Brooklyn Spoke

There’s a lot of misinformation out there about cyclist’s rights, and with the ongoing biking crackdown it’s important to know the truth.  Take this news item from the Manhattan Times, a paper covering upper Manhattan.

Some of the laws that the police are reminding cyclists to obey include: no riding bikes on sidewalks except where signage permits or when the bike’s wheels are less than 26 inches in diameter and the rider is twelve years or younger; bicycle riders must use bike lane if provided, except for safety turns;

(Italics mine.)

The wording of this piece may make casual readers think that cyclists may only exit the bike lane if they want to make a safe turn onto another street.   What’s a safety turn?

Thankfully, the actual law is much more clear.  Here’s it is, via Biking Rules.

RCNY § 4-12 (p) Bicyclists should ride in usable bike lanes, unless they are blocked or unsafe for any reason.

You should ride in a bike lane, but you do not have to and it’s up to the individual rider to determine his or her own personal definition of “unsafe.”  In fact, with many bike lanes snowed over right now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a bike lane to ride in safely.  Even in warm weather, it may be unsafe to ride in bike lanes since most painted lanes are within an unsafe distance of the door zone.  And you don’t need to wait until a bike lane is blocked by a car.  If you see a stray plastic shopping bag or tiny divot in the bike lane, move over to avoid it.

So, ride safely, ride legally, and know your rights.  This doesn’t mean you should weave all over the place, but it does mean that you can not receive a ticket for not biking in a bike lane.

This is a shot of bike parking in my building’s garage.  There are approximately fourteen vehicles in space number one and only one in space number two.  (Not seen are another fifteen or so bikes locked up along the reverse wall.)  Even if the car is used by a family of four or shared by two families, which is a more efficient use of space?

In light of the recent announcement about a crackdown on bicyclists that commit traffic violations, I found this article in the Post on the DOT’s proposal–and a local community board’s request–to install speed cameras in the city very enlightening.  Once again, the media presents the afflicted, persecuted motorist and gives him the last word on this important story.  Actually, they present two of them.

“The mayor is squeezing all of the drivers by the throat. There are too many regulations and obstacles already,” said Henry Nina, 50, of Jackson Heights, a driver for a car service.

Colon Cantos, 25, a cabdriver from Queens, said, “This is just another way for them to nickel-and-dime the working people to death and take money out of their pockets.”

How is enforcing the law an example of overzealous “regulations and obstacles” or “nickle-and-dime” budget balancing?  Rich or poor, it’s my understanding of the law that unless you break it you are not subject to its consequences.  Fines should not be excessively punitive, but this is not an example of an oppressive regime stripping citizens of their civil rights and telling them, “As long as you follow our rules, you have nothing to fear.”

When the cycling crackdown was announced, many reporters, editorial writers, and others said, “Good, make bikers follow the law like everyone else.”  But when drivers are told that there may be an effort underfoot to make them follow the law they bemoan high prices and play the “working people” card.  Working people who stop at red lights have nothing to worry about.

I’d be open to a discussion on civil rights and fears of a Big Brother government, but that’s not what typically rankles drivers. (They typically don’t complain that the government makes them get their picture taken and placed on an ID card before getting permission to drive.)  It’s being caught doing something that they know is illegal and paying the financial price for it that’s their real objection.

The news can not control what people say, but it can control who gets a platform and how information is presented.  Take today’s story in the Daily News about the tragic death of an 82-year-old rabbi in Midwood.  Rabbi Moshe Adler, visiting from Israel, was hit while crossing a street in a crosswalk.  (Whether he was crossing with or against the light is not stated, only that he “crossed quickly.”)  The driver of the car, 27-year-old Yosef Luban, was arrested.  Here’s where I think the Daily News story should end:

Luban, who lives blocks away from the deadly crash, was later arrested and charged with driving without a license.

