Distracted driving

It's a hot topic. It was described in shocking detail in Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic.



And, I mean, it has its own dot gov site.



A dot gov website featuring, naturally, the most celebrated and multi-modal friendly Secretary of Transportation of all time, Ray LaHood.



And this year, congress declared April National Distracted Driving Awareness Month after passing a resolution introduced by Colorado's own Betsy Markey.

Most discussion of distracted driving concerns drivers of automobiles. Which is fair to a degree because the most gross examples of it are kind of unique to automobiles. Meaning, you can't fiddle with the stereo while shaving on a bicycle.

But that doesn't mean even a little bit that distracted driving is limited to drivers of automobiles. I've seen bikers doing it, and it seems I'm noticing it more and more. Others are noticing it too; several states with laws regulating cell phone use in cars are considering extending those restrictions to cyclists.

Which makes sense. It would be consistent with the expectation that the rules of the road apply to cyclists and motorists in equal measures. I don't see any downside to saying you can't text while biking. It's a little invasive, but so are seat belt laws.

And it would prevent the scene I saw yesterday.



That's a photo I took with my one-of-a-kind handlebar-mounted MS PAINT GOOGLE MAPS camera. It's a photo of a dude on a bike flying down the new bike lane on MLK Blvd. He exhibits perfect posture. And he has both eyes and both hands on his cell phone.

Clearly this is distracted driving. And it's happening on one of the busier streets you're likely to come across in this area.

And it's happening because of the false sense of security of the bike lane.

A couple months ago, there were no bike lanes on MLK, and you rarely saw a cyclist there because of the thick, fast traffic. Now there are bike lanes and the shift from scary to bike-friendly was almost instantaneous. You see a ton of cyclists on it. They obviously now feel safe on this road.

It takes a certain amount of hubris and a certain feeling of invulnerability in order to engage in distracted driving, because it is a willful choice to fish your phone out of your pocket or to start putting on your makeup. Bike lanes, similar to being nestled deep within three tons of steel, can provide such a false feeling of security that you see things like the above gentleman, oblivious to his surroundings and flying down one of Denver's busiest streets.

Vehicular cyclists, who take the lane and otherwise share the road with motorists, must be actively engaged with their surroundings in order to survive their rides. It's unlikely for them to engage in distracted driving.

So if you want to reduce distracted driving among cyclists, and assuming a primary function of bike lanes are to make novice cyclists feel more comfortable on the road, take the funds set aside for installing new bike lanes and divert them to classes aimed at making the novice cyclist feel more comfortable on the road.

Alleyway

Upon a closer look, and actually riding the route, The Google did in fact suggest that I ride through the alley for four blocks.



The street view of the alley shows what I saw first-hand this morning: it's a wide, clean alley. Nice enough as alleys go.

But bikes don't go in alleys. They go on roads.

I submitted a problem report under the "Directions suggest a route that is difficult or restricted" category, because there wasn't an explicit "Directions suggest a route that is unsafe" category.

Bicycles should not be directed through alleys. It is safer for the cyclist, fir [sic] pedestrians on the sidewalks, and for motorists on the streets if the cyclist behaves as much like a car as possible. They should stay on the streets, proper.

You wouldn't randomly or spontaneously drive your car through the alley for several blocks. It wouldn't be safe!

And if you wouldn't drive that way in your car, you shouldn't drive that way on your bike.

Bike directions on Google maps

With the advent of the iPhone, it is possible to wake up only to find oneself adrift in the tubes before getting out of bed. And so I woke up this morning to find one email from the bike league, and a plethora of twooshes, all excitedly and twitchily informing me that Google Maps has added a bicycling option to its directions-finder.

I shuffled from the bed to the office, fired up the laptop, and had a gander for myself. I asked for The Google to plot my commute and to optimize the route for a bicyclist, and it proceeded to do its damnedest.

Critique of its optimized route

+1 for existing. For showing up. For bike directions even being an option. Thank you The Google for offering this service so that the people doing their living might realize the possibility of doing it by bike, alleviating wear on the roads and instead putting a healthy amount of it on their bodies.

+1 right off the bat for designated bike routes and trails being visible (highlighted in green) and for using them where possible.

-1 for making heavy use of traffic-heavy Downing Street! Granted, there are a number of blocks on which I'll ride Downing, but it's primarily not very ... Whoa, hold on a tic. What's this? The route here suddenly jumps between northbound Downing and southbound Corona. As though indicating there's a bike path in the median?

No, as though directing bike traffic through the alley! What kind of shenanigans is this? This shall not go uninvestigated!

+1 for inciting investigatory adventurism, with the possibility of later docking points for directing bike traffic off of roads and into alleys.

-1 for utilizing a bike route two blocks west of beautiful Cheesman Park instead of routing through the park. Optimizing directions for a cyclist should account for scenery-beauty. When will the Google learn to appreciate beauty?

-1 for routing the ride down 1st Ave, in front of the Denver Country Club, which is a dangerous sidewalk in winter because they don't shovel their walk. On the other hand, this option is fine in warmer weather, and whether or not to take it is a personal preference, but this is my list, so I'm docking a point.

+1 for making good use of the Cherry Creek Trail. The Google has accounted well for scenery-beauty!

Tallying up the score, it appears we are left with a total of one Arbitrary Unit of Judginess.

I am happy to have the "bike it" option on Google maps. It pleases me. Using it will be quicker than looking at driving directions and then overlaying my own map of bike routes. But it's definitely in Beta, and I'll be handling its suggestions in the meanwhile as though they are likely to be buggy. Because they are.