Jeff Abrahamson
Tue, 23 Jul 2002 00:07:07 -0700
On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 02:47:51PM +0000, Luisa Lassova wrote: > > >Studies have shown that bike lanes increase > >comfort perceptions of cyclists by significant amounts; > > The important words here are "comfort perceptions". > Please note that I am not an enemy of bike lanes as such. But if a lane > gives the cyclist the false impression that it is without danger to ride > there, people will become inattentive and this may lead to more accidents. I'm not sure perception is such a bad thing. People often misjudge risks (driving vs. flying, lottery tickets, bungee jumping, election of politicians, etc.). As a society we righteously protest against risks that are too great. But we also protect our right to take some sorts of risks by not embodying our concerns in infrastructure until they pass some threshold. So it's ok (in some sense) that you have many times the risk of dying driving across the country than flying, we don't stop people from taking road trips if they prefer that use of their money and time or prefer that experience. Both fall in what I'll call the "safe zone," a level of risk that we as a society deem is low enough to be tolerable, even though there are many, many accidents in sheer numbers. (We measure risk in probability, accidents per trip, fatalities per mile, whatever.) But, comparing two designs, we may opt for the one that makes us feel safer. There's a very real benefit to feeling safe. It lets us focus on other parts of our lives, which makes us more productive by not being distracted by too many details. As long as the psychological benefit is a shift in risk from one part of the safe zone to another, all's well. This isn't to say that we shouldn't try to shift activities further into the safe zone. But if we shift an activity further into the safe zone in a way that makes it feel less safe, we move some risk-averse people out of that activity, which isn't particularly fair, given that the activity was already "safe enough." We have an obligation to teach people how to ride bikes (in school, as part of driver education, etc.). But that doesn't mean we should abandon infrastructure as an aide. -- Jeff Jeff Abrahamson <http://www.purple.com/jeff/> The Big Book of Misunderstanding, now in bookstores and on the web: <http://www.misunderstanding.net/buystuff.html> ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the Bicycle Coalition of the Delaware Valley list named "bike." To subscribe or unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.