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(Photos by Mike Horsley)
Photo shot for the RGJ pre-ride article – https://picasaweb.google.com/114620386276466270332/2011BicycleParade?authkey=Gv1sRgCIrv0ZCB2dfC3QE#5660379686314327618
RGJ Story – http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011110928036

We have plenty to celebrate:
• Reno/Sparks was just named a bronze level “Bicycle Friendly Community”
• Nevada law now requires motorists to give bicycles 3 feet of space when passing from behind
• A motorist who causes injury to a bicyclist or pedestrian faces the increased penalties of a reckless driving offense, including possible loss of license, community service and jail
• Nevada law now prohibits hand-held cell phones and texting by motorists, reducing driver distractions

Not only will we be celebrating these accomplishments, we’ll be sending a message to motorists that they must share the roads with bicyclists and that the rules of the road have changed.

Come ride with us on Saturday, October 1st!

Start / End – Reno City Hall Plaza, 1st Street and South Virginia Street, Reno

Route – we’ll ride mostly on 4th Street and Prater Way to Sparks City Hall at a leisurely pace and return mostly on Victorian Avenue and the Truckee River Bike Path: 8 miles total.

When – Assemble in the Plaza from 9:30 to 10:30 and get a chance to thank the bicyclist friendly politicians who made these new laws possible. Teresa Benitez-Thompson, author of the law that increased penalties for injuring a bicyclist, plans to ride with us.

Park a few blocks away and bicycle to the Plaza or park in the Cal-Neva garage.

Wear your “3 Feet Please” jersey or t-shirt, if you’ve got one.

Win a jersey! The first 50 bicyclists to arrive at the plaza get a ticket to win a “3 Feet Please” jersey (that’s 50 chances to win one jersey, better odds than the casinos offer).

Rules of the Road – no streets will be closed and no special police escort is planned, although I expect them to be keeping an eye on us. I promised we would obey all of the rules of the road:
• Bicyclists have all of the rights and duties of motorists
• Ride no more than two abreast and single file if to do otherwise impedes traffic
• Obey all traffic signs and signals

Have Fun!

Hope to see you there!

Terry – 775-287-7142 for questions

What event am I talking about?

A Bicycle Parade

It’s the Bicycle Awareness Parade – a ride to celebrate new bicycle-friendly laws!

All the bicyclists in Northern Nevada (wishful thinking here) will be riding from Reno City Hall Plaza to Sparks City Hall and back on October 1st, from 9:30 until noon. Besides just having the fun of a big bike ride, we’re riding to bring awareness to the new laws affecting bicyclists that go into effect on that day:
• Prohibiting hand-held cell phone use and texting,
• Requiring motorists to give a bicyclist 3 feet of space when passing from behind, and
• Increasing penalties for a motorist causing injury to a bicyclist or pedestrian to those of reckless driving.

Imagine several hundred bicyclists, some in “3 feet please” jerseys or t-shirts, riding to promote bicycle safety! Won’t that make a big story on the evening news, telling motorists that a change in driving behavior is required!

You say you don’t have a “3 feet please” jersey to wear in the Parade? That’s okay, of course. But if you want one, there’s still time to shop online. Get a jersey or t-shirt from www.3feetplease.com. If you put “GoNV” in the discount box, $5.00 of the purchase price will go to the Nevada Bicycle Coalition to support safe bicycling in Nevada.

So save the date – October 1st, 9:30 ‘til noon – for a great, celebratory bicycle ride with all of your friends and neighbors.

Nevada’s legislature passed two bicycle-friendly laws in the last session that become effective on October 1, 2011. The problem is that very few motorists know about them:

AB328 – increases penalties for a motorist who causes a pedestrian or bicyclist injury

SB248 – requires motorists to allow at least 3 feet when passing a bicyclist from behind

These laws require motorist to change behavior so it’s important that they know about them (Duh!). However, no one has enough money to mount a big advertising campaign. So, how will motorists learn about their new responsibilities?

The OPPORTUNITY

The best way to reach the motoring public, and the cheapest, is through local news coverage. Let’s do something that will be fun and attract lots of press attention. Here’s the plan:

Let’s have a parade! Imagine 200 or more bicyclists, all riding together at a relaxed, fun pace, smiling, laughing and celebrating a Nevada that is more bicycle friendly than ever. What could be a more positive image for an occasionally hostile motoring public?

