Photo credit: Jeff Scher
John Brooking is a nationally-certified bicycle educator with CyclingSavvy, a traffic cycling curriculum in Southern Maine.
SRG: What is the mission of Cycling Savvy, and how do you carry it out?
JB: The mission of CyclingSavvy is to give cyclists the knowledge, skills, and techniques to be confident using their bikes more often and in more situations. The biggest focus is on dealing with traffic while biking for transportation, since that is most peoples’ biggest concern, but our skills session, which may be taken by itself, is also applicable even if you’re only interested in riding on paths.
SRG: Your tagline is “Empowerment for Unlimited Travel” – can you share a little more about what that means?
JB: Many trips around town can be done mostly on quiet streets, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid crossing or traveling for a short distance on a more major road, which many cyclists understandably find daunting. We aim to give cyclists the knowledge, skill, and techniques to deal with those situations when necessary, so that people truly can ride with confidence anywhere they need to go. We are not about making people into “road warriors”. It’s not about speed or power, it’s about understanding traffic flow and using it to your advantage.
SRG: What are the different programs you offer, and who are they designed for (i.e. do you need prior experience)?
JB: We offer a 3-part course, roughly 3 hours each: classroom, skills session, and a group ride where we put it all together. The classroom and skills session may both be taken by themselves, but both are required to go on the “tour”. The courses do not require that you have a lot of prior experience, but we assume you can at least balance and steer, and have a working bike. The course is designed for adults, or older teenagers if accompanied by an adult.
SRG: How do people sign up for your programs, and when are they offered?
JB: You can go to our website, CyclingSavvy.org, and click the “Find a Course” button. I try to offer the full 3-session course in Portland twice each summer, and the first one for 2014 is coming right up July 11-12! I’m also planning on doing it again in late September or October, but I haven’t set those dates yet. To register, you’ll need to create an account on the website, then purchase credits towards the session(s) you want to take.
SRG: What are some of the most important bicycle safety tips you can share?
JB: Without having the space to go into detail (that’s what the course is for), I would say there are three very important general concepts. The first is to follow the same rules of the road as other drivers, as that puts you where others are already looking for traffic, and makes you much more predictable. Ride on the right side of the road and obey traffic controls. Use lights at night.
Secondly, counter-intuitively, you are sometimes better off in the travel lane for better visibility and vantage, and if the lane is too narrow and there is no usable shoulder or bike lane, ride further into it to discourage unsafe passing. Lane use can be scary at first, and we spend a lot of time talking about it in the classroom session.
Thirdly, communicate! Communication is probably THE most useful thing that most bicyclists never do. Cyclists make motorists nervous, and that’s partly because they don’t know what you’re going to do. If you communicate with them, many of them will even help you out! Make turn signals, make the stopping signal. We teach an unofficial “stay back” signal, arm diagonally down with palm back, for use when you need them to not pass right now, and it works so well that when you use it, you often have to “release” them with a friendly wave afterwards! (Obviously, keep it friendly! Don’t escalate incivility.)
SRG: We’re excited to see more cyclists on the roads these days, even in the cooler months. What do you think the reason is for this?
JB: Yes, I was one of 4 cyclists right behind each other on Spring Street between Westbrook and the mall just last Friday, and that hardly ever happens! And I’ve certainly seen more winter cyclists even in the latest harsh winter than I did years ago when I started. I don’t have any unique insight, but I think it is probably related to the increased desire to make a health-conscious and environmentally-friendly choice. Many reports are coming out saying that fewer young people are choosing cars as their first transportation choice, for whatever reasons. Among people of all ages, other factors are probably rising gas prices in the last decade, and the awareness that cheap gas may never come our way again, coupled with the economic downturn. Many cities are making efforts to accommodate cyclists more comfortably with infrastructure. It’s unclear to what extent the cause and effect runs each way between more cyclists and more infrastructure, but it certainly indicates a rising awareness.
SRG: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about?
JB: Most people learn to ride bikes when they are 5 or 6, but unfortunately, most people don’t learn anything more about it after that, even as adults. So it’s no wonder many adults don’t know exactly what they are supposed to do riding in traffic, and some feel more comfortable sticking to sidewalks and crosswalks like they did as kids, or even ride facing traffic (very dangerous, actually!), and above all just try to stay out of the way. The message we get from the culture is that bicyclists are not real drivers, so it’s no wonder that many bicyclists don’t act like it. What successful traffic cyclists have always found is that when we act more like other drivers, we tend to get treated more like drivers, and that riding that way is really much easier and safer. That’s ultimately what we are trying to get across. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about CyclingSavvy with your readers!
Hi, I am a little frustrated as there are roads around my hoome in Rumford Maine which are being repaved but the shoulder is not. So we end up with a beautifully paved road which ends abruptly at the white line and drops into either a soft dirt shoulder or broken unsafe old pavement.
I used to bike up to the height of the land in Rangely but that is completely unsafe. There’s a beautiful 10 miles of road called the Canton Point Road running from Dixfeild to Canton which is now perfectly paved except for the shoulder. With the increase in distracted drivers and less and less shoulders being paved I feel more and more limited as to where I can ride without being rude and controlling the lane.
I’ve tried talking to the town managers and DOT personnel but I am told “Roads are for cars, Ma’am!”
Can you give me any help in how to influence these non cyclists?
Thanks, Paula
Hi, Paula,
Thanks for asking. I’m going to also let the Bicycle Coalition of Maine know about your question, because I think they will want to know, and may have more to add. But meanwhile I’ll reply with my thoughts.
