By Kate Callen
Shortly before 12 noon on May 4, I nearly killed a bicyclist.
After I made a full stop at the 30th & Upas four-way stop sign, I stepped on the accelerator to start moving through the intersection. Within seconds, a speeding cyclist ran the stop sign meant for him and flew past the front of my car.
If I hadn’t slammed on the brakes, I would have crashed into him, and it’s doubtful he would have survived. News stories would have accurately reported that I hit him. Biking activists would have vilified me as a murderer.
This awful scenario happens all too frequently in neighborhoods across San Diego because too many cyclists think stop signs and stoplights are a nuisance.
They will literally bet their lives that they can frighten motorists into giving them the right-of-way that the law doesn’t grant them. If they lose the bet, motorists who obeyed the law can still face criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits.
Bicycling activists often talk about “bike safety.” For them, the term seems to mean that drivers should always be deferential to the needs of cyclists.
I’ve never seen Circulate San Diego or the San Diego Bike Coalition mount a public awareness campaign, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving did, to promote safe cycling habits. The responsibility for safeguarding cyclists appears to fall entirely on motorists.
Bike safety propaganda was the topic of a recent Rag newsroom conversation after several of us received a letter from Ian Hembree, Bike Coalition Advocacy and Community Manager, cautioning reporters about their coverage of bike-car accidents.
Hembree begins by saying that he is “reaching out today not to criticize but … to [help] meaningfully improve how your coverage serves the public.”
He goes on to school us about how we should report collisions, citing “a recent example from a local outlet that ‘a bicycle collided with a motor vehicle.’ Framing a collision this way implies that the person on the bicycle was the cause, when in reality the circumstances had not yet been determined by law enforcement.”
(If reporters held back stories until law enforcement issued official determinations, news gathering would move at a glacial pace. Deadline pressures require us to report evidence from eyewitnesses and other sources, and we cite those sources.)
Hembree continues: “When collisions are routinely framed in ways that suggest cyclists or pedestrians are at fault, it contributes to a broader cultural narrative that treats people walking and biking as liabilities on our streets rather than as equal users of our shared public infrastructure.”
“Leading journalism organizations,” Hembree notes, “and transportation safety advocates have increasingly adopted clearer standards around this.” He cites examples:
“Use ‘crash’ or ‘collision’ instead of ‘accident,’ which implies no one is at fault and no action could have prevented the incident.
“Avoid constructions that make the vehicle or bicycle the grammatical subject when a person was driving or riding. ‘A driver struck a cyclist’ is more precise than ‘a car struck a bicycle.’”
“When a person is seriously injured or killed, lead with their humanity rather than their mode of transportation.”
Journalists are acutely aware of the humanity of people who are injured or killed. Such stories haunt us. We believe that if our work pinpoints the facts behind the tragedy, we are informing the public in a way that may prevent future tragedies.
So, let’s agree that we all must strive to heighten awareness of the contributing factors to these “crashes” or “collisions.” To that end, I’d like to offer two suggestions to biking activists that would meaningfully improve how their work serves the public.
Begin by acknowledging that high-risk biking practices, like running stop signs and stoplights, lead to a significant number of bike-related fatalities. You will build credibility by recognizing what we all see. Bicycling activists should focus less on promoting their rights and more on accepting their responsibilities.
Then embark on a vigorous and sustained public education safety campaign to remind cyclists that they must obey the law, if only for their own sake.
The Bike Coalition does offer courses in bike safety. But I doubt the young man I nearly killed would sign up for safety training. He’s the one at the greatest risk, and he’s the one you need to reach.
Instead of lecturing reporters on how to do our jobs, instruct cyclists like him on how to safeguard their lives.
As an avid bicyclist who bikes 500 miles per month or more on San Diego streets I agree that bicycle safety starts with the bicyclist. We (myself included) can do more to be safer when we ride. A lot of motorists in San Diego are very accomodating to bicyclists. Of course there are some motorists that create unsafe situations. Not being in a hurry and slowing down by by both the cars and bikes would help. Having a 360 degree situational awareness is also key.
