Bicycling in Traffic
Part One: Beyond the Vehicular Cycling Principle

Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck, or one's Neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

--Ambrose Bierce

The bicycle is the magic carpet of the urban traffic grid. It can squeeze between lanes of cars in a traffic jam; pop onto the sidewalk and snake around pedestrians, newspaper boxes, and hotdog stands; or bust a tiny u-turn in the middle of the block. It can even go the wrong way up the middle of a one-way street, and not give a damn. This tremendous agility demands great care and discretion. In the wrong hands, it can be deadly. The bicycle's magic power is also its Monkey's Paw.

Crash statistics indicate that there are many, many cyclists out there who are abusing the bicycle's go-anywhere potential. Most of the nasty car-versus-bicycle collisions in cities occur when bicyclists succumb to temptation and fail to yield at stop signs, turn suddenly into the paths of motorists, or ride against traffic. Their riding style, if it can be called that, is characterized by chaos and unpredictability. These victims can't handle the freedom that the bicycle gives them. Freedom requires responsibility. Unfortunately, freedom comes easily to American urban cyclists, but responsibility does not.

In 1975, John Forester wrote the first edition of a book called Effective Cycling. Using these ugly accident stats as a guide, Forester implored cyclists to dispense with the anarchy and ride in a predictable, ordered fashion. The normal traffic laws governing motor vehicle traffic, he declared, provide a ready-made framework that works just as well for bicycles as it does for motor vehicles. He boiled it down to a single statement: "cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles." This he called the "Vehicular-cycling Principle." Forester's ideas won over the cycling community, if not the general motoring public. Today the vehicular-cycling principle is endorsed and taught by the League of American Bicyclists (formerly the League of American Wheelmen).

Next to the absent-minded anarchy practiced by many novices, the vehicular-cycling principle is a stellar guideline. Vehicular cycling is a great starting point for beginners. Just by obeying traditional traffic law principles and riding predictably, a bicyclist will eliminate a large portion of the danger of urban cycling. However, the vehicular-cycling principle has a big hole in it: the strict vehicular cyclist who has eliminated many of his or her own mistakes by riding lawfully will still remain quite vulnerable to the mistakes of others. Because mistakes are common in the urban mix-indeed, mistakes are the rule-and because cyclists are especially vulnerable to the seemingly inconsequential "brain farts" of motorists, riders who have spent decades and hundreds of thousands of miles in city traffic naturally adopt a style that is quieter, more conservative, and somewhat less trustful of others than that of the vehicular cyclists. It's amazing how a few trips to the MRI room will color one's judgment of traffic laws and fellow road users.

One of the big problems with the vehicular-cycling principle, or any principle of urban cycling, for that matter, is that it fails to account adequately for the complexities, details, and chaos of the city streets. Evidence of this failure is provided in the fact that few experienced cyclists, even those who are vocal proponents of vehicular-cycling dogma, apply it consistently in their everyday travels. Instead, they use it whenever it suits their purpose and discard it when it doesn't. They're not above using an off-street bike path if it's headed in the right direction. They roll through stop signs, treat red lights like yield signs, and filter past lines of stopped cars in traffic jams and at intersections. Not very vehicular of them. That's the reality of urban cycling today. If cyclists were to suddenly start living by the vehicular principle in all situations, disregarding the special privileges and de facto rules they have built for themselves over the decades, the advantages of riding a bike in the city would be gutted.

It is apparent, also, that the vehicular principle lends itself to some very questionable interpretations. While Forester's advice is usually quite sound, a large number of urban cyclists have added a militant, confrontational tone to the framework of his message. They have taken the vehicular-cycling principle and bastardized it. Through their riding habits in traffic-which are often deliberately, theatrically antagonistic-they seek to make some kind of point to their special audience of other road users. One is never quite sure exactly what that point is-something about the rights of cyclists in traffic. Their riding often becomes little more than a passive-aggressive acting out of their disdain for drivers. What a waste of a good bike ride this is. The feisty neo-vehicularists claim they are standing up for their rights, asserting themselves, showing drivers that they will not be intimidated in the face of overwhelming pressure, and increasing their own safety in the process. Others claim these riders do grave damage to all cyclists' ability to navigate safely and easily in urban traffic.

The vehicular-cycling principle may simply be outmatched and outdated in the new millennium. Indeed, much has changed since the concept was formally introduced. The country's population has grown by about 65 million, and even more cars have been added than people. The national culture has become even more adoring of automobiles and cities have sprawled out grotesquely to accommodate them. Americans are more devoted to and dependent on their internal combustion engines than ever before. As a result, traffic is much worse in just about every city in the nation. Drivers spend more time stewing in traffic jams and shaking fists at each other, and cyclists are even more unwelcome on busy streets. On the other hand, the bike lanes and paths, which drew such biting criticism from vehicular devotees for being unsafe and unfair to cyclists, have been greatly improved since the ‘70's and ‘80's, and look more attractive to cyclists than ever before. When it suits them, even seasoned veterans of city riding abandon the traffic-packed roads in droves for separate facilities. They feel no sense of loss when doing so. A prime example is Manhattan, where all the bridges onto the island are now accessible by bicycle due to new paths, and a continuous bikeway runs beside the Hudson River. Decades ago, the vehicular-cycling ideologues had high hopes for their cause: they hoped that cyclists would be granted not only equal rights, but equal respect, on America's roadways, that cyclists would be able to cruise any city thoroughfare alongside-or, to be more accurate, in front of-cars and trucks, and that the whole concept of separate facilities would wither and die from lack of usefulness. The dream has failed to materialize. America is further from a vehicular-cycling utopia than it was 25 years ago.

In this work, you will find a synthesis of sorts between old-fashioned vehicular cycling and the reality of modern street riding. We will pay homage to the masters who have taken the sacred vehicular-cycling principle and molded it to their needs, to create a more enlightened and nuanced style. Theirs is a safer style, and an easier style. Where the vehicular-cycling principle encourages cyclists to deny any off-street options and to boldly stake out a position among motor traffic, flexibility will be our guide. We will use the safest, easiest, and most stress-free option available at any given time. We will exercise all our rights to cruise the busiest city streets, but also our rights and abilities to use the quiet ones, and the off-street paths. We will have the best of all worlds.

While some cyclists preach assertiveness and militancy, we offer cooperation and facilitation. We will still get where we're going in a hurry, if we wish. We will recognize and respect the limitations of human nature as well as traffic law. We will recognize the basic human mistake as the salient feature of urban traffic, and we will seek to anticipate the mistakes of others. Where the vehicular-cycling principle leaves responsibility in the hands of motorists, and trusts that they will act properly, we will take back responsibility for our own safety whenever we can. We will not seek to dole out blame to anyone but ourselves. While Forester claimed that even children could ride safely on busy streets using the vehicular-cycling principle, our way is unquestionably for adults. Freedom will be our food and our poison. The streets demand from us an awareness and maturity that would be very rare in a child.

We will abandon the pretension of principles and rules and will adapt to the ever-changing chaos of city life. We will find the path of least resistance. Instead of attempting to dictate the flow of traffic, we will become the flow of traffic, and it will become us.

Above all, we will have fun and get home in one piece.

The style prescribed here is nothing new. It is put to work every day in just about every city in the world. The cyclists who use it have come by it organically as individuals. They did not get together at a conference to cook it up. They did not take a course or read about it in a book. It is a natural product of their long, sometimes painful experience. It works.

Quite unfortunately for authors of books about urban cycling, this enlightened style is difficult to describe with words. It is born of infinite details, and will not be tamed by principles or paragraphs. This brand of urban cycling is an art form.

© Robert Hurst