The Wrong Lesson
Cluster B(ike) Activist's Two-Minute Hate Distracts from Life Saving Advice
Marrying a truth with a lie is a beloved tactic of the Cluster B(ike) Activist along with the constant need to center their “advocacy” over virtually all else, truth be damned. This tactic so to speak creates a distraction away from real and effective ways for bicyclists to ride safely and free from drama which contrary to the repeated grunts and screams of the Cluster B(ike) Activists is possible with the correct understanding and correct mindset on today’s roads. Legitimate and Principled-driven bicyclists as always have to clean their mess and that of their close cousins, the anti cycling militant motorist.
This week the marrying a truth with a lie followed by such an utterly distracting diversion from real and effective ways for bicyclists to ride safely and free from drama showed it’s ugly hand on Twitter, one of the homes of a significant and vocal crowd of Cluster B(ike) Activists.
Posted, originally by the user AZB is a short clip of a bicyclist getting hit by a truck (semi/tractor) along with subsequent delusion comments such as a. “car brain” accusation, a common “retort” from Cluster B(ike) Activists.
Posting the videoclip shortly after, Andy Boenau, catastrophized, “It’s dangerous to ride a bike on the Classic American Arterial, so many opt for the sidewalk.” Then, Hayden Clarkin, another prominent Cluster B(ike) Activist, posting the same clip quipped, “TW: People will say we don’t need bike infrastructure because no one rides them and yet this is the average street in America.”
Both Boenau and Clarkin marry subtle truths here with lies and distortion. Boenau continues his ignorance of elementary cycling with motor traffic safety concepts yet making a subtle point that (many, not all) people do choose to cycle on sidewalks because they often feel cycling on the road is “dangerous" (Boenau distorts feelings with objective safety but of all the things he spews, this one is the closest to being factual) while Clarkin is trying to push back on a common criticism on bike lane usage with a hysterical claim this six lane plus center turn lane arterial is the “average” American street. (Clarkin later backed off a bit on this “average” statement scaled up to the national level in the replies after others called him out on his hysterical bullshit and now insists instead they’re the “average” street in places such as Los Angeles and San Diego.)
Boenau and Clarkin’s bicycling advocacy takes are largely a function of hysteria typical of Cluster B(ike) Activists. The two (unfortunately) have large audiences, likely an echo chamber of their own people but also likely have followers who could be presented with an alternative and less hysterical viewpoint and one that is grounded and reality.
What they both completely miss, despite several people attempting to prove otherwise in the replies, as does AZB, is just how hazardous this bicyclist’s action was whether the crash was his or her fault legally or not. The bicyclist was riding facing traffic (often called “salmoning”) on the sidewalk.
Virtually all cycling safety instruction (LAB, CanBike, UK Bikability, Streetsmarts, Cycling Savvy) do not have nice things to say about cycling on sidewalks and “salmoning” in general with a great emphasis on “salmoning” on a sidewalk. This is because such practices are the easiest way for cyclists to be utterly irrelevant and oftentimes invisible to motorists. The fact these three Cluster B(ike) Activists, who all tend to arrogantly assume they understand cycling safety, yet regularly spew nonsense, with the utterly arrogant insistence they know how to redesign the entire roadway network to “fix” these issues push back on this utterly simple fact is astonishing.
Does this all sound harsh? Well, let’s look at the video.
The video is an eight second clip from a compilation of bicycle and motorcycle mishaps. Entitled Idiots On Bikes | Hilarious Cyclist Fails Compilation, it’s a mix of Jackass and Darwin Award wannabes and genuine cases of others, often motorists being the ones not paying attention. More than anything it’s an indictment on unskilled, risk-delusional, or outright dangerous people and with two-wheeled thingies being their weapon of choice for whatever it is they’re doing in the videos.