Bicyclists and motorists can share the roads without issue. San Diego has done a lot to improve bicycle safety and is a great place to enjoy outdoor activities.
Well then subject bike riders to the same vehicle licensing, insurance, and road knowledge car drivers are subjected to for moving vehicles. Mopeds, E-bikes, all the way down the line. For all I care skateboards too. It’s bad enough these kids walk around in an intersection with their face in a phone as though there’s an app for a force field around them while never looking up that you are there or it’s not their turn to cross. But humorous Hembree wants to push being PC to a local reporter.
“I’ve never seen Circulate San Diego or the San Diego Bike Coalition mount a public awareness campaign, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving did, to promote safe cycling habits. The responsibility for safeguarding cyclists appears to fall entirely on motorists.”
The San Diego Bike Coalition routinely holds bike safety classes at schools, workplaces, and other locations that promote safe cycling habits. A one second Google would have shown this. Don’t let feelings cloud your arguments.
https://sdbikecoalition.org/classes
Greg, please read the story more closely. The next-to-last graf says: “The Bike Coalition does offer courses in bike safety. But I doubt the young man I nearly killed would sign up for safety training.”
Reckless cyclists will not voluntarily attend safety classes. Like drunk drivers, they need to feel intense societal pressure to obey the law. As the story mentions, a MADD-type public awareness campaign would deliver that message. The Bike Coalition is the logical organization to lead such an effort. And that leadership would, as Hembree says, “contribute to a broader cultural narrative” of cyclists as good citizens.
Anybody using a public street MUST be held accountable, its their responsibility to obey and respect the rules of the road! ENOUGH with bicyclist doing as they please.
Every day hundreds of cars drive in the bike lane on Nimitz to turn left on WPL just to save seconds. It’s a clear traffic offense regardless if a bike is present. It’s a solid white line.
Maybe it’s time car drivers start by respecting the traffic laws that apply to them too.
As someone who commuted to work by bicycle up to 20 miles (round trip) from the mid-1960s until the late 90s, my anecdotal experience was, and still is, that most bicycle riders run stop signs at least occasionally. I have to admit having done it a few times myself (at empty residential intersections near home with excellent visibility in all directions when it seemed silly to stop, but that’s not a good excuse).
But I think some bikers simply don’t care, and that probably describes the biker Kate encountered. Safety classes aren’t going to change the behavior of those kinds of people.
And it’s not just bicycle riders. Now that I’m retired and spend a good deal of time walking through different neighborhoods throughout the city, I’ve had some scary moments when crossing intersections because so many automobile drivers run stop signs when they’re turning right.
Yes, and I was knocked down crossing on a “walk” signal by a cyclist who ran the red light at Sunset Cliffs and Newport. Traffic laws are for everyone’s safety.
This is absolutely absurd. I remember when I was younger thinking that the OB Rag was progressive, and maybe it was back then, but this reads, as the Rag so often does these days, as a grumpy old person out of touch with reality.
There are some valid points in here, but the framing is entirely wrong and there is no data to back it up. Yes, some cyclists break the law. But so many motorists break the law that it has become the norm and we don’t even notice it any more.
I would love to see data on two claims made here: “motorists who obeyed the law can still face criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits.” When was the last time a motorist who was obeying the law faced criminal prosecution or was found liable in a civil lawsuit as the result of a collision with a cyclist in San Diego?
As for “high-risk biking practices, like running stop signs and stoplights, lead to a significant number of bike-related fatalities”. Again, I’d love you to provide data, what percentage of bicycle fatalities in San Diego are the result of running stop signs or stoplights?
Jeff, dont bother asking Kate for any bike data – her position has been that her anecdotal diatribes are infallible and authoritative over most organizations that spend years and thousands on research analyzing these things. Much less does she even bother to respond when people make strong points on her laughable arguments. Her main objective with these posts is to ragebait and drive up engagement to this website which has quite literally become the embodiment of the abe simpson old man yells at cloud meme.
Jeff, hey it’s been quite a while since you’ve made comments here. Is that what you mean when you say you were “younger” back in 2011, when your comments appear to strike up a sympathy for Carl De Maio’s anti-worker petitioners at Mesa College?