What’s in a Lane?

Here's a riddle: What relies on an ancient Mesopotamian (probably) invention, and yet, these days, incorporates design elements developed by NASA? It's a healthy and green alternative to the automobile. Once you learn how to ride one, you'll never forget how, or so goes the conventional wisdom.

Answer (as if you hadn't already guessed): The bicycle. Since my childhood, I've been transfixed by these simple machines that allowed me to rocket down hillsides, weave through busy city streets, and keep my car parked in that enviable shady spot outside my apartment. And yet, it's been a contentious relationship as I took my knocks, both literally—like the crash that left me with nasty road rash, a jammed shoulder and a tacoed rear wheel, just days after I bought my first mountain bike when I was 15—and otherwise.

"Get off the road! You're not motor vehicles!" yelled a driver as he passed me and a friend I was riding with, over-pronouncing the 'h' in vehicles—common in Ohio where I grew up. He came close enough that I could have snapped off his antenna (I didn't). I don't remember being scared—just pissed off.

Screaming something about how cyclists had the same rights as drivers, I pedaled as fast as I could, not quite sure what I would have done when he stopped. He dusted me with a flick of his foot, so I didn't get a chance to "discuss" the issue with him. Probably just as well, but it was a rough introduction to the hazards cyclists face on the road. As if the stability disparity and several-ton weight difference weren't dangerous enough on their own, a host of behavioral issues play a role in the cyclists' safety. Anger, frustration, ignorance, carelessness—they all cause us to make unwise decisions, but on the road, the results can quite literally be life or death.

The basics of the argument aren't hard to understand: Spindly, slow-moving and ill-protected, a bicycle is no match for even the smallest car, especially when either the driver or the cyclist doesn't know—or is wantonly not following—the rules of the road. The catch-all solution seems to be cordoning off a space of the road for cyclists, as with bicycle lanes. It seems to make sense, right? Paint a white line on the pavement, and tell bikers to stay on one side and motorists to stay on the other.

But as I've investigated further, I've found vocal activists who say that bike lanes promote unsafe behavior. For my recent article in Bicycle Times, Cyclists Find No Safety in Numbers, I talked with experts on both sides of the issue, and I looked at a tragic accident—one of the type that critics point to as they lambast bicycle lanes as a safety strategy. They say that the placement along the right side of the road encourages cyclists to remain there even when the bicycle lane ends, as they inevitably all do at some point. Further, they say, bikers still stay in the gutter when they should in fact be entering traffic: to make a left turn, say, or—as the cyclist in my article could have chosen to do—to avoid a semi that was turning right while he planned to continue going straight.

It's a heated debate (at least in the small circles that debate such things) with few clear answers that I can see. To make matters worse, the will for research that might tip the scales one way or the other is hard to come by in this country where cycling isn't the mass mode of transportation it is elsewhere in the world.