Open letter to my pilot friend, who opposes my safety as a bicyclist.

Dear Friend,

We’ve known each other a long time. Something’s bothering me about the way you treat me online. I share a lot about how dangerous American streets are for people outside of cars. It’s not simply a part of my identity, it’s my life. I bike and walk for transportation, and the streets could one day kill me. Your comments aren’t helping.

Waiting to board Caltrain and bike to a meeting in San Francisco.

I share about systemic issues and individual behavior. Sometimes I highlight facts. I also reframe issues. Other times I rant about the danger cars pose because I was almost killed by a negligent driver. I like to think my posts give people a different perspective on something that affects them every day.

The other day I shared a pic of my bike sticker CARS ARE DEATH MACHINES. I got it from my favorite podcast — you’ll love this — The War On Cars. It’s a provocative statement, and it’s true.

Spot the lie? Original post.

You were quick to comment, and I was quick to delete. It was a “not today, Satan” day and my post, so my rules. I wish I had screenshotted it, it read something like:

Funny how I’ve never seen someone who commutes by car show up to work with a broken collarbone.

As mad as I am at your derision, I’m also kinda impressed. Why? Because I’ve never seen you come so close to the point yet miss it by so much. Your comment was surprisingly self-aware. What could possibly break a bicyclist’s collarbone?

I know you don’t like the v-word, but that’s awfully blamey language. Was the bicyclist asking for it? They weren’t wearing a car, which all good Americans know is the appropriate two tons of armor around their bodies. Do you hear what that sounds like?

Are you OK with people getting injured or killed on our streets if they’re outside of a car? If I was hit and killed on my bike, would you blame me for my own death?

I’m angry at you and disappointed in you, friend. Over the years, you’ve taken exception — sometimes even personal offense — to my posts and statements about dangerous streets and the impact of cars. I imagine as soon as I get on those two wheels, you stop seeing me as a person worthy of safety. Perhaps even life.

I’m bewildered to notice your comments are at odds with the discipline you’ve cultivated in your profession.

You’re a pilot. Not long after we met, you graciously took me on a flight along Lake Michigan that inspired me to earn my certificate a few years later. It was a personal highlight to fly the single-engine Cherokee 800 nautical miles back to Chicago and take you up on a similar flight.

At the controls over Lake Michigan on our flight. I’m grateful for your guidance and encouragement as I learned my most challenging and rewarding skill to date. Photo credit: you.

During my training, I learned all about aviation safety culture. The industry takes a systemic approach to accident prevention. I learned that checklists, procedures, regulations, and even aircraft and cockpits were designed around preventing crashes. The industry has learned from thousands of tragic deaths in over a century of flight. Countless people have investigated root causes, designed safer systems, and trained for safety. In aviation, you know that any accident is everyone’s accident.

Take just one example, the right-of-way rules. The most maneuverable aircraft are required to give way to the least maneuverable. How would one apply the principles of aviation’s right-of-way rules to our city streets? The largest and most powerful vehicles should give way to the smallest and most vulnerable: people walking, children, elderly, disabled, and people on bikes or scooters. The greater the size and power of the vehicle, the greater its operator’s responsibility for the safety of others around them.

Source: Airmanship 2 Leading Cadet Training Rules of the Air, Royal Air Force Cadets.

Cars are death machines.

In 2019, there were 36,000 fatalities from motor vehicle crashes. Over half were occupants of cars and SUVs. 14 percent were motorcyclists, 17 percent pedestrians, and 2 percent of fatalities bicyclists. Taking those last two figures, one in five people killed by motor vehicles wasn’t even in one!

Scene from a recent car crash in Chicago. Source: Chicago Sun Times.

Cars are death machines.

Motor vehicle transportation is 750 times more dangerous per passenger mile than commercial aviation. 750 times. Why should we accept that? How much safer do you think our streets could be if we applied a disciplined, scientific, and systemic approach like we do to aviation safety? Until we get there, consider that it might be better to get upset at the problem than the person calling it out.

Scene of a multi-vehicle crash in Chicago that killed one and injured 11 others. Source: Patch.

Cars are death machines.

It’s time to constrain the carnage they’re capable of through road design, vehicle design, and other systemic approaches. The NTSB is coming around. The new chairman is calling for a Safe System Approach. It’s a start. This recent article summarizes the reasons car violence is such an intractable feature of American life.

You took yet another swipe at me that day because I bike, and because I’m outspoken about protecting people on bikes. Why oppose your friend’s safety? It’s probably not about me, it’s about you. Maybe you don’t want to see someone “cheating” in traffic, getting from A to B faster than you for the cost of a single car payment, exercising in the process. Perhaps deep down you wish you could ride too, but you’re too afraid of a car hitting you. I don’t blame you if that’s true, I just ask for respect.

There are many reasons people don’t ride. Some people can’t. Some people need to go long distances. And cars are scary when you’re not in one. I respect anyone who chooses not to ride as long as they don’t oppose the safety of people who do. We all weigh different safety factors when it comes to transportation. I ride also knowing the health benefits of physical activity outweigh the safety risks somewhere between 9–96:1.

Still I’d rather die changing how we get around than live preserving the status quo. I understand not everyone is willing to make that wager, and all I ask of them is not to resist a fundamental re-balancing of the transportation mix that saves lives and benefits everyone in the long run.

I ground my stand in our inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness outlined in the Declaration of Independence. These rights apply no matter whether someone is walking, riding a bicycle, on the bus, or in a motor vehicle. The current way our streets are designed works against that right. To work toward ensuring these rights for all means naming and framing the killer: motor vehicles and the street design that enables their carnage.

Try not to take it personally. I’m not calling you out. I’m calling a system out.

I don’t need your approval. What I demand is you respect my humanity and my right to live, no matter what mode of transportation I choose.

Here’s how you can be a friend:

1. Value my life in your words, and in your actions behind the wheel.
2. Open yourself to the notion that the same factors that drive systemic safety in aviation drive systemic danger on our streets.

Your friend,

Tim

Tim Courtney is a guy on a bike in Oakland, California. He campaigns against dangerous streets and car violence so people can get around safely on two feet or two wheels. You can follow him on Twitter, and check out his Safe 8th Street campaign.