The number one reason NZ is so shit for bicycles

(and the helmet law isn’t it!*)

Mikael over at Copenhagenize.com is fond of the ‘bull in a china shop‘ analogy for motor vehicles in urban areas. Rightly so. But isn’t it easy to forget those china plates are people?

Study the following picture. Actually feel yourself in there. Your heart racing. Fear high in your throat. One eye on the danger, the other casting about for an escape route. …

Running of the Bulls, San Fermin

What would you want to change in order to feel safe there? A kevlar vest? New Nikes?

Personally I’d be happiest with an effective barrier between me and them. With separation between the bulls and humans, anyone can take part – your girlfriend, your kids, your grandma – without risk.

Indeed, most people (not unwisely) do exactly that at a Running of the Bulls: there are safety barricades to keep people safe. (And anyone who wants to run with the bulls – athletic and risk-seeking young men, basically – can do as they please.)

Separate and safe from the bull-run, San Fermin

Consider the bulls as cars, as per Copenhagenize. Consider the people as… people. In particular as people on bicycles (the pit canaries of the street, another great bicycle blogger once said).

Ever wondered why almost everyone on a bike in NZ (and Australia, and America, etc) is youngish, male and sporty, while in the Netherlands every man, woman, child and their dog cycles? Think of bulls. It’s separation.

A visual explanation from (as far as I can tell) NZ’s official traffic engineering manual. (Can you spot the danger points?)

NZ cycle lane standards

Here you get motor vehicles hurtling by on your right, others pulling across your path to get into and out of the parking spaces (or bus stop, which is a similar layout), and frequent pinch points along the way, thanks to built-out curbs and masses of parking. With nothing to prevent any of them hitting you. (Note that the photo depicts a large gap between parked cars and bike lane – this is rarely the case.)

End result, riding a bike simply doesn’t feel at all safe.

Isn’t it easy to see why you get people on bikes saying motorists drive too close and too fast, and people in cars bemoaning getting stuck behind cyclists? The two simply shouldn’t be forced into the same space. They need separating. Separated lanes are a proven way to increase the numbers of people using a bike to get round town (to the shops, to work, to see friends) by making riding a bicycle safe (and even easier).

So why do we get the infrastructure we get – world class or otherwise?

National traffic engineering standards.

New Zealand’s (and Australia and the US, etc’s) basic standards for street design need updating to protect (rather than endanger) vulnerable road users. The old standards are a relic of old assumptions and old paradigms. The world has changed – did you miss the memo?

To finish with a dab of photoshopping (cycle lane now follows pedestrian pavement/sidewalk):

 

NZ->NL

Takes up the same space. Has same or very similar construction costs – or rebuild costs after roading work.

Moreover, it suddenly doesn’t matter how discourteous or impatient the motorists are here (and they are), or how ‘silly‘ the cyclists are (that was the clueless PM talking – see Auckland Cycle Chic for more on him), the two don’t have to deal with each other any more.

The traffic engineers need their textbooks updating. (David Hembrow, if/when the Netherlands Cycling Embassy gets up and rolling, can I volunteer NZ as a high priority for a kick in the safety engineering?)

 

Edit: It is traditional in NZ to begin with a Maori greeting. I will end with a Maori proverb: Ka pu te ruha ka hao te rangatahi. (As an old net withers another is remade.)

*The helmet law is a giant shamble in the wrong direction. If you disagree, be kind enough to read and digest this and this before you argue back.

Like a force of nature…

Happy New Year to you! Back in the sharp light of day after the Xmas/NYE partying, the front page of Le Monde caught my eye this morning. They’re calling 2010 the “Year of Natural Disasters”:

“295,000 deaths, 130 billion dollars in damages…”

With all respect to the people of Haiti and other devastated areas, there is a bigger and, importantly, more controllable threat to our friends and neighbours on this planet:

According to the WHO, nearly 400,000 people are killed in road traffic crashes every year just in the under 25 age bracket. The global total is an estimated 1.2 million people dead and 50 million injured.

