TheWashCycle

R. Emmett Tyrrell and the persistent perseverance of wrongness

R. Emmett Tyrrell  is a magazine editor, book author and columnist and the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He has also spent his career being wrong about cycling, a fact made all the more surprising by the fact that he was college roommates with Steve Tesich, the screenwriter of both "Breaking Away" and "American Flyers". Of course he even found room to quibble with the film that won his friend an Oscar.

Of course, Hollywood had to tart up the "Breaking Away" story to conform with its own legends and bugaboos. The struggle of the downtrodden townies against the lordly college students never took place.

Though the bicycle race did take place, Stoyan's townies were actually members of our circle of friends, an eccentric bicycle rider of immense talent named Dave Blaze (sic) and several national champion swimmers, one quite rich. In the movie the putative townies from hillbilly families listened to opera and wore Italian paraphernalia such as ascots. That was the style, of course, of off-beat college students, not poor country boys. Only Hollywood would believe in hillbillies singing arias an d insist that rich and privileged (actually quite middle-class) students lose races to wretches of Dickensian pathos.

Tyrrell's record of anti-cyclist writing starts shortly after Breaking Away hit theaters. In 1980, writing in the Washington Post (below or here) he wrote in support of Mayor Koch's decision to remove the bike lanes he had installed a year earlier. He claimed the caused  congestion, endangered pedestrians and frightened dogs (for reals). He argued that NYC workers would be happier driving to work than they would be biking. He called bikes unstable and dangerous.

"Not only are bicycles dangerous, they are as antiquated a form of transportation as the rickshaw. In no advanced city on earth will you find civilized people cycling to work. The urban cyclist is generally a crank, either profoundly antisocial or hopelessly narcissistic and following the strenuous life in hopes of achieving immortality or a legendary sex life."

The piece earned him no friend's in the bicycling community and three years later he took to the Post's pages again, this time to attack "militant cyclists" because a writer, who was also a cyclist, was criticizing him. ["Liberals and the art of bicycle fanaticism", Jun 13, 1983] Militant cyclists don't ride for recreation or out of economic need, he wrote, but for the "ulterior motive of making moral or political statements." You know, those guys. Anyway, he continued to claim bikes are "unstable" despite the disagreement of physics. And repeated much of his 1980 article word for word - including the line about how the brakes of a Model T are better than that of a bike (I don't know either) and that they endanger pedestrians and dogs. He then goes on to call for urban cycling to be banned or curtailed.  But he never really explains how cycling connects to liberals.  

In the same article he predicted Margaret Thatcher's election would be 

If you thought he'd changed his mind as the world of urban cycling changed, you'd be wrong. In 2007 he wrote, in a bit of climate change denialism

We know environmentalists often ride bicycles and I can see why bicycles suit them. The bicyclist is the exalte' of the road. The bicyclist is neither a pedestrian nor a driver. He cycles where he damn well wants to, on the sidewalk or on the street. He flashes by with his posterior in the air. Neither stop signs nor speed limits impede him -- and he is environmentally beneficent. Automobiles have to give him a wide berth and pedestrians leap aside as he pedals past. Environmentalists adore bicycles.

So the bicycle seems to be the ultimate green vehicle. Doubtless you will be seeing more of them, despite their limited capacity for bearing bossy bumper stickers. In the present presidential campaign, do not be surprised the Democratic candidates eventually conduct their campaigns from a bicycle. Bill and Hillary will probably be seen on a bicycle built for two -- Hillary on the front seat, Bill on the back where his eyes will be free to wander.

[As one of the key people in the Arkansas Project (the "Vast right-wing conspiracy" of yore) he is contractually obligated to mention the Clinton's in all articles] By then he'd lost control of the Spectator as the result of an investigation into the Arkansas Project and Tyrrell's mismangement. 

But wait, there's more. In 2014 he sided with anti-King Street bike lane activist Frank Buckley by calling cyclists names

However, the nation’s angry bicycle riders, I fear, are going to be with us for a while. In a few years, President Obama might be back in Chicago as former President Barack Obama, organizing illegal aliens or whatever, and the gloomy riders will still be out there arrogating to themselves their “bike lanes.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton will be securely in retirement, all her dreams of presidential grandeur vanquished, and still the militant bicyclists will be riding down the middle of Main Street presuming to slow down traffic to a modest 10 miles an hour and making inscrutable hand signals to drivers in every direction.