But first a quick caveat: there’s a paradox present and it’s that that this video contains a great deal of information yet still lacks much needed context to figure out who exactly did what, whether right or wrong. Armchair analyses can be done until the cows come home but none of us know exactly what each participant was looking at, what they were or were not paying attention to, or what their real intentions were from a single video alone. In many cases, a crash is not a cut and dry Party X is at fault and Party Y is not but this of course is a gear in the wrench of the “Driver” = Oppressor and “Person doing X” is the Noble Victim delusion put forth by Cluster B(ike) Activists.
Marc Green a visual and cognitive expert’s Rules for Seeing (or not Seeing) apply:
All that aside, it’s still possible to learn a few things from the video that may be life saving if you’re a bicyclist.
The clip in question starts only 49 seconds into the original clip shows what is likely a dash cam setup in another truck.
In the clip, the dash cam truck, as we’ll call it here is stopped, but the duration and reason is unknown. Also shown is a bicyclist who just barely left the sidewalk and entered a driveway, and in the path of the bicyclist is about to be a green truck. It’s appears with the sudden jerking, the driver of the truck either had it stopped or was driving slowly but decided to pull forward and enter the road and then turn right. The bicyclist tries to wave at the driver of this truck but it’s already too late as he swerves and wobbles his bicycle a bit perhaps due to his slow speed and a bit of panic. His bicycle is subsequently hit by the truck’s front end.
The bicyclist is then knocked off his bike and his body is thrown away from the path of the truck. Unfortunately, at least based on this video, the driver of the green truck either has no idea he or she just hit and almost ran over someone else but they also left the scene. Although if that horn was indeed the driver of the green truck, then things would change. Fortunately, neither he nor the bicycle is actually run over by the truck although it is unknown if he sustained any injuries. That bicyclist should consider buying a lottery ticket.
Also present in the video is a white SUV located down the road at the next driveway. It’s driver is simultaneously leaving that driveway but making a left turn. Motor traffic is backed up in the left turn lane at the intersection making this person’s movement at a minimum sketchy, but also likely illegal, as they have no way to visually see traffic in the lanes far from them (coming towards the camera). Needless to say, this driver and the green truck driver have themselves a near miss. It doesn’t help the driver of the green truck, despite not pulling a load, pulled out into the left-most lane and not the lane closest to the curb. To add to the mess, it’s unknown whether and if so, how much visibility was impaired by the presence of the dash cam truck blocking any view of the green truck driver had of traffic in the lanes he or she was about to enter.
In the original YouTube video, a horn can be heard almost immediately prior to collision but it’s unknown whether it was the dash cam truck driver’s horn or that of the green truck driver’s. It’s also unknown whether anybody commenting on the various Twitter posts are aware of this as the audio is not present on the Twitter clip.
Boenau, Clarkin, and many of the people in the replies are quick to turn this into a “drivers” (correct term is “motorist” as cyclists are also “drivers”) versus “people on bicycles” issue - the typical Cluster B(ike) Activist framing derived or inspired from Woke Ideology. In this view, the fault is automatically assigned to either/or the “driver” and “the system” (“car culture,” “motornormativity,” “car brain”) who take on the oppressor role while the Noble Victim is the “person on a bicycle” (“vulnerable road user”). Of course this clip turned the detractors too, the bicycle haters, who insist that the sheer presence of a bicyclist means they’re in the wrong.
Between this gaping canyon of shit throwers lies truth, principles, and a few lessons but one needs to understand what type of crash this is, potential reasons for why it occurs, and the steps each party can take to reduce or even eliminate the risks of getting in such a crash.
Most car-bike crashes are what are called turning and crossing collisions which occur either at driveways and intersections (as opposed to mid block). This terminology should be intuitive but for the initiated, basically one or both parties collide with each other because someone crossed into someone else’s path. (The other main type is same-direction collision which consist of head-on collisions and direct rear end collisions) Of these turning and crossing collisions, there are several sub-types such as “right hooks,” “left crosses,” “pull in/outs,” and “drive outs.”
This crash is of the drive out variety, that is, someone else enters and crosses the path of someone else at the same time.