Road traffic collisions cost an estimated US$ 518 billion globally in material, health and other expenditure. For many low- and middle-income countries, the cost of road crashes represents between 1-1.5% of GNP and in some cases exceeds the total amount the countries receive in international development aid.

Sobering, isn’t it.

But this force of nature is controllable. Preventable. If the political will is there to enforce existing laws, to bring in new laws (eg. strict liability), to lower speeds, to educate drivers as to the responsibility involved in handling a dangerous (and danger-causing) vehicle, to invest in traffic calming and road redesigns that benefit non-motor-vehicle (ie. significantly less danger-causing) travel, this number can be lowered. A lot. Without this political foresight, it’s simply not going to happen.

"30 on Red" (Wellington, NZ) by 4nitsirk @ flickr

I’m making 2011 a year of political persuasion. How about you?

Something has GOT to be done about New Zealand

This caught my eye this morning:

Fifth Cyclist Dies in Five Days (need I mention all were hit by motor vehicle drivers?)

Confusingly, among the comments below the article, most criticise cyclists – for not paying higher insurance premiums, for riding poorly, for causing traffic, for not looking for inside cars they’re passing to see if someone inside might open a door into their path…

Edit: a few seconds after I posted that: Girl Cyclist Run Over by Truck

Girl hit on way to school

Which all clearly ties with this from last month:

NZ One of the Worst in the Westernized World for Road Fatalities

And this speaks volumes about why:

SUV Driver Pushes Cyclist off Road – Lectures Him (which is a little similar to what has happened to me a couple of times, once by a police officer trying to nudge me off the road, though thankfully I didn’t suffer this chap’s broken collarbone)

—

Something has GOT to be done about New Zealand drivers, and the bicycle infrastructure here!

Build good quality, safe and segregated bicycle roads that keep people on bicycles well away from these irresponsible morons.

Finally, some good news!

Not from me exactly (I still haven’t been on a bike since the incident a few months ago) but down in the capital, Wellington, there’s a rational new mayor:

The capital’s new mayor… jumped on her bike to ride to the Wellington City Council building when the election results were announced this week.

As a councillor, Ms Wade-Brown rarely claimed travel expenses because of her commitment to commuting by bicycle. She said she hoped to still cycle to work when practical. “I’ve always stood for good transport choices.”

From here.

The new Wellington mayor, Celia Wade-Brown (2nd from left)

Two unusual accidents past

I’ve been delving into pre-helmet law New Zealand the last few days. I was hoping to find out more about the debates and discussions going on around the time the helmet law was being mooted. In the meantime, and a little tangentially, these two old stories caught my eye:

New Zealand, Evening Post, 10 September 1924

Further particulars of an accident in Grey Street, last Friday morning, when Albert Edward Hollway, a married man, 46 years of age, was knocked down by a bicycle and received injuries from which he died, were investigated by the Coroner (Mr. W. G. Kiddell, S.M.) today. …

“When I got nearer him he moved forward and got in front of the bicycle. He never looked my way at all.” The Coroner: “Did you call out?”—”I think I did. I was whistling all the way down the road very loudly.” Witness added that deceased was about four yards away when he firat saw him. The Coroner: “He didn’t see you at all?”—”No! The front, wheel’ of the bicycle struck his rightieg.” The Coroner: “Did you strike him a, hard blow?”—”No!” …

Considering the rate the boy was travelling, and the rate the man was walking, one would never have expected an accident to happen. The boy must have struck deceased on the leg in a particular way which threw him off his balance. In agreat majority of cases the bicycle would simply have struck the man and he never would have been knocked down. The verdict was that deceased died from a fractured skull, received through being knocked down in Grey Street by a bicycle.

New Zealand, Evening Post, 29 April 1937

An elderly man, while adjusting the chain of his bicycle on a lonely road near Holstebro, Denmark, got his beard entangled in the crank and was unable to free himself. Another cyclist met him crawling back wards, dragging his bicycle, and together they carried the bicycle until they met a man with a sharp knife, who severed the beard.

From Papers Past: here and here.

Hero of the month: Sue Abbott

Heady Freedom as Judge Agrees Helmet Laws are Unnecessary.

