Using Psychobabble to Justify Anti-Bicycle Rage is Dangerous

[Stafford's photo is a classic psychologist stereotype.]

Yesterday, Susan Perry at Minnpost pointed out a BBC column about the mentality of what you might call "anti-bike rage," or the tendency of car drivers to get furious at bicyclists on the road. The article, in the "Neurohacks" column, is in that genre of magazine writing that cloaks an opinion piece in a veneer of techno-science, similar to the "Freakonomics", Radiolab, or anything that Jonah Lehrer made up. (Also similar to much of the drivel I write here.) The author points to a psychology study to argue that, when people driving cars experience anti-bike rage, they are exhibiting "altruistic punishment" aimed at maintaining the moral order of the rules of the road.

Here's the key point of the piece:

So now we can see why there is an evolutionary pressure pushing motorists towards hatred of cyclists. Deep within the human psyche, fostered there because it helps us co-ordinate with strangers and so build the global society that is a hallmark of our species, is an anger at people who break the rules, who take the benefits without contributing to the cost. And cyclists trigger this anger when they use the roads but don't follow the same rules as cars.

Now, cyclists reading this might think "but the rules aren't made for us – we're more vulnerable, discriminated against, we shouldn't have to follow the rules." Perhaps true, but irrelevant when other road-users perceive you as breaking rules they have to keep. Maybe the solution is to educate drivers that cyclists are playing an important role in a wider game of reducing traffic and pollution. Or maybe we should just all take it out on a more important class of free-riders, the tax-dodgers.

While Stafford frames his piece as a simple attempt to understand the mysteries of anti-bike rage, he ends up picking sides, condemning bicyclists as being "free riders" within a system of moral order. It's a new argument, and it's entirely misleading.

The main problem here is that car drivers generally, and Stafford in particular, are universalizing the system of rules for automobiles we've developed, and applying them to everyone. Stafford calls this the "moral activity" of driving, and describes it with a bit too much reverence:

Driving is a very moral activity – there are rules of the road, both legal and informal, and there are good and bad drivers. The whole intricate dance of the rush-hour junction only works because people know the rules and by-and-large follow them: keeping in lane; indicating properly; first her turn, now mine, now yours. Then along come cyclists, innocently following what they see are the rules of the road, but doing things that drivers aren't allowed to: overtaking queues of cars, moving at well below the speed limit or undertaking on the inside.

Granted, Stafford is probably using the term "moral" here in its non-normative sense, but reducing the complexities of everyday life to the highly simplified highway system is a serious error. Applying automobile rules to everyday life is a bit like a British aristocrat visiting his colony in China, and condemning the chopstick wielding Chinese for failing to use "civilized" knives and forks as he oppresses the shit out of everybody.

As Tom Vanderbilt's wonderful book Traffic points out, there are infinite codes and rules for different streets in cities around the world, and they're constantly changing and being negotiated in everyday life. Universalizing one automobile standard -- and this case, a constraining, unnecessary, and boring standard -- is shortsighted at best.

[The orderly chaos of San Francisco's Market Street in 1906.]

Before cars came along, streets were an example of order out of chaos. Most of the traffic went at about the same speed, and while there were many accidents (for example, high-speed carriages routinely killed pedestrians in 19th century London), there wasn't a need for an explicit system of enforcement and infrastructure. It wasn't until cars came along, moving at rapid speeds and taking up far more space on the streets than alternatives, that cities started creating Staford's wonderland of automotive queuing and civilized hostility. In a sense, today's system of traffic codes are an after effect of the terrorism of the automobile.

[Part of a Minnesota safety guide for bicyclists from 1946, blaming cyclists for 94% of accidents.]

[A 1937 WPA poster on jaywalking.]

One of the more pernicious effects of this early era of automobile rules was the criminalization of the behavior of anyone not in a car. The word "pedestrian" didn't really exist before drivers began claiming all the space on the road, and the invention of the term "jay walking" traces back to attempts to force people on foot to get out of the way of those driving cars. The same is true for bicyclists, particularly in US and UK cities. The mantra of World War II-era bicycle policy was to "drive your bike," to encourage bicyclists to get off the road and avoid cars, to walk their bike across intersections.

The end result was a system of rules that actively discouraged anybody trying to get around on foot, on bike, or using transit. (For example, streetcars used to let people on and off in the middle of the street.) At some point, you reach the absurd situation we have today, where people walking are forced to press buttons and wait long periods to cross the street, bicyclists are told that they "fare best" when acting like motor vehicles, and you're confronted with stop signs for pedestrians.

Luckily, today we're starting to see shifts in auto-dominated Anglo-American cities. Trends like shared space, common-sense stop laws, and bicycle boulevards mark a return to a pre-automobile concept of the street, one that relies far more on a latent moral code than an explicit set of often unenforceable rules. The trend these days is not to make everyone in the city behave at all times like a motor vehicle. Rather, it's to make people distractedly operating fast-moving energy-sucking machines behave more like someone on foot.

[A Hans Monderman-inspired "shared space" in London.]

[Graphic from NYTimes.]

Maybe Stafford's right when he calls driving a "very moral activity." If that's true, then the proper magazine venue for thinking about anti-bike rage isn't Stafford's "neurohacks" column, but Randy Cohen's "ethicist" column in the New York Times. A few months ago, Cohen wrote that bicyclists skirting rules designed for car drivers is not only forgivable, its ethical.

He writes:

I roll through a red light if and only if no pedestrian is in the crosswalk and no car is in the intersection — that is, if it will not endanger myself or anybody else. To put it another way, I treat red lights and stop signs as if they were yield signs. A fundamental concern of ethics is the effect of our actions on others. My actions harm no one. This moral reasoning may not sway the police officer writing me a ticket, but it would pass the test of Kant’s categorical imperative: I think all cyclists could — and should — ride like me.