Bicyclists who operate in the bicycle lanes of any type, “protected” or “unprotected” as well as those who operate in gutters, shoulders, and especially on sidewalks as “rolling pedestrians” are at greater risk for these crash types. And on that spectrum more towards a sidewalk a cyclist is, more often than not the less of an “escape” they have should this crash type develop.
One of the many goals of any reputable cycling education program is to ensure bicyclists are aware of these issues and how they can manage and sometimes eliminate the risks of these crashes if they choose to cycle in these areas. Cluster B(ike) Activists more often than not poo-poo these efforts because they are at a bare minimum a threat to their know it all anointed vision that demands the entire world change for their narcissistic selves.
But back to the crash type in question. The reasons for most drive out crashes involving bicyclists and motorists are simple: the bicyclist is either irrelevant by attention and/or invisible by sight to the motorist. Not all is lost though, bicyclists can control these defects to reduce, mitigate, and sometimes even eliminate crash or close call risks. Such facts, of course, are virtually kryptonite to the Cluster B(ike) Activists.
Cluster B(ike) Activists will often insist motorists, acting as “apex predators” do what they do intentionally and with malice with no exceptions because motorists are the Oppressor Class and bicyclists are the Noble Victim class. Assholes driving motor vehicles do indeed exist, as do irresponsible gun owners (h/t
) but they’re incredibly rare with their numbers overly exagerated by Cluster B(ike) Activists.So if you’re a bicyclist on this “average street in America San Diego or Los Angeles," what are you to do assuming there is no alternative route and/or your cycling trip origin or destination is on such as road giving you no choice but to use it?
Should you then just suck it up and give up trying to cycle? No.
The best place to ride to be the most visible and relevant to other road users, particularly motorists is smack dab in the middle of the right-most lane that serves your destination and at that riding in the same direction as the other traffic.
Is that uncomfortable at first? Sure.
Is it utterly unintuitive? Absolutely.
Will someone honk? Maybe.
Isn’t it illegal? Nope.
Don’t I have to ride fast or be athletic? No.
Will someone run me over? Far more rare than you think. In fact far more rare than every other crash type.
If you think this is crazy before completely dismissing the idea, take a cycling safety course such as Cycling Savvy (in person or online) or pick up a book such as Street Smarts, Cyclecraft, or even skim the traffic cycling parts of (gasp!) John Forester’s Effective Cycling. Start with the skills on quieter, slower roads and work your way up and view your place on the road as one with other road users in a cooperative sense. If you have a character disorder or a victim mindset, forget it, and seek help first. Safe and effective cycling is just not for you.
The second best place to ride would be the edge of that outermost lane, but, assuming that lane is too narrow for you to safely share with motor vehicles, that puts out at uncomfortable close range of motorists trying to pass you within the same lane. It also screens you from turning and crossing traffic making you more susceptible to right hooks, left crosses, and driveouts. If you have a character disorder or a victim mindset, you’ll likely feel all those motorists are out to get you.
Third is the sidewalk riding in the same direction of traffic, but keep in mind that you are operating a vehicle, and you’re not a “rolling pedestrian.” Vehicles, unlike pedestrians, cannot stop or steer on a dime. Cycling on sidewalks may be illegal where you are and you will not as Mighk Wilson says, “leave the roadway, and you leave some important rights behind.” Understand the meaning and consequences of that statement! Be aware that you likely cannot just willy nilly cross off the sidewalk, onto a driveway or across a road, without ensuring you will not collide with another road user. Look in each direction (in front, to your side, and behind you), and don’t trust, but verify that the moment you depart the sidewalk you will not get hit.
Last and should be least is salmon sidewalk cycling. Everything with edge riding and same-direction sidewalk cycling applies but assume even worse: other road users will almost absolutely not see or expect you.
If you think a magic “protected” bicycle lane, whether one way or two way will mitigate your situation, think again. These “savior” facilities, more often than not, expose their users to the same hazards sidewalk cycling does.