”Having read all the material, I think I would fall down on your side of the ledger,” the judge told Ms Abbott after she had spelt out her case against the laws that exist in few countries other than Australia and New Zealand.

”I frankly don’t think there is anything advantageous and there may well be a disadvantage in situations to have a helmet – and it seems to me that it’s one of those areas where it ought to be a matter of choice.”

He found Ms Abbott had ”an honestly held and not unreasonable belief as to the danger associated with the use of a helmet by cyclists”…

From this weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald. Via Cycling Health New Zealand.

Very well done, Sue!

Why bicycle helmets ARE like seatbelts.

They both shift road danger onto cyclists by making motorists less careful. (Risk compensation.)

Less risk inside the vehicle; more risk outside.

New Zealand – first impressions

For a supposedly quiet and civilised and clean country, a large number of people here drive their cars astonishingly dangerously and this appears to be tolerated. I was shocked witless a few days ago when a speeding black car almost knocked me and my girlfriend down (we were crossing the street on foot) at well over double the safe speed for a town centre. Something similar happens about every three days – this was just the scariest.

This town, Palmerston North, has swathes of car parking everywhere. Around half of all urban space appears to have been given to parking spaces. Car dealerships, petrol [gas] stations and motor lodges outnumber make up a large proportion of local businesses.

On the positive side, there are also a surprising number of bicyclists! Sadly, almost 100% of them speed around on style-free mountain bikes, slouched over the handlebars as if positioning their flimsy polystyrene helmets for a direct hit. Sad. Sports shorts and “Look at me, I’m weird” hi-viz jackets are pretty much ubiquitous. I’ve seen very few non-sports bike users at all. (With the fabulous exception of one beautifully stylish lady in Wellington who definitely got the whole looking good on two wheels thing.)

Helmets:

There are quite a few teenagers without helmets, often safely on the pavements [sidewalks] away from the crazy high number of aggressive drivers who rev loudly along the streets. Drivers have clearly been dangerously oversold on how protective helmets are, and who largely don’t slow down around people on bicycles, nor give them a safe amount of room when overtaking.

(Much slower speed limits are needed in town please.)

As for the people wearing helmets, I’d hazard that 50% or more are being worn incorrectly: loose chin straps, lopsided, too far back, or (sensibly, as it’s winter now) with warm hats underneath. I would dare conjecture this is due not to a lack of care for their safety, more to realising helmets are pretty ineffective in all but the most minor falls – but they have to be seen to be complying with that absurd and patronising law.

Also to avoid the hassle of that law, which for some reason only applies to (2-wheeled) bicycles (clearly discriminatory, sorry), a significant minority of people have turned to skateboards, flimsy 2-wheeled kick-scooters and, delightfully, unicycles.

image from unicycle.co.nz

Oi!

“Oi! Shit’id!” came an aggressive shout from the car that had been trying to barge me and honk me off the quiet one-way downtown street for the last 50 metres, “If you’ve got a lid, wear one. If you ain’t, get one!”

Welcome to New Zealand, Englishman.

“Please be careful – you were driving very dangerously back there,” I say sincerely, aware only of the perversity of this uncouth type lecturing me on safety when moments ago he’d been endangering me.

Fat guy pulls his car over and steps out, fingers an ID card hanging from his neck and tells me he’s Detective Something-or-Other. (I wish I had a better head for names.)

“If I see you riding your bike again,” he barked, “I’ll arrest you!! Do you understand me??”

The deep red spider veins on his nose (to me a sign of hypertension or alcoholism) and his remarkably angry, loutish manner told me he wasn’t the type to try to engage in reasoned discussion.

“Now get off that damned thing and walk!!”

That was yesterday. First time out on my bike in a month and this is what I get. I’ve never been called ‘oi’ before. Or felt quite so intimidated.

Still a little shaken.

Scared off the bike

A month in and, after 7 years of my life getting about by bike in England and Korea, I’ve moved to walking and taking the bus. I have been terrorized off the roads by the appalling and threatening driving here in New Zealand.

If I could give the NZ government one word of advice to immediately and vastly improve the street safety and quality of life in every town and city in this otherwise lovely country, this is it: slower.

More later.