Bicycles Crowding the Roads : Cars Demand Room

This is primarily for bike riders and those that might be thinking about starting to ride in your later years, that is those that will be in their 40's, 50's and 60's. I started riding when I was 50 and started racing the next year. I have been racing for twelve years until about two years ago when I decided that enough was enough and shut down the training insanity to actually enjoy the sport.

I still sign up to race for one race each year to give me the incentive to stay in shape, but I have little thought about any great outcomes. The reason I do this is I truly love the competition. The one race that I do is 90 miles long and is mostly flat where the packs, groups, can be as large as a hundred riders. Average speed for me is usually about 21 to 22 mph. These are perfect racing conditions for the retired bike racer. What fun!!

But my thought here is, over the years I have understood the problems of sharing the roadway with cars when out for a ride, and that if there is confrontation with a car I will lose, and lose badly. Unfortunately many of the guys that I ride with, and some women, seem to not understand just how serious this is as they ignore the rules of defensive riding on public roads where car must have the right of way. There is an article in the Weekly Standard, November 18th, "A Plague of Bicyclists" by Christopher Caldwell on how clueless a lot of bike riders are to the dangers of not obeying the rules when biking.

I just want to relay some facts that the author has pointed out here and some insight from my years of riding that I hope will register with some of my friends and others that believe they are bullet proof when they ride in groups across the entire roadway. Even when I holler "car back" they continue to block the road. I find this hard to understand as death, or worse can be just on a flick of the handle bar at the wrong time coupled with any angry driver making a bad decision.

Here are some statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2011 indicating bike riding or racing on the public roads is not just a youthful sport but is mostly 'baby boomer's. I can attest to this fact as  most serious riders that I have been associated with over the years are in their forties and fifties. Make no mistake there are some young riders that are in the 20's and 30's, but nearly no serious riders in their teens. Go figure.

The accident rates found by the Traffic Safety people are to the point in that the death rate for bikers is going up as the sport becomes more popular and serious riders more intent on competing with fellow riders for space on the road and with cars that demand their rightful access.

Since 2003 the death rate for bikers was 36 and in 2011 it was 46 but the important part, if death wasn't important enough, was the age groups registering the most the highest numbers. In 2011 the highest death rate for bikers was the age group 45 to 54, followed by 55 to 64. Again, I concur with these figurers as I have witnessed my fellow bikers riding habits over the last twenty years.

I don't know the answer to solving this problem as I have shouted on many occasions to warn  my fellow riders to obey the rules, yet they still don't get it. I think it's ego to some extent but in most cases it just plain ' I'm out for a ride and enjoying myself so the rest of the world can stuff it'.

The reality, of course, is the drivers going home from a stressful day at work feel the same way. The consequences are always just second way from a catastrophic event. Why there aren't more bikers killed or badly injured is testament to drivers having more common sense and self control then bikers. I know I will have to take some heat from the bike crowd but that's okay, it won't be the first time I've had some 'face time' discussing this subject. But it is what it is.

In any event, get on your bike and enjoy some wind in your face. Time is short, make the most of it.