I read an article recently that talked about the battle between motorists and cyclists.  How it’s a competition. How we treat each other so poor on the road, and act as we wouldn’t in a (as I believe the example was) in a grocery store.

Sure, I have seen cyclists flick off motorists, yell at motorists… but can you blame them? If a cyclist makes a mistake, the cyclist could die. If the motorist makes a mistake, still, the cyclist could die. So when a motorist nearly kills someone, I think that getting yelled at is not that awful of a consequence.

Of course I’m biased, because as a cyclist…. It’s shocking the times I’ve been yelled “fuck you, bitch!” or some combination of those words, just because I point at the cyclist/pedestrian green light to show motorists I do indeed have the right of way, or because I yell, “watch out!”  when I’m almost hit by a motorist who is clearly reading their phone.

Last week, a cyclist was killed in Boston by a cement truck in a neighborhood of Boston unsafe to cyclists, unsafe but entirely necessary for cyclists to get to and from work. I feel that in a city such as Boston, every neighborhood should be safer for cyclists; however, when enough cyclists already use a particular route to commute, the city must respond by making it safe for those thousands of individuals. (For example, the site of the crash services Fenway, Longwood Medical, and other high-traffic areas where cyclists relay on their bike as primary source of transportation).

There is hope that Boston will have fewer and fewer ghost bikes in coming years, and evidence that the measures already implementing area improving cyclist safety, as the image below indicates. [Note: MassBike points out that the 2018 3 fatalities excludes private areas, and that two were left off for that reason.]

As I have written before, I feel very fortunate to have an off-road bike path to commute. It’s safer than the road… but the worst part is the intersections. Intersections are where so many incidents happen – the one last week, the crash last fall that killed a 24-year-old, and the often-discussed crash of 2015 that killed a Boston surgeon. These were all at intersections, with motorists ‘banging a right’ without yielding, or hitting the accelerator not realizing a cyclist is [legally] in front of them. They were also all trucks.

We need to limit trucks using our small city streets AND make trucks safer with a side guard requirement.

We need to make bike lines and crosswalks more visible, with brighter colors, more signage, and when possible, limiting motorists to a turn arrow.

There are several cyclist advocacy groups in Boston, such as Boston Cyclists Union and MassBike which outline current laws, hopes for new legislation, and other resources for cyclists in Boston. Let’s make the 30,000 Boston daily bike trips safer.