This time around, unlike the late 1970s, their anger is seemingly unappeasable, and they have local government on their side, especially in blue-state constituencies.

Studies show that cyclists are happier than other commuters. 

These are not cyclists in pursuit of scenery and good health. If they were, they would be riding along the 35 miles of bike trails that the community has maintained for them.

They are angry, obsessive utopians who would make their anti-people campaign — their anti-freedom campaign — the first battle in an attempt to take over the way normal Americans live. They are a social indicator of unhappy times that, God willing, are about to end.

He predicted the bike lanes would not be built. He was wrong. As he has been his whole career on cycling. 

Tyrrell is now a Trump fan (Because Trump shares Reagan's distrust of the Soviet Union?) and he wrote recently about London's congestion charge and anti-pollution efforts

The present mayor, Sadiq Khan, is of the left and he shares the left's lust for power. Everything he does indicates his hankering for power. To me, a foreigner in these parts, I sense this lust in his treatment of the automobile. The mayor envisages London as a city abundant with bicycle riders and pedestrians. In his London of the future, the only automobiles will be the patrol cars of the police.

Because nothing satisfies a lust for hunger like bicycle-friendly road design. 

It's not easy to steadfastly hold wrong ideas in the face of mounting facts. That kind of wrongness takes real backbone. 

Trippin' blog makes joke about dooring cyclists

Last week Fredrick Kunkle, who writes the "Tripping" blog for the Washington Post, wrote an article about how Virginia joined most other states in the civilized world by making dooring a traffic violation. This is a story that most other local news sources ignored and as David Alpert wrote in his post on the article, Kunkle dug into how the bill found a champion "an aide to state senator Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax) got scars from being doored while biking, yet a police officer blamed him, the cyclist." Which was all good and useful and real journalism.

But then Kunkle decided to make a joke about intentionally dooring cyclists.

Tripping loves bikes of all kinds and gladly supports dooring laws. But about that exception, which focuses only on the driver-side door and exempts people from opening the door on the side away from traffic? We might argue that if you nail an adult riding his or her bicycle on the sidewalk, you should get a $50 award. Double, if it’s during lunch hour on K Street.

It's not a particularly funny joke. And for those of us who ride bikes, it's worse than not funny, it cuts a little close to home. People do get doored in the area. There's even been a case in DC of someone who died because they got doored, and I'm sure it's happened in Virginia. The exception he referred to is even a bit contentious, because in some states - like Oregon and Rhode Island - it IS illegal to door someone on the passenger side, even if they're on a sidewalk or trail. When you're in fear of something - like being injured by a collision with a car, it's discomforting to hear people make light of it or even to imply that injuring you would be a good thing. 

The general rule is that jokes should be made at the expense of those who are more powerful than you, and that making fun of those who are weaker than you comes off as mean-spirited, insensitive and bullying.  Making fun of slave-owners is funny, making fun of slaves is not. Making fun of wall street bankers is funny. Making fun of people who've lost their homes is not. Etc...The dynamic between cyclists and drivers, and who fears whom, sets this up as a mean joke.

Kunkle responds to the GGW criticism

But I also wonder whether GGW -- or maybe bikers in general? -- has lost his sense of humor. When did so many smart people get so literal?

Which shows that he doesn't get it. "It was just a joke" is not in an of itself a defense. Elyse Anders has good advice on this subject

If someone is mad or hurt or offended by your joke, you cannot demand they find it funny. Instead of telling [them] “It was just a joke”, try not insulting [them] in the first place and if you can’t do that, then try using these words, write them down on a note card and keep them with you:

“I am sorry I hurt you. That was not what I wanted to do at all. It was mean of me to say. Your feelings are valid. I should not make jokes to upset you because jokes are supposed to be a thing that makes us enjoy each other’s company more.”

Here, instead, is Kunkle's "apology"

Several people have now issued demands for an apology over a joke that was, admittedly, made in poor taste.  
So here goes:  
I'm sorry I am not Emily Badger. 
Sincerely, 
Charlie Sheen!

Kunkle has a video, here's mine.

Hilarious, no?

