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Your Favorite Uncles

By Maynard Hershon

As I read this year’s springtime bike safety articles, I am struck by how much is left unsaid. If you’re a longtime cyclist, you know what I mean. Riding in traffic is like playing chess with your life — except the pieces don’t follow the rules.

If, like a favorite uncle, you put an arm around the shoulders of a new rider, and you tell that person that taking the lane or signaling turns or some other clever practice will help keep them safe, are you helping them? Or are you misleading them by suggesting an attitude or technique will render Main Street at 5 p.m. will be as safe as church on Sunday morning?

I see city traffic and recognize chaos, people at their worst, civilization crumbling at 45 mph in a 30 mph zone. Sure, you can do all the right things and shed the inferiority complex, maybe take the lane. Then some jerk in a diesel pickup will turn in front of you and lie to the cops afterward. It’s a minefield, and no one has a map.

Nothing about U.S. roads or its drivers promotes safe, autopilot commuting. The same people who maintain that, given proper technique, rush hour riding is safe, tell us that bike paths are more dangerous than roads. Do you believe that?

I thought I’d offer new riders a peek at the utterly distrustful minds of their three favorite cycling uncles, survivors of the mean streets.

Your cynical uncle Maynard thinks that to brave the mean streets a bit of denial is in order. We ignore or push aside evidence presented to us every day. It’s a trick. You have to try to think the best of drivers. Here’s how...

Pretend that drivers take seriously their responsibilities as motorists. Imagine that they’ve perfected their driving skills and can perform evasive actions swiftly and effectively. Give them credit for levels (that we seldom see) of consideration and identification with others. Count on drivers to have maintained their vehicles’ safety devices, to have working brakes and tread on, and air in, their tires.

Trust drivers to be unimpaired by chemicals, sustained adolescence or emotional distress. Assume that they know the rules of the road and tend to obey those rules even when no cops are in sight. Believe they are not as unpredictable, territorial, impatient and imperious as they seem.

Assume that drivers can see fairly well and are looking beyond the ends of their hoods. Believe that they’re as interested in what’s happening around their vehicles as they are in what’s happening on their phones.

In honesty, says your uncle Maynard, I don’t believe any of that. Do you? I believe that on our streets we are outnumbered 1,000 to 1 by angry, vengeful, distracted, low-blood-sugar crazy-people in badly steered battering rams — and that’s just the Prius drivers. No matter how “correctly” and assertively you ride, you might try wearing garlic necklaces to ward off vampires. It could work. Who knows?

Your uncle Phil from Oakland says it might be good to remind new riders about physics. “Objects in motion,” uncle Phil will tell you, “tend to stay in motion even after banging into other objects.” Phil knows that for a fact because drivers have proven that they will not identify with us to try to predict what we might do. Phil tries his best to predict where that large, Prius-shaped object might be headed — so he can avoid crossing its path.

Because the result of a car/bike collision is so often harmful to the cyclist, uncle Phil would strongly suggest you wear a helmet and gloves. Even if there’s no car involved in your crash, you’ll be glad you did.

And uncle Phil would tell you he is hyper-aware in situations when a driver’s vision may be obscured so he can’t see you on your bike, even if that driver is paying attention. The driver can’t see well but he’s not smart enough to slow down. It’s up to us to anticipate what could happen and get out of the way. No need to ask Phil how he knows that.

Your uncle Corey down in San Antonio says: “Yes, it’s a minefield out there. But, even though I drive a Volvo wagon, I take a risk every time I drive to work in my car. Especially here in Texas, there are lots of vehicles more massive than mine. If one of them blows a stop sign and hits me, it’s bad news whether I’m on my bike or in my car.”

“When I’m riding anywhere near motorized vehicles,” Uncle Corey says, “I ride as if I were invisible, since that’s the way most drivers treat me. Even when they make eye contact with me, I don’t assume they see me or will yield right-of-way.

“I’m very careful about route planning. I try to stay on streets with wide, well marked shoulders and low speed limits. For years here in San Antonio, I did not bike commute because I couldn’t get through one part of town without using what I consider dangerous roads. Then they finished a particular section of frontage road and my commute became feasible.”

“In the end, it comes down to risk management and cost-benefit ratios,” Corey says. “I feel safer on my bicycle because it’s much more relaxing. Traffic does not stress me out the way it does when I drive. I arrive at work and at home feeling chilled out, having had a good sweat each way.

“Bicycle commuting is not always the right answer, but it can be if you can take the right route and if you have the right attitude.”

Your uncle Maynard would tell new riders to stay off Main Street at 5 p.m. or any other time of day. For decades riders sought out light-traffic routes in cities, just as Corey described. All your uncles would suggest to new riders that they choose secondary streets so slow that impatient car drivers avoid using them. Virtually no veteran cyclists pedal the same streets they would drive in their cars.

I’d suggest that new riders count passing cars on their ride routes. The fewer, the better. I’d say also that, sure enough, you can get hurt on a bike path but you probably won’t get hit by an apparently blind driver in a diesel pickup, or the silent peril of a Prius.

As uncle Corey says, “Bike commuting is not always appropriate.” Given the range in our personal temperaments and the varying availability of safe routes, maybe not everyone with the inclination should ride — until the fuel runs out, that is.