Taking the bête out of urban cycling’s bête noire.
In a good month, I cycle 500 kilometres on city bike paths and roads. For that reason alone, you would think I would be thrilled the City has moved forward with an aggressive program of protected, green bike lanes adjacent to the curb. However, I have mixed feelings. Before them, I took the approach that as a cyclist amongst a lot of cars and trucks, I was like the kayaker in with the killer whales. While they may not intend to kill me, ‘killer’ is their first name after all. You know where you stand. So it was with city traffic: at least I knew the pecking order in the vehicular food chain. Heightened awareness was my best defense. That, and a helmet. It does seem as though the green lanes are here to stay, though, so I’m determined to make the best of them.
However, there is at least one situation which still terrifies me every time, both as an urban cyclist and as a driver. It’s so bad it even has its own proper noun—the Lethal Right Hook. That’s the precarious moment when you cycle up to the intersection on a green light, going straight through, at precisely the same time the driver in the adjacent lane is turning right. Like the sign says, I have the right-of-way and I can see him…but does he see me? Do I take a chance he is not focused on the tail end of the green light or the yellow and is anxious to get around the corner? Or maybe the wide C-pillar is blocking his view as he performs the unnatural act of turning right from the left lane (if you include the bike lane). Do I take a chance he just doesn’t like ‘husky’ old guys on bikes?
I don’t care what the sign says, I’m tapping the brakes. If he sweeps through without noticing me, I look like a genius. Worst case, he does see me and slows or maybe even waves me through and all is well. In either case, it’s a happy ending.
Warning: politically-incorrect heresy ahead. The Lethal Right Hook signage is unequivocally 100 percent and 180 degrees wrong: at Right Hooks, bikes should yield to cars, not the other way around.
“What, are you insane, you bike-hating, environmentally-ignorant, redneck, son-of-a-…”
Whoa, hold on there. Here me out. First, bikes should yield to cars at the Right Hook for all the reasons above. If you think the ‘right’ to proceed through the intersection is going to make the collision any less painful, you’re wrong. Any contact between bike and vehicle—even if nobody gets seriously hurt and regardless who has to pay for the damage—the bike loses. That’s not my opinion, that’s physics.
But it’s not just physics you have to worry about, it’s also that pesky thing called geometry. That is, the geometry of the driver's position and the extra wide C-pillars of many popular SUVs. As you approach the right turn, the relative alignment of even the most conscientious, shoulder-checking SUV driver's head and the C-pillar makes the bike lane impossible to see. You really have no idea who is there until you’re at least far enough into the turn to be blocking the bike lane anyway. Worse yet—let's be candid—many will only passingly check the passenger side mirror rather than do a full shoulder check in this situation. That's because you're driving in what you perceive is the curb lane. Your subconscious mind will allow you to believe it’s impossible for anybody to be between you and the curb. Side mirror glance ought to do, right? Maybe.
Speaking from the driver’s perspective for a moment, I’m not a heck of a lot happier about the rules around the Right Hook, but not for the reason you may imagine. As advised by the well-intended person from the City when I raised the issue “[d]rivers should approach the turn slowly”. Well, sure, of course, but that does not take into account that neither the driver behind you or the oncoming driver, turning left, expects you to slow down on green. On at least a couple of occasions where I have done exactly as suggested, the oncoming driver assumed I was a jackass stopping for a unicorn. They may be able to see there is no cyclist in the bike lane, but I can’t for all the geometric reasons noted above. The left turner, fed up with my perceived jackassery then decides to proceed even though I have the right-of-way. I have also had the driver behind nearly rear end me for the same reason. Unlike me, they can see the bike lane is clear, so my slowing down does nothing more than confuse the hell out of him. I have had near misses in both scenarios.
In case you think I have it in for cyclists—I am one, after all—there is a quid pro quo: it becomes a ticket-able infraction for a vehicle to block the green lane. Enter only when the exit is clear. If the cross traffic is gridlocked, the cyclist can proceed on the green light because the right turners are on one side of the green lane or the other. They're not sitting across it, at least not legally. Intersections—to catch runners of red lights and other miscreants—are increasingly wired up to issue tickets for these types of procedural infractions. Absolutely, positively we do not need yet another way of getting a traffic ticket, but blocking the green lane could be just one more thing for which the robocops are programmed.
The way the Right Hook is set up right now is the inevitable outcome of thinking bikes are ‘sort of like pedestrians’. At the Right Hook a pedestrian thinks, for example, when the walk sign says walk cars will automatically stop. Almost universally pedestrians have right-of-way and they have the law on their side. All but the most smartphone-obsessed office worker will still have a peek over their left shoulder just in case there’s another smartphone-obsessed office worker behind the wheel of the car turning right.
This whole approach is wrong. It’s better to think of bikes more as ‘sort of like vehicles’. If you do, there is no way in hell you would expect a through lane to be closer to the curb than the one from which vehicles are turning right. It still happens, of course, but always accompanied by moral outrage with that nut behind the wheel who would contemplate such a dangerous maneuver. The nerve of that guy! The current Right Hook signage not only encourages the right-turn-from-the-left-lane scenario, it makes it the law of the land. If we allow this thin end of the wedge, isn’t it really just a matter of time before turning across a lane of traffic, bike or otherwise, becomes socially acceptable and the end of civilization is at hand?
Cycling in the city without the benefit of bike lanes is not everybody’s cup of tea, I’ll readily admit. However, my knock against them—as unpopular as it might be—is they provide a false sense of security. Do you really think that pathetic little curb or those springy, flexible green pillars are going to protect you from anything? At best, they provide a pretty good visual indicator the curb lane is now used for something other than parking spaces the local businesses likely miss. Statistics show green lanes help, without question, so there’s that. The numbers speak for themselves.
However, their most serious negative consequence is they permit the cyclist riding in the clear-and-present danger of urban traffic to mentally drift off. That would be fine if their attention didn’t need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to reality at the end of every city block. But it really does: the dangers lurking with the Lethal Right Hook demand you attend solely to the matter at hand.
©2016 Terence C. Gannon
Also offered, with apologies, to those many great nations who drive on the left in which case everything is reversed, of course. If you prefer, you can listen to this essay as a podcast. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on June 1, 2016. I welcome your comments below. Also, if you liked this essay and/or podcast, please share it with your social networks. Thanks so much!