Cyclists more often get the blame if they die in a crash

Over 100 Washington area cyclists have died in motor vehicle crashes since 1987. Previously, I mapped out their locations. What about the outcomes? Police fault cyclists and drivers equally, except in Prince George's County, where they overwhelmingly blame cyclists.

Cyclists are found at fault more than drivers I collected data on fatal crashes involving both a cyclist and a driver in the region since 1987. The data came from media reports and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). I was able to determine who was found at fault in 83% of the crashes. Cyclists got the blame 58.9% of the time. This could be because cyclists are just more reckless than drivers, but it could also be that there is a failure in the reporting itself. There's a big discrepancy between the two sources. Of all of the cases in which fault was assigned, 34.4% relied only on data from a FARS report. In these cases, cyclists got the blame 74.1% of the time. In contrast, where the details of the crash came from a media report or from both a media report and a FARS report, cyclists only got the blame in 30 out of 59 crashes, or 50.8% of the time.

Prince George's finds cyclists at fault far more often Prince George's County has has the most bike fatalities of any jurisdiction in the area. It's also the place cyclists are most often found at fault. Cyclists got the blame in 76.7% of Prince George's fatal crashes, compared to 52.9% in Northern Virginia, 50% in Montgomery County, and 48% in DC. In fact, outside Prince George's County, drivers and cyclists in the region share fault 50-50.

Could police bias explain these discrepancies? Responding police officers are responsible for filling out FARS reports, so police bias might be a factor. For example, in several cases the only contributing factor was "Walking/Riding With Or Against Traffic, Playing, Working, Sitting, Lying, Standing, Etc. In Roadway." This could mean a lot of things, including something as simple as the cyclist riding in the road. The inherently one-sided interview can also play a role. Often the only living witness, the driver, has a strong incentive to blame the cyclist, and perhaps the police do not do enough to challenge these claims. On the other side of things, it's possible that the media only reported on crashes where the driver was to blame. My data set has far more news stories on the investigation, subsequent trial, and verdict when the driver was criminally at fault. Perhaps stories where the driver is at fault, such as the recent fatal crash near Baltimore, are more appealing to the media. In addition to asking why the county is so deadly for cyclists, Prince George's County needs to ask the question of why cyclists who die there are so much more likely to be blamed. Are Prince George's cyclists worse? Do the roads there invite risky cycling? Is there a difference in the way police and journalists investigate and report crashes in Prince George's? If it's bias, someone needs to address it for the sake of both justice and safety. If it's cyclists riding dangerously, then the county needs more education and enforcement. If it's road design, the county needs to change the roads. Being such a negative outlier should be cause for alarm.

Crossposted at GreaterGreaterWashington

 

How can we be clueless to how much you hate us if you won't shut up about it?

After Courtland Milloy's piece about how cyclists are worse than biker gangs and like terrorists, the Post called for a ceasfire in the war between cyclists and drivers. At the time I thought it odd, since there was only one side shooting. When was the last time you saw a MSM article by a cyclist that called drivers terrorists or noted that drivers were lucky that people didn't try to kill them? It never happens. But I can think of at least a half-dozen such articles written about cyclists that take a bit of an over-the-top attitude. Here's the latest from the Washignton Blade.

While D.C. has a relatively robust bike riding and sharing rate among U.S. cities, it’s possible to count on fingers and toes the number you’re likely to see pedaling to work and home each day on a commute by foot, bus, subway, taxi or car. A near-negligible percentage of residents use a bike as a commuting or transit method.

In DC it's well over 4% and in some neighborhoods it's closer to 10%. I'll let others decide it that's negligible, but it is way more than you can count on your fingers and toes. 

I suspect they may be clueless how irksome many perceive the tiresome whining that biker desires are not being met, there aren’t enough dedicated bike lanes, they’re inadequately lauded as environmental angels, they shouldn’t be subject to common courtesies or city rules.

We do want more dedicated bike lanes. But the other two claims are total strawman. No one asks to be lauded as angels. 

It’s time for bikers to make the transition from roadway rebel to responsibly sharing the same small streets.

Already done. You'll note how few people we kill every year. 

It won’t be easy, alongside all the cars, taxis, buses, someday-streetcars, pedestrians, business delivery trucks and other vehicles crammed on the city’s narrow thoroughfares. It is dangerous out there.

