Hey Andy,
After two days of drizzle, the skies cleared today and the ride in was glorious. I am sorry not to have known you after reading what a truly great guy you were. But in a way I do feel like we know each other, as I can sense that biking gave you the same sense of joy, freedom, and that curious existential solitude smack dab amidst the rushing traffic.
Anyway, I wanted to make a pledge to you. Like many bikers, I run red lights. More accurately, I creep cautiously across them, like the street savvy dogs I saw in Panama City whom natural selection and brutal experience have trained to navigate the unforgiving streets. At some intersections, I think it is safer for me to behave this way, and so I will continue to do that until following 'THE rules of THE road' provides more safety than breaking the rules do. But my promise to you is that if it is simply a matter of saving a few seconds on my commute or errand, or maintaining momentum, I will stop for the light. As a human who has made and will continue to make mistakes, I will probably fall short of that promise. But if and when I do, I will remember my promise to you and try to do the right thing the next time around.
Take care, my friend.
Nathan
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10 comments:
Nathan,
Nice post, and a nice tribute.
Which intersections prompt you to creep across on a red?
I'm curious, because I'm a red-light stopper, and I'm having a hard time understanding the safety benefits of moving prior to green.
Steve
Hi Steve,
Eastbound and westbound on Beacon at Centre are examples. Or eastbound on Beacon at St. Paul's St. in Brookline. Or Westbound on Beacon at Marion St. These are off the top of my head, on my particular commute. If someone can explain how it is safer to parallel the accelerating traffic into the crunch zone, I'm all ears.
Can you elaborate on "crunch zone"? Is that basically a merge? I do bike some of those intersections, but I'm having a hard time visualizing them. Walk me through it.
I can see the beacon and centre one. I pretty much always get off and walk across inthe cross walks. But honestly- I'm often all in a tizzy driving through that one and tend to try to avoid it whenever possible. Even walking across I wait for the walk signal.
Thanks for the tribute. I have been thinking about Andy all week. He was my favorite Barista and even though I didn't chat with him much- he was always busy making lattes, I enjoyed seeing his face and drinking his lattes ( his was the one that started me back on them). I will miss his little beer belly and too tight shirts and long hipster hair. I didn't know he and I shared the pole for bike locking and now I do.
Hi Steve - here is one heading eastbound on Beacon at St. Paul St. in Brookline. You can go to google street view and step through the intersection as well.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uofJwDH3W-4/S_VM88Q5F3I/AAAAAAAAACs/HUDMpQi5V_o/s1600/beaconstreet.jpg
It is not really a merge in the sense that cars would merge into and take a lane. Bikes "merge", rather, into the unmarked and too-narrow space between moving motor vehicles and parked cars with unexpected opening doors. This is very unlike cars merging.
I think the solution is sharrows in places like this (and indeed Boston is moving aggressively to install these now, which is great), and then there really will be "rules of the road" that apply both to cars and bikes. When sharrows or other accommodations make it safer to comply with the law than to violate it, I will be happy to comply.
Nathan,
By "merge," I did mean a bicycle merging into motor traffic. I get the picture now.
I've had pretty good luck getting out in front & forcing cars behind me to take it slow or move left, but I can certainly see the issue: you want to get well enough ahead that you can establish a safe space on the roadway before the cars catch up.
Without clear markings establishing a biker's space on the road, neither of our methods is ideal. Mine (I'm sure) ends up irritating drivers by forcing them to go slow, and risks some idiot trying to overtake me & cut far too close. Yours gives you a margin of safety from cars behind you, but adds unpredictability to the intersection: motorists expect red signals to be red signals for all parties.
I'll still lean toward my practice, convinced (perhaps erroneously) that it's sufficiently safe, because the most consistent complaint I hear (and read) from motorists about cyclists is that they run red lights. But now I have an answer for them about why some cyclists go through on reds, and perhaps they'll listen. It sounds quite similar for the rationale for right on red, for motorists, which only became legal after I'd begun driving. If we can get drivers to think of cyclists proceeding cautiously through reds as an equivalent to right on red, maybe they'll calm down a little.
Can we agree, however, that racing through a red light at top speed can end in tragedy & should be discouraged?
MamaVee,
Thanks for returning us to the real issue, which is that a vibrant young man's life was cut short, and even those whose lives were barely touched by his are feeling the loss.
Steve
Steve, I'm with you on the real issue, the tragic loss of Andy. And I didn't mean to make a point unrelated to that loss. But when I was moved to post here, out of an initial impulse to honor Andy's memory by pledging to no longer run red lights, I found that I could not justify that to myself in every case, because there are (at least perceived) issues of safety, not just the more clearly easy decision to forego saving time or momentum. I guess I felt that if some clarity and improvements on the 'red light' issue in general could result from Andy's death, it could be of some consolation.
Nathan, no need to apologize. I was really talking more about how I'd hijacked your tribute to get into details about biking & safety strategies.
Steve, improving bike safety by learning from Andy is something positive that can result, so your comments have been really helpful to me and I hope others. Actually as a result of your thoughts I am really rethinking my position - is there another way for me to act in the situations I describe? What are the possible tradeoffs between my perceived safety and how I might contribute to other perceptions about bikers?
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