More wishful thinking I am afraid about effectively trying to change driver behavior. I have serious doubts this will work through either enforcement or education (see my August 12, 2015 comment on the same issue). Also, it's rare that law enforcement agencies do rigorous evaluation of well-meaning but usually ineffective efforts like this. If they don't adequately evaluate it, it certainly is not worth the effort, despite the officers' enthusiasm.
In a nutshell it won't work well because: · Laws can't work if people aren’t aware they exist. Studies invariably show that when laws like this are passed most drivers say they didn’t know the law existed. They make a splash at first and then are quietly forgotten. · A few may know the law, but say they didn’t realize they were passing so closely. This exact challenge is described in the article itself. "The last two drivers we pulled over, we asked: ‘do you know how far away you were from the cyclist’, and they said ‘what cyclist?’". How will deterrence occur if many drivers are not aware of the cyclist they just passed? · As the article says, most serious crashes (70%) in the city are at intersections where cyclists aren't seen. Passing distance laws don't really even target these type of crashes. · Another aspect these type of efforts inadequately address is the numbers game. I highlighted previously the Texas news story that covered the high level of attention that Austin police gave to a minimum passing distance law. But 'Do The Math'. The Austin story reported on a pretty high level of enforcement too; 104 actual citations (not warnings) in four years. That means ~25 per year or 2 citations every month. If there are about 500,000 drivers in Austin (70 vehicles per 100 people and 800,000 population) and we assume they each make two trips a day, one can estimate that there are about one-million car trips per day in Austin. So among those 30 million trips per month, 2 people get cited. Therefore, the risk of an individual driver getting cited (assuming that all are potentially violators at one time or another) is a miniscule one in 15 million trips per month! How is that ever going to deter drivers who are unaware of the law or don’t think they are breaking it? Sure, the police and or advocates can publicize a few citations and make it look like one is more likely to get caught than in reality. But police, road safety coordinators and media resources are limited and there are other very serious problems police face that also affect cyclists (like speeding and drunk driving, distracted driving, parking in bike lanes, etc.). Therefore, such a campaign will always be episodic, impact few guilty parties, and be done at the cost of not doing other things, even as police and road safety educational resources decline. The fact is, there is simply little evidence that minimum distance laws, even with “strong enforcement", changes general cycling experiences or ultimately reduces crashes or injuries, whether in Birmingham, Austin or Madison. If we rely on enforcement and education for vehicle/bike separation, a pretty dubious proposition, we will have to rely on them, literally, forever. If you change the environment, however, (wider shoulders, lower speeds, better intersection design and buffers and physical separation), it manages itself most of the time. This approach, sometimes called “objective safety” works much better than wistfully hoping for long lasting behavioral change. This is what is at the heart of the Vision Zero road safety approach that Mayor Soglin has endorsed (though I see little evidence yet of its implementation in Madison). In conclusion, the evidence shows that a passing distance law results only in punishment of the very very few that might get caught…that’s all that is likely to happen. Does that make you feel better? Sure the heck does, especially if you were the one just passed at 12 inches by a 40 MPH commercial vehicle. But is it likely to reduce the chance that it will happen again? The answer is not by very much. It is difficult to educate driver awareness and enforce behavior change. Ultimately, such efforts are insufficient for the real work of effectively ensuring cyclist safety and comfort. Hank Weiss On Sep 16, 2016, at 11:54 AM, Brian Mink via Bikies <bikies@lists.danenet.org> wrote: > Interesting piece from the Guardian about offering offending motorists > education versus prosecution for minor infractions: > https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/sep/16/undercover-bike-cops-launch-best-ever-cycle-safety-scheme-in-birmingham?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Green+Light+2016&utm_term=190725&subid=11281222&CMP=EMCENVEML1631 > > Brian Mink, > Monona, WI > -- > Sent from Postbox > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > Bikies@lists.danenet.org > http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
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