On Cyclists and motorists

SignOnSanDiego News North County Logan Jenkins -- Wheels of fortune: Cyclists, motorists perilously close

Wheels of fortune: Cyclists, motorists perilously close
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UNION-TRIBUNE

April 16, 2007

“If you're not a bike rider, you may question my premise.”

So began Craig Nelson, a Solana Beach banker, in a recent e-mail.

To be honest, my idea of bike riding is a one-speed cruiser lumbering down the Mission Beach boardwalk.

Sartorially, I'd opt for baggy khaki – not skin-tight Lycra – shorts.

Still, I won't question Nelson's premise, one that hinges upon a dead body.

One month ago today, Nelson reminded me, a bicyclist pedaling from Cardiff to Solana Beach was killed by an allegedly drunk hit-and-run driver from Escondido.

In a letter to the Pterodactyl Club, his long-in-the-tooth riding group, Nelson drew a road-tested moral from the March 16 death of Jeannie Franklin, a regular Solana Beach rider.

“We have all seen it happen. A driver comes within an inch of a rider when there is plenty of space for him to move over. I have no idea how often it is that the driver is not paying attention, distracted, etc., but I know sometimes it's on purpose to scare or get back at the riders who somehow somewhere at some time” ticked him off.


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“What I am pretty sure of is that, like a teenager, none of them have actually thought through what the impact to THEM would be if they actually hit the rider. Face it, the reality is these morons are never going to be looking out for you – but if we can get them to look out for themselves, the streets will be safer for us all.”

Brian Stephen Carnes, an Escondido grocery worker with a 1998 DUI conviction, is Nelson's example, the driver who felt the impact of a few pounds of metal and a human body on his Toyota 4Runner.

Carnes' attorney called the tragedy on Highway 101 an “accident” and speculates that Franklin may have veered out of the bicycle lane and collided with Carnes' vehicle.

The prosecutor dismisses the veer theory – and has charged Carnes with murder.



It's the hairy way of the world. Bicyclists often ride at the very edge of disaster. Between them and tons of hurtling steel, inches.

That's what Nelson, 45 and whippet-lean, told me last week over early-morning coffee in Solana Beach.

He and his riding mates divide the pool of drivers into three roughly equal categories – attentives, distracteds and hostiles.

Salt-of-the-road attentives, whenever possible, move over to allow bicycles as much space as possible; cell-phone-in-ear distracteds pay no attention to the bicyclists they're perilously passing within inches; blood-in-the-eye hostiles, consciously or not, take sadistic pleasure in leaning to the right to send a bolt of fear through the spines of vulnerable bicyclists.

This isn't to say riders, especially the men, take close calls like demure angels.

“There's plenty of testosterone” underneath all that Lycra, Nelson said.

Nelson and his buddies have caught up with suspected hostiles at stoplights and accosted them. “Never a good idea,” Nelson admitted.

What's more, bicyclists can go crazy when they ride in large packs, Nelson said. Safe in brightly colored numbers, they can swarm the road like wilding bees, oblivious to traffic laws.

In addition, bicyclists can hurt themselves with reckless riding in dangerous conditions. Emergency rooms treat self-inflicted wounds regularly.

Still, the numbers support Nelson's gloomy premise.

From 1995 to 2000, an average of more than 750 bicyclists were killed each year nationwide in collisions with vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Unsafe passing accounts for a large percentage of the highly preventable deaths as well as an almost infinite number of heart-stopping near-misses.



Kendra Chiota Payne, a 21-year-old Santa Barbara triathlete, was killed a year ago when a truck hit her while passing on a narrow mountain road.

Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, took Payne's death to heart and sponsored a bill, AB 60, that requires passing cars to give bicycles an arm's length of clearance.

The legislation does not break new ground. Six states – Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wisconsin – have passed similar laws.

To maintain the yard-long separation, cars would be allowed to cross double lines or left-hand turning lanes.

Nava's bill, if it's ever signed by the governor, may be a challenge to enforce – and honor on narrow roads – but it at least sets a basic standard that everyone can understand.

Current law requires motorists to maintain a “safe distance” from bicycles, but that's hopelessly subjective. One person's safe margin is another's panic attack.

One arm's length. Thirty-six inches. A yard.

“This legislation is not about us – it's not about my daughter, it's not about my wife, it's not about me,” Payne's father said recently. “Motorists must realize that cyclists are not simply objects that slow them down on their way to a destination. Cyclists are human beings, with families and friends who love them.”

Bicyclists are not universal angels, but in an environmental sense at least, they're doing the Lord's workout.

Along with their helmets, they should sport a colorful 3-foot halo.

Logan Jenkins can be reached at (760) 737-7555 or by e-mail at logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.

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