Y'know what would help with that? Dedicated bike lanes.*

Let’s also try to remember that this is not one of D.C.’s most pressing problems.

We aren't the ones who keep bringing it up. 

hyper-sensitive two-wheel drama reads ridiculous.

How does hyper-sensitive four-wheel drama, like Milloy's, read?

Let’s keep that in mind while we finally start acting adult about accommodating mutual access and shared usage. 

You mean like drivers? Like this one? 

*And a little lauding for our environmental belevolence wouldn't hurt either

You're killing me

Colbert King comes to the defense of Courtland Milloy, arguing that the problem is not what Milloy wrote, but that all cyclists are humorless. I suppose there is something about frequent exposure to bicycle grease that changes our brains so that we no longer find references to cyclists being attacked funny?

The title says that cyclists can't take criticism. But of course, that isn't the problem. There was no mass protest of John Kelly's column on how cyclists need to change their sidewalk cycling ways. Twitter didn't blow up and King didn't feel the need to come to Kelly's defense because there was no one to defend him from. Cyclists can take constructive criticism. 

King talks about a time when he offended cyclists back in 2002 by also calling them terrorists.

I hope that they will do something about the threat to life and limb that lurks in Rock Creek Park and on trails and paths around the Washington area. I am referring to those infernal bikers who persist in converting public space into their personal Tour de France race every Saturday and Sunday. They are as dangerous as anthrax. And just as sneaky. They come up on you without warning. And they show no regard for their targets. Joggers, bird-lovers, moms with toddlers, seniors with pet dogs, it doesn’t matter. We are all fair game for those terrorists on wheels. 

To be fair, in the 12 years since then, approximately zero pedestrians have been killed by cyclists in Rock Creek Park. [But there have been several fatal car crashes]. So his fear was well-founded. 

The written commentaries published online showed the bikers to be as rabid and self-righteous in July 2002 as they are now. 

He called us rabid and self-righteous. Hysterical! Terrorists. What a clever turn of phrase! A broomstick through the front wheel? Who doesn't love physical comedy?! Paying $500 to hit another person with your car and possibly cripple or kill them? That's as old, and as funny, as a man dressing up as a woman (a joke Milloy totally gets). When did Bill Cosby start writing for the Post?

Good stuff. Seriously, I'm dying.

Or at least some cyclists are. 

A woman riding without a helmet?

A writer to the Post was upset that the Post showed a photo of Lia Seremetis without a helmet riding a bike in DC

This is at least the third time that The Post has pictured a cyclist without a helmet, seemingly condoning this unsafe practice. After at least one of those occasions, a disapproving letter was printed. Yet here it has happened again.

While the article was not about bicycle safety per se, it was still disappointing to see such an image. It was especially disconcerting that the young woman pictured is the organizer, according to the article, of “a monthly city ride . . . that draws hundreds of enthusiasts.”

Let’s get the message straight and send it loud and clear: It is unsafe to ride a bike without a helmet.

Sigh. Just because the Post shows a photo of an activity doesn't mean they condone it [They've also published photos of child soldiers for example]. The letter writer was astounded to see such a photo - and is sure that other cycling enthusiasts are too - despite the fact that many cyclists choose to ride this way and the Post has published them before. Is the Post not allowed to show the world as it actually is? Are they now required to make value judgements about how it should be and only show images that meet with that view? Should they not show photos of protesters arguing because that isn't how they think people should behave? The letter writer should just accept that the Post is not going to force Ms. Serementis to put a helmet on before they photograph her anymore than they will force her to put sunscreen on. 

As to whether cycling is unsafe without a helmet...I'll go with cycling is likely more safe with a helmet than without, but not sure that the helmet is the difference between safe and unsafe. 

Should police tell reporters who is to blame for fatalities before the investigation?

Media accounts of the two bike fatalities last month raised a few eyebrows among the commentariat here and at GGW.   The news accounts left the reader with the impression that each cyclist inexplicably placed himself in the path of an oncoming dump truck or SUV.  The average person reading those accounts would probably take them at face value; but for many of us, that is hard to do because we have seen so many cases where initial reports were wrong.