First, I’m shocked, though maybe I shouldn’t be, that even in 2016, someone said “roads are for cars”. I hope that wasn’t a DOT person. The BCM has been working hard for decades with them to improve their perspective and policies, and I know we are making *some* progress. I imagine that town managers are a bit more of a wildcard. They are not transportation professionals, and in rural areas, maybe that’s not even their full-time job.
But the simple answer to that comment, of course, is that no, in the eyes of the law, roads are not just for cars. The relevant state law is Title 29-A, Chapter 19, Section 2063, paragraph 5: “A person riding a bicycle or scooter or operating roller skis on a way has the rights and is subject to the duties applicable to the operator of a vehicle” (http://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec2063-A.html). Or as we like to say, “Same road, same rules, same rights”.
Of course what they really meant by that comment is that roads are in fact designed primary with motor vehicles in mind, and unfortunately, traffic engineers often don’t take other users into account. In the situation you mention, the repaving policy is often to repave only to the edges of the travel lane, because shoulders are not designed for travel. Bicyclists may be able to use them, if they are wide and clean enough, but we are not required to. So that’s why, unfortunately, most engineers running repaving projects don’t bother with the shoulder, because it’s not considered an official travel area, and they save money by omitting it.
If this was a DOT project, as it sounds like it was, you could ask them about their repaving policy as it relates to their Complete Streets policy, which they adopted a few years ago in response to BCM’s advocacy. I know that we talked to them about this very topic, repaving all the way to the edge of the road, but I don’t recall exactly what policy was ultimately adopted. In situations where there is no paved shoulder at all, you also ask about their policy of adding paved shoulders to any road having greater than a certain “average daily traffic” (ADT) count, which I think is 30,000. Of course, not all roads are that busy.
These are some points and questions you could raise to the people you are talking to. We have a legal right to use the road, and we are taxpayers just as much as motorists are. I also have some thoughts as an educator about what you can do to ride more safely and confidently on these roads as they are now, but I’ll make that a second comment.
Oops, I got the link wrong in that first message. It should be http://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec2063.html . Sorry.
I also wanted to try to help you out with riding on those roads as they exist today, if I can. I know it’s scary at first to ride in the travel lane with cars, and I know I’m not going to simply talk you into feeling comfortable with it. But I’d like to share a technique we teach in CyclingSavvy which we find works really well. We call it “control and release”.
It does sometimes involve lane control, yes. But it also involves “release”, moving over to the right when it IS safe to pass, especially when it has not been and then it becomes safe again. Your lane position is a form of communication. You can even add hand motions to it, as I mentioned in the article. I have found control and release with hand motions to be EXTREMELY effective. Communication works! I have a theory that one thing about cyclists that annoys motorists is when the cyclist does not acknowledge the motorist’s presence, as if they are either oblivious, or they don’t care. People want to be acknowledged! By communicating with the motorist behind you, even communicating “stay back”, you are telling them that you know they are there, and you know they would like to pass, but it’s not a good time. Often, when I use the hand motions, they drop back, and usually I have to make it obvious when it’s okay to pass again, by moving to the right and giving them a friendly wave. It’s like they’ve understand that I am in control and I know what I’m doing, so they’ll take their cue from me. In my experience, people will almost always give you plenty of room as long as there is no oncoming traffic. So if you communicate with them to stay back when there IS oncoming traffic, or a blind curve or hillcrest coming up, you will usually get great passing distance when you release them after the oncoming traffic or blind spot has passed.
Obviously, you need to look behind you. Turning your head is best, since mirrors have blind spots, so you should practice being able to look behind you without swerving. But if you feel more comfortable also having a mirror for easy monitoring, by all means get a mirror. But you should still do a shoulder check before you move left, just like changing lanes in a car.
An additional lane position consideration is whether you should ride centered or to the right by default, when there is no one behind you. I used to ride to the right by default, but I’ve started riding more centered the last few years. There are some excellent advantages to this. One, you are already in control of the lane when a situation starts to develop, and can decide whether it’s safe to cede control, rather than not being in control and possibly not be able to gain control back in time to prevent a close pass. Secondly, a centered lane position makes you relevent from further back. From a distance, riding at the edge can look to a motorist like there is space to pass you even with oncoming traffic, even if there is not. Then they don’t realize that until they get closer, and maybe it’s too late to react then, so they just squeeze past. If they realize they need to react to you sooner, they have more time and choices.
A major valuable insight I have gained gradually over the years, and especially as the result of taking CyclingSavvy, is how lane position and communication actually HELPS motorists, whether they realize it or not. It’s much better for them to see sooner that they have to react to you, not just ignore you. People don’t want to hurt you, so most crashes are just the result of carelessness or misjudgment, or yes, distraction. But studies of distracted driving show that peripheral vision suffers more than straight-on vision, suggesting that you are actually more likely to be seen by distracted drivers, and sooner, by being in the middle of the lane than at the edge.
For all these reasons of making yourself relevant and helping motorists to not make mistakes round you, I cannot stress enough that lane control IS NOT RUDE. It is defensive driving, and defensive driving is never rude. The level of motorist ignorance of this fact of bike safety is sadly very great, so unfortunately you can occasionally get some honking or yelling about it, but not as much as you might be afraid you will. More importantly, though, I have many fewer close calls and scares since I began doing lane control, with hand communication where necessary, and release when safe. As the law says, we do have the right to use the road, and where the infrastructure is not such that we are able to use a shoulder or bike lane or part of a wide lane, then it is still not only possible, but safe, to use roads as a “bicycle driver” with equal rights to drive defensively.
I hope this helps. And good luck with the shoulder conversations!
– John