that personal responsibility goes both ways. I love cycling. I used to drive my daughter to school every day.
Whatever vehicle I am operating (or even if I am walking), I should be paying attention as much as I can. Yes, the stakes are much higher for pedestrians and cyclists. Yes, it is much easier to zone out when driving. Adding in texting while driving, and we get more of those short-term memory effects.
In the early days, the automobile makers made a concerted effort to change the culture around "who is responsible". Yes, they standardized the rules of the road to make it safer ... but they also injected into the culture to shift the responsibility to people who are not driving on the road.
In the end, I think for most people, they don't really want to get hurt, or see other people get hurt.
Agreed that everyone wants to do the right thing, I see car drivers doing it everyday on the streets of San Francisco. I also see idiots texting and speeding. But I digress.
Even the ones who are trying to drive cautiously fundamentally accelerate much faster and move faster and have 3000 lbs on me.
We need highly separated infrastructure in cities or an extremely low speed limit (15mph) in cities on non car only roads.
No amount of good will and mutual responsibility is going to solve this problem.
Yeah, architecture can influence choices people make. It is something at the heart of Christopher Alexander’s work on architecture, although he generalizes this to human interactions.
When we look at that, we look at the whole. Safety is only one concern out of many. Fostering a sense of personal responsibility is another. There are others: artistic beauty and grace; personal initiative and prevailing over challenges; kindness and universal kinship towards all of mankind. Just to name a few.
An excessive focus on safety will prevent people from developing that sense of personal responsibility.
So this isn’t something to “solve” like that. We have not even figured out just what it is we want to do as a society. We have not even been able to recognize as a society that people have a diversity of views, and that individuals are at different stages of maturity and growth.
Even so: I generally agree that dedicated infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, and public transportation is way better than this excessive focus on cars and SUVs. Investing into is costly, but we have to look at it as investing towards our children and grandchildren’s futures.
>If you pay attention - full attention with your head up on the situation, and not on your music or phone conversation - you can read what cars don't notice you, which ones do and will yield, and which ones do but will aggressively move first. You adjust your speed and path to accommodate for that as best as you can, case by case.
Cannot agree more. I would go so far as to say the ability to anticipate what another party will do is a prerequisite to being a good driver/cyclist/pedestrian.
Then to throw a monkey-wrench into the mix: people, such as those on the ASD spectrum, who have difficulty decoding or intuiting body language, adapting to it, and giving out the signals about their intentions.
As a cyclist I think you are on point. Like people, cars have body language. It is so telling that I can even tell which cars are at a stop sign in the middle of the night and are waving me through the intersection even though they have the right of way and there's no way I can see into their vehicle (seriously guys, just go if you have the right of way. I don't trust you) as opposed to someone who is just stopped and not paying attention.
Well,it's not an absolute rule to follow in every situation but they key is adjust your speed to enable preventive action. In your scenario I don't stop, but maybe I slow down instead of sailing through the intersection. I can come to a stop faster if the other guy does do something stupid, so at least I have a chance.
As the article suggests(and from my own experience), making eye contact is no guarantee.
> and we make eye contact, yes I assume they see me.
Oh, that doesn't work reliably enough. Far from uncommon for cars that are stopped at a side junction, have a driver that looks, appears to see and make eye contact, then pulls out anyway...
You do seem to develop some sort of sixth sense for the ones that will. Then you can try to get them to see by over-using your carriageway - swerve to gutter then to centre line, etc, expecting and setting up to swerve behind the pulling out vehicle.
If I’m riding down the road and there’s a car stopped at a stop sign or intersection, and we make eye contact, yes I assume they see me. I do not come to a full stop in the middle of the road to let them turn just in case they forget we looked at each other. There’s no way to ride that defensively and not get hit by car drivers behind me, or make weird illogical trade offs that otherwise increase my risk of being hit. Yes, we can all ride defensively, but at some point we’re trusting other drivers to behave logically.