Everybody’s favorite transportation reporter and mine, Bruce Siceloff, issued a call to readers for input as he prepares a piece about a nascent bill headed before legislators to address clashes between cars and group cycling in the Old North State. As he works on the story, I’d urge Bruce to keep one question uppermost in mind.
Can a society function in an orderly, safe fashion where its members lack consensus about the fundamental purpose of its road systems?
The situation is rife for conflict whenever cyclists and motorists come together on the highways at cross-purposes. Roads are a serious business, too. They were created expressly for the purpose of transportation, not for recreation. (I would challenge anyone to build an even mildly compelling case otherwise.) And when bike riders gather in large numbers on the street, riding two or more abreast, it’s pretty much always for the purpose of recreation. Their actions amount to mob rule, with the pedal-pushing mob redefining the purpose of the transportation network by sheer presence of numbers. And that makes light of the seriously bad things that can happen out there on the pavement.
As both a commuter cyclist first and foremost and a recreational cyclist occasionally, one who’s been in the game off-and-on more than two decades (very much “on” at the present time), I have no qualms saying that cycling behavior which is consistent with and characteristic of recreational use absolutely must yield to the singular function of our roads, namely that of transportation.
All our related statutes — whether addressing the movement of cars, trucks, bicycles, or pedestrians — are commensurate with the goal of transportation, and there’s no room in the law, and shouldn’t be, for cyclists to form recreational gangs to claim the roads for their own purpose and, in effect, rewrite the rules ad hoc for themselves and everyone else.
If you want to ride a bike on the street, then you willingly submit to the jurisdiction of the law in the intended use of that transportation system. Our laws make provision for slow-moving vehicles while according cyclists their due measure of rights and responsibilities as commuters on that system. However, where the law is lacking — because it never anticipated recreational group bikers — is in regulating the organic formation of massive obstructions to the flow of every other kind of traffic.
Any bill proposed by the General Assembly, if its remedy to the problem in view is single-file formations when bicycles are being overtaken by motor vehicles, will largely miss the mark by failing to remove the root cause of the conflict.
In the same way we have statutes governing the use of public spaces, establishing limits to public speech, and prescribing procedures for peaceful assembly, all in the name of common order and safety, whatever steps our lawmakers take on this topic must cut to the heart of our roadways’ intended use.
The facts make it clear: group riding isn’t a road sport. There’s simply no way around it.
