[Ken Kifer's Bike Pages]
DIRECTORY: Bicycling Advocacy
The cyclist's right to use the roadway is well-established in law, and the benefits of cycling to the individual and the community are easy to demonstrate and advocate.
Questions

What are some possible meanings for bicycling advocacy or bicycle advocacy? What is the purpose of this directory? Where do cyclists get the right to travel on the roadway? Is there a connection between cycling rights and cycling benefits? How old and how widespread is the cyclist's right to travel on roadways? What should happen to motorists who try to run cyclists off of the roads? How can cyclists' misbehavior damage the right of cyclists to use the road? What is wrong with a planned bikeway system? Why are low-speed roads a better alternative? What efforts are seen by some as anti-car? Why is motorist misbehavior tolerated? What is the most effective and cost-effieient way of encouraging cycling? Why should schools teach Effective Cycling? What are the benefits of cycling as transportation? Which is faster, a bicycle or a car? What is the environmental impact of a bicycle? Why are bicycles less of a problem than automobiles?

Directories

Bike Pages Home Page

The Cyclist Lifestyle

Bike Commuting and Transportation

Bicycle Camping and Touring

Cycling Health and Fitness

Bicycling Advocacy

Bicycle Traffic Safety

Basic Skills for Cyclists

Cycling Humor and Tales

Bicycling Surveys and Statistics

Links to Other Cycling Sites

Comments on This Page

Bicycling Advocacy

Bicycle advocacy can have a number of meanings, from encouraging bicycle sales to wanting bicycle memoribilia everywhere. This entire site is actually an advocacy site, advocating the cyclist’s lifestyle in one section, cycling for health in another, and so on.

This section is mainly concerned with two advocacies: advocating bicyclists’ rights and advocating bicycling as beneficial to society. The two are separate: cyclists have their rights by law, not according to some recent decision based on the value of cycling. However, cyclists can win sympathy and support by demonstrating that they play a role and perform a service to others. In addition, recognition of the value of cycling can create new cyclists who need to learn about their rights.

Cyclists' Rights

Although it’s not rare to encounter motorists, bicycle riders, or sometimes policemen who believe that bicycles belong on the sidewalk and have no right to the roadway, the truth is that cyclists were granted the right to use the roadways before the automobile was invented and are recognized as having those rights in every country of the world and every state of the United States.

However, wherever there are cyclists and motorists, some motorists want us off of the road. In some cases, they might act. Motorists who take it upon themselves to run cyclists off of the road are engaged in criminal assault. In Texas, a motorist who thus assaulted Lance Armstrong received ten years in jail, but not all cyclists are that fortunate. There's a strong tendency to turn a blind eye toward the harassment of cyclists or even to blame the victims. Cyclists sometimes mistakenly assume that most motorists are hostile because of the actions of a few, yet most people are sympathetic, and many wish they could bicycle too.

It seems that some of our friends can be more of a problem than our enemies. There are many cyclists who either feel they have the rights without the responsibilities or who don't recognize that they have either rights or responsibilities. As a result, they ignore traffic laws. When city planners and government agencies finally recognized the value of cycling, they started hatching out plans to build bike paths and bike ways as ways of separating cyclists who don't obey the traffic laws (that is, the ones with accidents) from the rest of the traffic. Thus, it's possible that we could end up with a bikeway system like the one in Holland, where cycling is both encouraged and restricted at the same time. There are five problems to such a scheme: 1) the enormous cost, 2) the restriction in ability to get from A to B, 3) the tendency of bikeways to fill up with other, incompatable traffic, 4) the problem of crossing other roadways, and 5) the higher accident rate created by incompatable traffic and frequently roadway crossings.

A more effective method of encouraging cycling, which would also encourage walking, increase safety for children, improve the general quality of life, and provide a place to operate low-speed electric vehicles, would be to ensure low-speed roads in residential and commuter areas. Reducing traffic speed on arterials can actually increase traffic flow; higher maximum traffic speeds between stop lights usually just increase the wait time at the lights. Of course, some motorists perceive any effort to reduce automobile speeds, to reduce congestion and noise, to reduce or compensate for pollution, to encourage carpooling, to provide transportation alternatives, or to adjust taxes to reflect actual roadway costs as being anti-car. In addition, they would like to see cyclists pay heavy license or user fees in order to be on the roadway. But the more dependent on automobiles we become, the greater our traffic and environmental problems become, so we have to seek additional solutions.

In addition, over the years, many authorities and motorists have mistakenly come to see driving a motor vehicle as an unrevocable right, and thus even drivers who have caused numerous collisions due to speeding, reckless behavior, drinking, or other disorders are allowed unrestricted driving and are often not punished in any way, even after killing someone due to their clearly faulty behavior. Fortunately, we are beginning to see an end to the concept of the highway as being a wild frontier and the last lawless area. I think we should take traffic infractions seriously. The purpose of streets and highways should be to efficiently and safely transport people and goods from one area to another. They should not be places for people to work out their aggressions.

Perhaps the most effective and cost-efficient way to encourage cycling and reduce accidents at the same time would be to teach Effective Cycling in the schools. Besides reducing cycling injuries and benefiting cycling, these instructions would help create safer motorists as well. Teaching cycling skills would not be a waste of school time, as cycling is a more beneficial and long-term exercise than most school sports. Texas has received a grant to instruct all grade-school physical education teachers in cycling safety. We can hope that the program is well-designed and that other states will follow this lead.