GGW briefly presented both incidents as cases where a driver killed a cyclist, and the predictable discussion centered on whether that was totally unfair to the drivers, or whether it is reasonable for GGW to provide a counterbalance to the prevailing way these stories are told.  Here on the Washcycle, the comments were focused more on trying to read between the lines and explore the various possibilities of what could have actually happened.  In the case of the dump truck on a state highway colliding with a cyclist crossing the highway, the account seemed believable.

The 9-year old child killed on a residential road between Bowie and Glenn Dale, however, was more troubling.  Several of us have young children, and  none of us like to hear that the police and the media accept the premise that a driver has no responsibility to avoid running into an unpredictable child on a residential street.  When I got my driver's license, the simulator always had a ball bouncing into the street with a child following it; the lesson was that a driver in a residential street should assume that a child may run into one's path at any moment.  

Of course, we don't have the strict liability system wherein drivers always are to blame if they run into a cyclist, but that does not mean that the duty of care does not change when one sees a child on a bike.  That's the main reason for the 25 mph speed limit.  Obey the speed limit and if you strike a pedestrian, she has a 10% chance of being killed.  Drive 35 mph and there is a 2/3 chance she dies.  And of course, avoiding the collision is easier if you go slow.  

Then twk from Bowie directed us to the link showing the front-end damage to the SUV, which made all of us wonder (in exasperation):  how can police say that speed was not a factor?  The damage does not seem possible if the driver was only proceeding at 25 mph.  But if the driver was proceeding at 35 mph, then the odds are about 6:1 that the death was caused by the speed.  That seems to make a prima facie case that speed was definitely a factor.  How could the media fail to ask the obvious followup question?

Part of the problem may be that the police and reporters have adopted a short-hand jargon which makes sense for auto-auto crashes.  They are trying to say that the speed was not the single most important cause of the collision.  But if a child dies, we are also interested in why the collision caused someone's death.  In fatal auto-auto crashes, the vehicles are usually going so fast that it goes without saying that speed is sufficient to kill, the only question was whether it was so great that one loses control, or did they crash for another reason?  In bike or pedestrian crashes, by contrast, collisions are often at slow enough speeds for people to live; speed may be the single most important factor that determines whether a victim lives or dies. 

So how can the story overlook the most obvious question:  Was the driver complying with the 25 mph speed limit? 

Is the problem with the police or the media?  I find myself hoping that it's the police rather than the media, because the police are public officials accountable to the public.  There are clear lines of authority whom we can lobby.  The media is not really accountable to anyone, and the turnover of local reporters is so great that trying to change how the media covers a type of event is like spitting at the zeitgeist.   

After reading the comments on the Washcycle, I sent a terse but rather harshly worded complaint to a few officials.  For some reason, I thought that the Maryland State Police (MSP) had changed its approach to the media in the case of bicycle fatalities, after having made disastrously wrong preliminary judgments in the Leymesiter and Pettigrew cases.  So I was annoyed that the Prince George's Police had not adopted the more cautious approach of the MSP.  

Recall that in the Leymeister case, the State Police stated that the cyclist had failed to ride as far right as practicable on a road where the narrow shoulder was blocked by branches.  MBPAC protested because this was a road where the cyclist had the right to take the lane.  It later turned out that the problem was that the driver had an entirely frost covered windshield with just a little peep hole to see where she was going.

In the Natasha Pettigrew case, the police initially stated that the cyclist lacked reflective material.  Her mother knew otherwise and reporters who went to the scene of the crash found the materials that the police said did not exist.  Early statements also said that the driver left the scene because she thought she hit a dog or a deer.  Only because of public outrage was that claim more thoroughly investigated, and the driver was convicted of hit-and-run.

After those cases, an MSP official told MBPAC that the state police would be more careful about what they tell the media before the investigation is done.  It's a balancing act for police spokesmen, because there is usually great public and media interest after a fatality, especially when the victim is a child or a notable person.  But MSP staff felt that they could tell the story by presenting the issues they are investigating, rather than conclusions, and by mentioning (for example) the possibility that the driver was not looking where she was going, as well as the lane position of the cyclist.

Unfortunately, MSP's thinking was never memorialized.  I now know that this was just a sense of what they needed to do; but some people have moved on, so the Maryland State Police seem to be back to where they used to be, according to my source there.  My source referred me to Lieutenant Alexander who does media relations at the Prince Georges Police Department.

