The two most dangerous animals in Orange County are Deer and Cyclists!

Mr. Grinch, give us your name and I'll reply to you.  It won't be an attack.   It'll be a well-thought through reply based on about 35 years of daily cycling in Chapel Hill.

This same message was emailed to all members of the Chapel Hill Town Council on Sunday .

Sender was shown as "J.P. Lloyd."

Apologies if this is a duplicate post, but am having trouble telling if posts are arriving to the blog.  

Ed Harrison

Paint the deer? Overworked insurance agencies? I rather expected the usual criticism of cyclists' brightly coloured lycra, so I was pleasantly amused at the writer's suggestion to force cyclists to wear brighter clothing--an unexpected flip-flop from the fashion-police. He then goes on to describe the dangers of inattentive and irresponsible motorists. There's plenty of this sort of irrational and hypocritical nonsense being voiced these days. Enough to make one wonder from whence it springs. Why would adults abandon all reason to lash out at cyclists, couching their venomous rhetoric in disingenuous concerns about taxes or safety?

Clearly the high, and rapidly rising, monetary, social and environmental costs of petroleum fuels that are forcing uncomfortable changes to lifestyles that we adopted in the 20th century, and expected to continue through our lifetime, are now generating stressful situations with no easy solutions. Increasing population densities are also forcing uncomfortable adjustments as we increasingly need to share space with others. As "the grinch" points out, cyclists are hardly the only reason motor vehicle operators need to operate within the safety limits of their vision and stopping distance--wildlife, pets, farm equipment, mail carriers, fallen tree limbs, pot holes, stalled vehicles, road crews, emergency vehicles, children chasing a football, elderly or disabled neighbors fetching their mail, etc... all present real life obstacles to rural road drag racing. At least the cyclist can be generally expected to be moving in the correct direction and on the correct side of the roadway.

Cyclists don't pay taxes? I suppose it is human nature to attempt to blame a visible and vulnerable minority that appears to have found a partial solution to some of these problems. Many (most?) recreational cyclists do drive motor vehicles carying their bikes to and from rides, as well as to work, shopping, etc.--If there is a fuel tax exemption to which they're entitled as cyclists, I've never heard of it. It's the big, heavy trucks that pay the highest road use taxes (and they are rewarded with the highest restrictions) because those vehicles generate the most wear and tear on the roadways. Bicycles, weighing perhaps twenty pounds (or 10% of their payload), requiring very little roadspace, generating zero air and water pollution, add no measurable maintenance costs to the roads.

Regarding bicycles as an unrealized luxury tax opportunity: While you're browsing those bike shops seeking the most expensive bike offered for sale, take your time. Those high-end luxury models won't be flying off the showroom floor before your eyes. The bulk of those sales (which are taxed by the way) will be for bikes costing less than one payment on the Ford F-150 mentioned in the post. Meanwhile the vast hordes of elite utilitarian cyclists commuting past the storefront will be on older bikes--acquired used for between $200 and free. Any property tax collected on bikes wouldn't cover the administrative costs to asses and collect.

Were I ever to spend $2000 or more on a new bicycle, my buying options for such a luxury model would include many custom hand-crafted bicycles designed and built by independent artisian American craftsmen, some living and working in rural North Carolina. I don't think I have any such option when purchasing that F-150. An enormous amount of money flows forever out of our local economy to buy automobiles. Once upon a time, the bulk of that money flowed in to Detroit and the supporting manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, but I think those days are gone. Feel free to keep buying F-150s though, the greenback may be in decline, but OPEC nations are still glad to take it for what its worth.

On narrow roadways that make safe passing impractical for significant stretches, traffic will necessarily slow, at least temporarily, to the speed of the slowest vehicle. NOBODY enjoys that, least of all the cyclist. Where traffic is light, motorists make up lost time after passing. As our population increases it becomes necessary to widen the outside lane to make it easier for motorists to safely pass cyclists. This makes for an improved environment for motorists.

We do collect taxes on motor fuel. Motor vehicles do contribute the bulk of wear and tear on the roadway. As noted in the original post, motor vehicle operators do create grave dangers on the roadway and a need for extensive emergency medical, fire, law enforcement and traffic control investments. Fortunately we are all more or less free to choose alternative means of transportation. Some economize by bicycling, others by minimizing road trips while others choose to remain unrestrained in their motoring, and fuel consumping, practices. Because the costs of such extravagance is a bit deferred, and rapidly rising, they feel somewhat cheated when payment is due and sometimes lash out at those who appear to be getting a better deal, instead of joining them in a more efficient model of paying for transportation--paying with the sweat of physical labor instead of dollars.