The Benefits of Cycling

Beyond the heath benefits and enjoyment of cycling, which are discussed elsewhere, bicycling also provides economic, ecological, and environmental benefits over other forms of transportation.

Cycling has a lower cost per mile than any other form of transportation except walking, both for society and for the user. When the cost of travel is calculated into the speed equation, a bicycle ends up being faster than an automobile under most conditions.

The impact of cycling on other living creatures and on the ecological balance is small. A bicycle uses only a tiny amount of oil. The amount of steel and other materials in its construction is less than two percent of that found in a small car. A bicycle's tires and tubes are the greatest waste, as bike tires last only a few thousand miles at most; however, automobile tires, while lasting longer, are much heavier. A bicycle burns no fossil fuels: a bike that replaces an automobile for all travel is equal to the planting of 170 trees.

Finally, bicycles do little to degrade the environment people live in. They create no noise, no stink, no pollution, and no congestion. They do not require massive highways or extensive parking areas. In a collision, they are unlikely to kill, and a cyclist can more easily avoid a collision.

In short, the bicycle is an friendly transportation solution, and bicycling needs to be encouraged.

Bicycling Advocacy Articles

Bicycling Advocacy and Issues -- The Newslist  There seemed to be a need for a newslist open to everyone where we could frankly discuss the issues, so I started one. Evidently the need did exist, because 38 people joined within the first nine hours.

How to Avoid Traffic to Your Bicycling Website  A cycling website can be effective for informing and encouraging cyclists; however, most biking sites have one or more errors that discourage visitors or prevent them from ever seeing any of its webpages.

Auto Costs Vs. Bike Costs   Calculation of the cost of the average automobile, other costs not normally calculated, the cost of operating a bicycle, the money saved per hour by commuting, the average speed of an automobile, and the money saved by touring.

Our Right to Use the Roadway   The problem of anti-bicycle bigotry, some fake and real history, sources of bigotry and defensiveness, making roads safer for cyclists rather than providing separate paths.

How Far to the Right Must a Cyclist Travel?  In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ken Clark was stopped for riding a bicycle four feet from the curb and had to defend his right to do so in court.

Should Cyclists Have to Pay to Use the Roads?   Countering the claim that cyclists have no right to travel on the road since they don't pay "user fees."

Should Cyclists Be Paid to Use the Roads?   Picture cyclists being paid to travel as part of pollution trading. More seriously, cyclists reduce costs for other people; why shouldn't some of that money return to them?

How Much Do Bicycles Pollute?   Figuring out the amount of C02 produced by a car and a bicycle.

Automobile Dependency in NYC   Why the mayor of New York sees bicycles as "a big quality-of-life problem" while not noticing any quality-of-life problems connected with automobiles.

Coping with Global Warming   Observations over my lifetime of how Nature, sunshine, and the weather have been altered by man, some arguments that global warming is a myth, and what cyclists can do to protect themselves.

Why I Am Opposed to Mandatory Helmet Laws   An analysis of the arguments in favor of mandatory helmet laws which points out the weaknesses of the arguments.

Issues for Cyclists   Some thoughts about all the ways, big and little, in which cyclists are not granted equal treatment and which can discourage bicycling.

Dedicated Bikeways   Bikeways are often poorly designed and thus don't attract experienced cyclists. Well-designed bikeways, on the other hand, can provide a superior experience for all bicyclists.

Elsewhere

Bicycle Laws in the United States All the laws concerning bicycling by state, how to get the Uniform Vehicle Code, information about AASHTO and other laws and legislation.

BFA Internet Resource Center The electronic information center for bicycle and pedestrian advocacy and policy. This site focuses primarily on advocacy information that comes from Federal Government documents.

carfree.com Carfree cities past, present, and future. Presents solutions to the problem of the urban automobile.

Critical-Mass.Org Critical Mass is not an "org" but an unorganized coincidence, and there can be no official web site, but this is a link to a lot of unofficial pages. Many good articles and links and nformation about Critical Mass.

A Cyclists Rights Action Group (CRAG) CRAG was organized to fight mandatory helmet laws in Australia. Information and links about helmets and safety research plus links to other sites.

The Dansk Cyklist Forbund - Organisation has links or addresses to 85 bicycle advocacy groups around the world, the HPV Club of Denmark, touring, consumer, and political pages, and many other services. Much is written in English, but the local information is in Danish.

The European Cycling Federation Includes the following on-line publications: the European Cyclist, the Bicycle Research Papers (emailed to you in four languages, but the copies on the web site are in German), and downloadable ECF Position Papers in up to five languages. The site also has information about conferences, commuter organizations, and touring routes.

Take Back Your Streets How to Protect Communities from Asphalt and Traffic. Community activism methods and road design methods to make roads safer and communities more suitable for walking, cycling, and living.

Victoria Transport Policy Institute Many articles on transportation issues, some summarized, some in Adobe format, others that can be purchased.

The Right to Travel by Human Power  by Steven G. Goodridge. Like me, Steven likes to go back to the source of our rights. However, he has drawn a more complete picture than I have.

The Science and Politics of Bicycle Driving  A long, broad, and thorough discussion of the issues involved in bicycling on the roadway.

ERCC -- The Equal Rights for Cyclists Campaign.

Comments | SECTIONS: | The New World | Writing | Thoreau | Home | Bike Pages |
DIRECTORIES: | Lifestyle | Commuting | Touring | Health | Advocacy | Traffic | Skills | Humor |Survey | Links |
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/advocacy/index.htm | Copyright © 2000 Ken Kifer | October 11, 2002