The guy shouldn’t have been on the road.  Period.  Elderly people get mowed down by perfectly licensed drivers all the time, but there’s a different category of legal responsibility for someone who gets behind the wheel without the state-sanctioned authority to do so.  Game over, right?

Nope.  Here’s how the Daily News ends their story:

Still, Adler’s friends expressed sympathy for Luban.

“I feel terrible for the driver,” Lowy said. “The driver probably didn’t see him and \[Adler\] couldn’t move quickly.

And scene.

Look, I’m not naive enough to think that even the worst drunk driver doesn’t have friends and family who would be distraught should he be thrown in jail.  I can put myself in Luban’s shoes for a moment.  Regardless of what happens to him in a criminal sense, he will have to live with the guilt of killing an esteemed rabbi–and Holocaust survivor no less–visiting his community.

But the minute an unlicensed person makes a choice to get behind the wheel of a car, then the time for editorializing, sympathy or “balance” on the part of the news is over.  This is not the case of an innocent and lawful driver not seeing an old man emerge from between two parked cars and having no chance, even at a safe speed, of avoiding an accident.  In such a scenario I think it would be right for a fleshed-out report on the subject to explore the guilt and feelings of people involved.  But Luban is not an innocent victim who drove down the wrong street at the wrong time.  He had zero legal right to drive a car and that’s where the story should end.

I’m not saying that his friends and family [revised: of all parties] can’t be distraught; that’s an emotional burden they must sort out themselves.  What I’m saying is that the News ought not to quote them on the subject, such that it fuels the “blame-the-victim” mentality that seems to follow reports of such tragedies.

The archives of Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which are hosted by the Brooklyn Public Library, are a treasure trove of historical snapshots into the history of cycling in the borough.  After reading a few articles–and there are hundreds to comb through–my big impression was that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Take this article from August 19, 1892 on a crackdown against “wheelmen” riding without lights at night.  Some highlights:

The police have grown tired of complaints from non wheeling citizens who allege that the silent steed is a menace to the comfort, health and bones of innocent and peace loving pedestrians.  Within the last two weeks a dozen letters have been received at police headquarters from indignant persons who represented that of late wheelmen were indiscretely riding at night through the main thoroughfares at a rapid rate without the warning lamp, and instances were given where men, women and children had been mowed down on Flatbush and Bedford avenues by the noiseless two wheeler.

“A dozen letters…from indignant persons…”  Why, that’s almost as many people who belong to Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes!  In all seriousness, as a bike blogger I am no more in favor of bikes riding without lights at night in 2011 as I would have been as a pamphleteer in 1892.  But it is interesting to see an old paper using terms such as menace and mowed down in a story on cycling.  It’s as if reporters have been pulling from the same filled-in Mad Libs style guide for nearly 120 years.

On November 6, 1890 a general order was sent out from police headquarters calling attention to the ordinance…and demanding enforcement.  Several arrests were made, and for a time wheelmen obeyed the law.  They became careless again, and so did the police.  On June 13, 1891, the superintendent again asked the force to see that the law was obeyed, and again there was some show of attention on the part of wheelmen.  The craze for bicycle riding has recently become pronounced and of late the practice of tearing through the streets at racing speed has been entirely too common.  Yesterday afternoon Inspector MacKellar again sent out a warning to his men to enforce the ordinance, and details were sent from the Fourth, Tenth, Sixteenth, and Twenty-second precincts to make arrests for violations.

Change 1890 and 1891 with 2010 and 2011 and this article could be written today, since the most recent police “crackdown” on cycling was in October and another one is set to begin any day now.  If history is any guide, the behavior will change for a bit, until it goes back to the way it was, giving us a lot of evidence that ticket blitzes and crackdowns alone are not enough to engender change.  From a 21st century perspective, only infrastructure can do the job.

Being a cyclist in New York City is a lot like being a child character in a Dickens novel–most of the time, we’re neglected and forced to fend for ourselves, but every so often the authority figures remember that we exist and decide to beat the crap out of us. – Bike Snob NYC.