If you are "slamming on the brakes" countless times in a 6-7 mile stretch, you'd do well to stop "slamming on" the gas pedal between such events. Forming a single line makes the line twice as long, and that much moe difficult to pass. Who has been teaching you otherwise?

I recently had the pleasure of conversing in person with a pair of disgruntled motorists who specifically expressed three concerns:
1. Cyclists pass cars on the narrow, slow section of weaver street in front of wsm where there are no bike lane.
2. Cyclists pass stopped cars on cameron street where there is a bike lane.
3. Cyclists run red lights.

Okay, #1 and #3 sound like illegal operation. #2 involves two vehicles in separate lanes. This guy's buddy who opened his truck door into another travel lane was clearly in the wrong when another vehicle hit the door, yet somehow he rationalized that the cyclist was at fault--incredible!
Regarding #1: I tend to queue up within the lane behind other vehicles where the lane is too narrow to share. I imagine that some motorists appreciate that I am assuming responsibility and operating under the same laws they are. But I suspect that other motorists feel that I'm being "extremely dangerous in exercising that right", as some have posted here, and others wish I'd ride in the gutter, creating a secondary lane, flowing at a seperate pace. I guess you just cannot please everybody?
Regarding #3: Listening to some of these motorists, you'd think that cars are screeching to a halt at green lights to avoid cyclists dashing through red lights all over town, but the dearth of splattered bikes at intersections belies the falsehood of this assertion, so why the perception, made all the more startling when one realizes that this is a town where MOTORISTS are so vocally protective of their "right" to run red lights that they forced the town to remove all red light cameras? I stop at red lights and wait for them to turn green, as much as motorists do, but again I'm not sure that all motorists are in agreement that this is correct or courteous behaviour on my part--If I crept up to the light and treated it as a stop sign, yielding to cross traffic and proceeding when clear, I'd avoid delaying cars behind me. Furthermore, traffic lights in North Carolina are controlled by inductive loops which often do not detect bicycles. Last year the GA passed legislation to provide for this circumstance for motorcycles. The House amended to include bicycles, but the tight-lipped Senate sponsor refused to adopt that revision, leaving one to guess why--perhaps it was his intention that cyclists continue to treat traffic lights as stop signs, or as defective, when they fail to detect a cyclist. In any case, as the risk is overwhelmingly the cyclist's, the decision is best left to the cyclist. After all, the one-million dollar per intersection cost of these traffic control devices is primarily driven by the immense danger of motorized traffic.

It would seem that these irate motorists are not being "cut off", just being passed. So its really envy that's getting to them--we all know those cars would be slipping past too if they could fit--just go watch southbound motorists pass on the shoulder squeezing around cars stopped to turn left onto roberson (in front of open eye) all day long.

No need for narrow vehicle envy--Join us! We can set you up with a clean, efficient bicycle for far less than that F-150 gas guzzler and you can get in on the fuel and tax savings too!

On trolling: An incoherent, rambling post, worded such that it would not earn passing marks in grade school and resembling nothing so much as a drunken rant from an anonymous poster, subtitled "This should stir the pot!" pretty much epitomizes trollishness.

How many of you have heard of the Highway Trust Fund? That is where our gas taxes and registration fees go to build roadways. I will grant you that the Democatic controlled Generall Assembly annually robs the Highway Trust of millions of dollars for non roadway projects and this is approved by the Governor. Cyclists provide another revenue source, earmark the funds for bike lanes and paths. So many of you have used DOT to point out your right to be on the road, don't you TRUST our State leaders with fees earmark for your direct benefit?

As for where I drive 80% on 2 lane roads, 18% on 4 lane roads and 2% on the interstate roads. I would say 70% of the time I am driving in rural areas. I routinely use my horn to alert cyclists I am approaching and I have deer whistles on our vehicles. I am not sure either works very well.

Don't honk at cyclists, please! It's incredibly jarring and startling and more likely to cause an accident than simply approaching with caution. I used to road bike quite a bit, both in the NC mountains and in Orange County, and I can't recall one time a car passed me that I didn't know was there.

When you're cycling, honks come across and hecklers and harassers.  

What can be really frustrating, as a cyclist, are the cars who seem willing only to go entirely into the other lane and pass, after hemming and hawing and idling right behind you on a flat, empty road for ten minutes.

Of course it's important to give cyclists space, but you don't need to cross all the way to the other side to do this. And honking won't help anyone.  

To respond to what Brandy said: in my experience, cyclists bunch up at two specific times. First, when they are starting a group ride and just getting going. It takes just a little while to spread out. Next, when it's unsafe to pass anyway, cyclists might ride two or three together. It's not always safe to ride right next to the edge of the road, for example if the shoulder is soft or filled with debris.