 The overwhelming majority of "accidents" on city streets are caused by people driving cars, not only killing each other but killing people trying to walk or bike to get around. There were 176 cyclists and pedestrians killed by cars on the streets of New York City last year. There really isn't an evolutionary or ethical defense of anti-bike rage. The shoe is on the other foot.

Why You Should Send Public Comment to your City

[Yours truly swearing on a couple different constitutions.]

For a little over a year now, I’ve been serving on the Saint Paul Planning Commission. There are twenty or so members of the commission, and we meet twice a month to go over site plans, zoning exceptions, and to guide city staff on long-range planning. We make recommendations to the city council, and most of the time they listen to us.

Most of the experience is a somewhat deliberative, somewhat careful study of different land use issues in Saint Paul. Most of the work is done in committee, and there are a lot of smart people on the Commission that care about Saint Paul and have good ideas about its future.

The most interesting part of the job, though, is the interaction with the public. Sometimes, contemplating a controversial proposal, we have a public hearing where anyone can come in and testify about some new zoning or planning issue. And on almost all of the documents we get each month, all the public comments (letters sent to the city) are included and quantified in the summary.

Believe it or not, city staff, local politicians, and volunteer commissioners like me actually notice and pay attention to comments from the public. And on almost every issue, there aren’t a whole lot of comments to be had. It means that a small group of people can have a large impact on these land use and planning decisions. Most of the time, these comments are dominated by people upset with traffic, parking, or urban density. It’s very rare to see a comment calling for more urban development in the city.

[Everything we look at has a summary of the public comments.]

The point here is that, even though it might seem stupid or trivial, it’s important to take a few minutes and send in an email comment when an interesting issue catches your eye. I’m loosely involved with a whole bunch of groups around the Twin Cities that are trying to change the conversation about urban design, groups like the city’s two bicycle coalitions, Streets.mn, or Transit for Liveable Communities. (For example, yesterday’s call to action about the bicycle infrastructure along Washington Avenue from the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition.) In all of these cases, you’d be surprised at how much of an impact a few minutes from a few dozen people might make. There’s a big difference between a comment summary that says “6 letters received, 6 opposed” and one that has a bit more balance.

There are a lot of problems with the kinds of citizen participation we have city governments, and I’m not promising I’m going to read all the public comments I receive. And I don’t expect anyone to actually attend a public hearing or community meeting, unless you’ve got a screw loose or nothing better to do. But next time you see an opportunity to contact your local council member or city staff, take a few minutes and do it. You might not believe it, but it can make a difference.

Twin City Street Musicians #10

[Violin. Lowertown, St Paul.]

[Guitar. West Bank Campus, Minneapolis.]

[Guitar. Lowertown, St Paul.]

[Saxophone. Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis.]

[Keyboard. Washington Avenue Bridge, Minneapolis.]

[Accordion. Washington Avenue Bridge, Minneapolis.]

How to Explain the Feeling of Bicycling to Someone who Doesn't Do It

[This is what you imagine riding a bike to be.]

When faced with the appearance of yours truly riding a bicycle through my normal American city, many people are flabbergasted. Jaws sink.  Eyes get wide. They slowly shake their head. They are wondering how anybody could ride a bicycle to get around in the USA. (This is particularly true in the winter in Minnesota.)

For many people, the idea of riding a bicycle on a city street for a few dozen miles each day is beyond comprehension. It's inconceivable! They probably imagine urban bicycling as some sort of torture: a 70s workout video, replete with dripping sweat and grunting exhaustion, amidst a dirty Mad Max hell leading to certain death.

Well, that's not right. The vast majority of the time, the actual experience of bicycling is quite pleasant. The other day, while riding home late at night through the city, I began brainstorming ways  to describe it to people.

Here's my recipe.

How to Describe What Riding a Bicycle in the City Feels Like

Combine the following:

1 part "the feeling of taking out the recycling" -- This is the feeling you get when you do some small not-too-difficult thing that you know is good for the planet. That satisfying plunk of putting down the recycling bin on the curb, and knowing that later that day a truck will drive by and pick it all up for you.
 
2 parts "the feeling of getting a good workout at the gym" -- This is the feeling of having used your body, the relief of having it over with, the knowledge that you will be healthier for it. That good feeling of stretching your legs afterwards.

2 parts "the feeling of going on a long walk in the woods" -- Bicycling is most often a solitary wandering. You're alone and riding through a city filled with trees and smells and sounds and houses and sometimes people walking around. A 45-minute ride through the city is like a long stroll. Your attention wanders as you become immersed in an urban world, making occasional discoveries, following a lightly worn path.

(optional) A pinch or two of "the feeling of fixing something by yourself" -- That satisfying feeling you get when you repair the broken piece of furniture, or fix a computer glitch without calling the help line. Because bicycles are relatively simple machines, with relatively simple parts, you can add a bit of this feeling according to taste.

Garnish with "the feeling of meeting someone from your hometown in a far away place" -- Bicyclists are often alone, but from time to time you see someone else on a bicycle and there's a feeling of camaraderie. "I'm not the only one," you think to yourself. Occasionally you chat, members of a select club. Secret handshake, etc.

Mix well and serve immediately.

Sidewalk Games #15: Moving Pictures

In your head re-shoot movie scenes using your own city as location. Let your memory of movie landscapes bathe the places you pass through. Hum a soundtrack.

[fm Mythogeography.]

[Cindy Sherman. Untitled film stills.]