On Saturday October 1st at 9:30am, let’s get every person in Reno and Sparks with a bicycle to meet at the Reno City Hall Plaza at S. Virginia and First Street. At 10:30 we’ll ride from there to the Sparks City Hall. As the bicyclists assemble, the news media can interview the bicyclists and the politicians that support bicycling and get some good pictures of people enjoying their bicycles. The actual bicycle ride from Reno to Sparks will be mostly on 4th Street and Prater Way. The return route will be mostly on the Truckee River Bike Path. It’s about an 8 mile round trip.

Ideally, there will be about 100 bicyclist wearing their “3 Feet Please” jerseys or t-shirts. Wouldn’t that make a great group picture?

Don’t have yours yet? Order one today at www.3feetplease.com. If you put “GoNV” in the discount code box, $5.00 of the purchase price will go to the Nevada Bicycle Coalition to support efforts to promote safe bicycling in Nevada.

To add to the fun, the Nevada Bicycle Coalition is going to give away a “3 Feet Please” jersey to one person of the first 50 bicyclists to arrive at the Plaza. So come early to pick up a prize ticket!
Thanks to the Reno Bike Project for co-sponsoring this event.

Be Seen!

Every once in a blue moon, a person gets some useful insight into how they are perceived in this world. Years ago in college, I was a volunteer for the Off Campus Student Association. Their Executive Director gave me this insight. He said, “Terry, I call on you at the end of a meeting because I can count on you to do a neat summary of the meeting. You are a “summarizer”.” He was right. To this day I like to boil a complex set of ideas down into a single, actionable statement. A good example of this is the online shoe retailer Zappos’ Family Core Value #1, “Deliver WOW through service” (Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, was on the Colbert Report last night).

So I’m naturally thinking about bicycle safety, as usual, and what keeps me safe when I’m sharing the road during my bicycle commute. Bicycle commuting is a complex process when you think about it. Every mile I make a dozen decisions that impact my safety. My commute includes Reno’s Plumb Lane and Mill Street where there are plenty of motorists and potholes.

So what is my “single, actionable statement”? It’s, “BE SEEN”.

Of the three or four overriding principals that guide my bicycling, “Be seen” is near the top of the list. Generally speaking, motorists won’t run you down if they see you in time. That guides my selection of bicycling clothes, gear, and how I operate my bicycle, especially at intersections.

But that’s not why I’m writing this today. I’m writing to tell you about a contest to win a very “BE SEEN” device for your bike.

Sign up and record your bicycle commutes at Washoe RTC Smart Trips (http://www.rtcwashoe.greenride.com/) and win some Monkey Lights.

Check out this video of Monkey Lights in action:

http://youtu.be/DLtbeU8FJW0

Good Luck! It might not be for you but it would be perfect for your 5 year old or for cruising on the playa.

Riding with the flow of traffic

About 50% of all bicycle crashes involve falls, often caused by road surface hazards, like potholes, loose gravel, cattle guards, storm grates, etc. Another 33% involve animals, other bikes or something besides a motor vehicle. Only 17% of bicycle crashes involve motor vehicles.

Yesterday I saw 3 separate bicyclists riding against traffic on Reno’s Mill Street in a 3 minute period. No doubt they chose that side because they felt safer facing traffic or crossing Mill was inconvenient enough to keep them there. Here is a breakdown of the causes of bicycle-motor vehicle collisions, the 17% of all crashes:

It seems to me that if I avoid road surface hazards, don’t crash into another bicyclist or curb, don’t do those things on the top of the list, and look out for motorists doing the things on the bottom of the list, I can be pretty safe on my bicycle.

My wife and I were riding in the neighborhood with a new rider, one with a family where every member at least owned one bicycle. When my wife and I stopped at an intersection with a stop sign, this surprised new rider asked, “Why did you stop?” To us, the obvious answer was, “There’s a stop sign”.

I had always assumed that bicyclists coasted or “blew through” stop signs because they didn’t want to lose any momentum, they were feeling rebellious or otherwise just found it inconvenient to obey the law. It never occurred to me that they might just not know that the road signs for motorists also applied to bicyclists.

The Nevada revised statutes say, “Every person riding a bicycle upon a roadway has all of the rights and is subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle ….” Obviously, there are some provisions that are specific to just bicyclists and some that apply only to motorists. Generally though, the Rules of the Road apply to bicyclists as well as motorists.

That means stopping at stop signs, at least to the extent most motorists do in my neighborhood, by which I mean slow to a crawl and yield before proceeding. That means stopping at red traffic signals and waiting until they turn green.

Why is this important? Very, very few bicycle motor vehicle collisions happen because the bicyclist has ignored a traffic signal or stop sign. It’s not a safety issue. Why it’s important is that it is a matter of etiquette.