Mr. Alexander did not have the specifics of the 9-year old killed in the Bowie/Glenn Dale area when I called, but he did tell me the general approach of the Prince Georges County Police.  He said that they will not make a preliminary statement unless they are 90% sure.  There has to be credible or neutral witness, such as the family members with whom the child was riding, he said.  The Prince George's police will not make a preliminary statement "if the only witness is a driver who tells us that he killed someone but it was their fault."  

I did not follow up about this particular incident, though perhaps I'll call back in a few weeks.  My main purpose for calling him was to get a regular police contact for bike-ped issues.  Police statements to the media can be a problem, but dangerous driving is a bigger problem.  The police have too much work to prevent every type of crime.  If they are doing too little to enforce the laws designed to protect us, maybe it's because we haven't been asking them to do so.  Now we will.

(Jim Titus is a bicycle advocate from Prince George's County.  The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization with which he is affiliated, and the pronoun "we" does not mean any organized entity.)

Thursday Morning Commute - Charm City Bikeshare

Going back to this article about Southwest they write "At the turn of the century, the original proposed location of the National Arboretum was in Southwest..." But they're talking about the turn from the 1800's to the 1900's. When does "the turn of the century" mean 2000?  

• Baltimore may finally get bikeshare - next year - as the city's financial oversight panel approved an agreement with the state Wednesday to establish Charm City Bikeshare
  • More than 250 bikes at 25 stations
  • Officials said the state will pay 80 percent of the $1.1 million start-up costs, including purchasing cycles and station equipment, and Baltimore must come up with the rest. City leaders haven't decided whether to use tax dollars or find a private-sector partner.
  • A vendor to run it has not been selected, but Alta is under consideration
• A profile of Ben Freed, new editor of DCist includes this "He gets around by bike—when he can. (It was in the shop when we talked.)"
• MDOT's next public meeting on the Bicycle & Pedestrian Master Plan is June 11th.
• Drive till you increase unemployment, or how sprawl is killing America: "The authors find that higher levels of homeownership in a state appear to be associated with lower levels of labor mobility, higher commute times, and fewer new businesses created. Taken together, those three factors tend to increase the unemployment rate."

Thursday Afternoon Commute - Lettuce

Capital Bikeshare is opening on Columbia Pike next Thursday (the first of 30+ new stations coming to Arlington this spring). There will be a ribbon cutting at 9:00am at the Walter Reed Community Center.

• "The police department sent 76 special assignments to enforce pedestrian and driver compliance last year, according to Innocenti. During those operations, 1,100 pedestrians were issued citations for various offenses, such as not crossing in a crosswalk or starting to cross after the solid red hand has begun blinking, and those citations often come with fines. There were 38 vehicle citations during as well, Innocenti said." So there are 28 pedestrian violations for every driver violation? That sounds off to me. 
• The east gate to the Navy Yard Promenade will be closed until the end of April for 11th Street Bridge construction. 
• WABA walks readers through the basics of Bike to Work Day. No word yet as to whether the lettuce bikini girls will show up again. 
• Sure, you could watch college basketball all night, OR you could go to the Public Meeting regarding the Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan Update for some real madness.
• "In Mississippi's healthiest county, many residents have easy access to bicycle paths and walking trails. In the least healthy county, there are few places to exercise"...."if someone wants to walk or ride their bike and they can't do it safely near their homes, "I haven't done my job," Mayor Chip Johnson said.
• Rep. Blumenauer "not interested" in being Secretary of Transportation. That's too bad. 
• Bike battles (between cities competing to be the best, not between cyclists and drivers) is named one of the top trends of 2013 by Planetizen.

Our Region's Growing Bike Culture

That's the subject of today's Kojo Nnamdi show from noon to 2pm. Shane Farthing of WABA, Chris Eatough of Bike Arlington, and Carolyn Szczepanski, Director of Communications, Women Bike, League of American Bicyclists wil be the guests. 

The weather's warming up, and there are more reasons than ever to get on a bike, whether it's to get to work, for exercise or for fun. New, safer green bike lanes are popping up all over our region, online interactive trip planners are making it easy to plan the safest route and Bikeshare is expanding. We talk bike safety, rules of the road and the campaign to get more women on bikes