I am so happy to see so many more people biking these days. The traffic experts in MSN are telling us that traffic counts for all modes–especially cars–are down except cycling. That, my friends is good news! And in the aggregate, traffic crashes & fatalities are way, way down. Everyone is driving less, and driving slower when they do drive. And, yay, more people get to live.

Unfortunately, we are starting to see some pretty dramatic car v. bike incidents. This is video of a recent car-bike crash right here in Madison (be forewarned: it’s graphic violence). That one appeared to be a case of motorist doing the standard, purposeful Madison red light run–from the video he was flying at probably at least 35 mph (25 mph zone). Furthermore, my suspicion: he was yapping on his cell phone as most Very Important People tend to do whilst driving (he was a Wisconsin state legislator.) And then there is this just in from, of all places, Toronto; a pretty wild account of a road raging politician who ended up killing a cyclist (ok, allegedly). This editorial was a surprise. Usually the MSM treats car-bike incidents as wholly the cyclist’s fault. But then, the Canadians have always struck me as folks who see beyond victim-blaming.

Unfortunately, Madison’s MSM is intent on the whole victim blaming routine. Just take a look at this news story. In a case that is clearly the motorists fault, the focus is on cyclists and how they should behave. The reporter lectures us about how to swerve. That clearly would not have been helpful in a case where a motorist was traveling as egregiously fast as this one. A better story angle would have been to lecture motorists on how to drive respectfully of human life.

Politicians in both cases. Rising stars getting way too impatient. Multi-tasking when they should just be focusing on the task at hand: driving. It is just basic respect for life.

I can’t help but think that the car v bike thing will only get worse before it gets better. As car traffic goes down, the remaining car drivers on the road will actually be able to go faster, that is, until they encounter cyclists. (Or pedestrians.) The higher the speeds, the less respect for the humanity of fellow road users. That apparent free-flow feeling of the near empty road, interrupted occasionally by cyclists somehow just sets off a primitive response in the minds of many motorists. What they fail to understand, of course, is that without all those folks on bikes instead of in cars, the aggregate speed of their commute is actually faster, given that cyclists a) tend to travel much less than motorists and b) take up much less road space and parking space and c) usually use side roads or bike paths, thus freeing up road space on the high speed arterials. Add it up and the overall convenience factor goes up for the remaining motorists out there. So if they were smart, and truly self-interested, and absolutely determined to never release that grip on their steering wheel, the remaining motorists would embrace & encourage more people to cycle.