Society’s relationships and interactions are lubricated by etiquette and no more so than when operating a motor vehicle. Every motorist knows the Rules of the Road, a kind of etiquette, follows them and, as a result, everyone gets to where they are going without crashing into each other. When a bicyclist uses poor highway etiquette, he’s rude. When bicyclists ask for a little more space on the road, be it a bike lane or a 3 feet passing rule, motorists remember being treated rudely and are less likely to give up a piece of the road, to which they wrongly or rightly feel solely entitled.

So… the message here is, “Don’t be rude on the road.” Vehicle rules apply to bicycles, too.

The Washoe Country RTC is introducing an express bus service between the downtown 4th Street station and Meadowood Mall, named “RTC Rapid”. It will ride in “bus only” lanes on South Virginia Street and stop at fewer stations than the regular bus, named RTC Rapid Connect. The South Virginia corridor has the most heavily used city buses in Washoe County.

The South Virginia corridor also is heavily used by bicycle commuters. So, where do the bicyclists go if a whole lane is designated for exclusive use of RTC buses?

I talked with Sgt. Stegmaier of Reno PD yesterday. We identified 4 choices:
1. Bikes and buses share the lane
2. Bikes ride next to the curb
3. Bikes ride in a bike lane left of the bus and right of the other traffic
4. Bikes are prohibited.

Bikes riding next to the curb would conflict with the bus at every bus stop, with the bicyclist in danger of getting squeezed. The plan is to construct nicely coordinated bus stops that allow easy bus entry and exit and a bike lane there, in the few places where there is enough room, would conflict with this plan.

Bikes that ride between the bus lane and the other traffic lane would be vulnerable from both sides. A real bike lane would be required for bicyclist safety and there’s not enough room for one in big parts of the corridor.

Prohibiting bikes would be an enforcement nightmare.

So, the RTC met yesterday (7/13/11) and decided to have the “bus only” lane be a “bus and bikes, only” lane. It will soon be signed like that, I’m told.

This makes sense to me for two reasons: 1) bicyclists in general go where they find most convenient and safe, regardless of law and signage, and 2) the “bus and bikes, only” lane will be empty when not occupied by a bus. Besides, trying to control bicyclists is like herding cats so it’s safer to adapt the environment to them.

Here’s a link for more information on RTC Rapid – http://www.rtcwashoe.com/RTCRAPID/documents/RTC.RAPID_brochure.pdf

Bale of Hay in the Road?

NCWV wrote: This law sounds awful. It is difficult to enforce and in some instances could be dangerous. What about areas where the bicyclists are riding up a two lane road where there is no bike lane going a lot slower than the other traffic. Is a car supposed to cross the yellow line just to pass? The bicyclist shouldn’t be there in the first place. The law should not punish drivers in all cases as it is not always their fault. The whole situation should be solved with education and more bike lanes not with punishment.

“Is a car supposed to cross the yellow line just to pass?”

The short answer is, “Yes”. If the obstacle in the road was a bale of hay or a farm tractor blocking the lane, wouldn’t a motorist cross the yellow line just to get around it? In rural Nevada, most motorists would cross the yellow line at 70 miles per hour and think nothing of it. The alternative in many cases is to come dangerously close to the bicycle rider. It’s a misconception that a motorist can NEVER legally cross the yellow line.

“The bicyclist shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

The only roads where bicycles are prohibited in Nevada are limited access freeways. It would be nice if there were a network of connected bike lanes but today a bicyclist has to share roads without bike lanes to get from point A to point B.

“The law should not punish drivers in all cases as it is not always their fault.”

This is a law governing how close a motorist can come to a bicyclist when passing in an otherwise lawful manner. I’m a motorist and a bicyclist and I can’t imagine a situation where, as a motorist, I would be forced to pass with less than 3 feet clearance. That’s because I can’t imagine a situation in which I would be forced to pass. Is this a “the devil made me do it” situation? In every situation where, as a bicyclist, I “took the lane” and blocked cars from passing me, I delayed motorist behind me less than one minute. In every case, I “took the lane” because the lane was too narrow for us to safely share it side by side.

“The whole situation should be solved with education…”

Exactly! The point of this legislation is to let motorists know that less than three feet is too close. I don’t think anyone is expecting a lot tickets to be written.

“… and more bike lanes…” Amen, brother!

This is an amusing video sure, but it rings true.

Motorists are pretty sure that we are required to ride in a bike lane if there is one. I almost always do. But NV law has no such requirement.