Share the Road Chautaqua

Drew Knox September 7, 2014 Traffic Control 0

(Sung to the tune of Kumbaya)

Share the road, my friend, share the road.

Oh, friend, share the road.

As we were preparing the syllabus for our introduction to road cycling class, my co-instructor, a long-time biker and experienced teacher, wanted to begin with this cycling version of Kumbaya.

I emailed back that these were adults – not kids careening around the Penn campus. “Besides, we already retired Share the Road in Delaware.”

“Yea, but this is Pennsylvania.”

“I know but the reason for sunsetting that message and signage still applies. One of the biggest challenges in our class will be teaching how to prevent lane-sharing.” He knew I meant “taking the lane.”

This is the cornerstone of most cycling education programs, including the League of American Bicyclists, whose cycling-in-traffic curriculum was created by John Forester before he left; Bikeability, the national cycling program taught in England, Scotland, and Wales; and Savvy Cycling, which was formed by Keri Caffrey and Mighka Wilson and is now a program of the American Bicycling Education Association. While programs vary in teaching how far to move into the lane, their common goal is to teach how to carve out space to force drivers to make safe passes.

I went on, “In any case, we need to teach bikers to NOT share the road so we can literally get them out of the gutter. When drivers have to cross the lane line, instead of squeezing by in the same lane, they often give a wider berth than is required. Share the Road sends the wrong message to cyclists but more importantly it sends the wrong message to drivers.”

In Delaware, “Share The Road” is, fortunately, no more.

I pulled up Steve Magas’ blog so I could quote him. He’s Ohio’s bike lawyer who’s been protecting riders’ rights for 25 years. Four years ago, Steve wrote “Share the Road Still Stinks… The whole point of the “SHARED lane” marking is to indicate to motorists that they ought to “share THEIR lane” with cyclists…it implies that motorists OWN the lane and must be told, or just asked, to “share” a bit of it with cyclists.”

I continued, “Too many drivers become agitated about cyclists being in their road – a misconception that is reinforced because the Share the Road sign just told them it was theirs. Of course there is no law that says motorists own the road. And there’s no law that requires sharing.”

Hold on a second. I’m mentally adding to this message while I’m riding and a white Ford F150 just buzzed me, honked, and stopped in the middle of the road. He probably wants to compliment my fluid pedaling…

No, that wasn’t it. Apparently I’m a dumbass for not biking on the 2 foot scraggy shoulder. The driver, visibly shaking, screamed that, by biking in his lane, I forced him over to the middle line so that oncoming traffic endangered his little girl!

“Generally, signs (or “plaques” in traffic engineerese) issue warnings about lateral crossings, like slow children, deaf child, or deer. Some plaques provide alerts about curves, or bumps, or road conditions. Or plaques dictate duties, such as speed limits or when to yield. But Share the Road isn’t any of those. If, minimally, the sign had been educational, think how much better informed about safe passing drivers would be by now. At worst, it’s a feel-good message begging to be developed into a rom-com skit. Imagine a couple out on their Sunday cruise in their BMW M4…

Look, Sweetums, there’s a biker. Let’s share the road with her!

Sure, Honey Bun. How much should we share?

Well, we’re probably four times as wide so let’s give her 1/5 of the lane.

Let’s see, if this is a 10 foot lane, then we should give her 2 feet and we’ll keep 8.

Wow, that was a great share! Did you see how excited she was? Let’s share the road again next week!

“Okay, okay, I’m convinced. Let’s drop the Share The Road portion of the class. What about the ABC Quick Check?”

“Great. And we could still sing the regular words to Kumbaya.”