It’s been two years since Arleigh Jenkins announced here that she had been hit by a car. Arliegh was the previous editor of Commute by Bike. Her collision with a car led her to find a new home for this blog. A bunch of stuff happened, and I became the new editor.
Here’s another recent anniversary involving a collision with a car: September 13 was the 113-year anniversary of the first US pedestrian killed by a car. It was an electric car that killed Henry Bliss in 1899.
In spite of Arleigh’s accident, and even a bike accident of my own (not involving a car), I am reluctant to dwell on “bike safety” — and if I mention it, it’s only to emphasize that cycling is much, much safer than would-be bike commuters tend to think it is.
And to the extent that bike commuting carries a danger, that danger comes mostly from cars — not from bikes. If you’re hit by a car, it’s no consolation if the car is a Nissan Leaf.
Compared to fossil-fueled vehicles, electric cars are a more virtuous way to kill and injure people accidentally, a more principled way to encourage sprawl and inefficient land use, a more righteous way to avoid physical exercise, a noble way to keep communities fragmented, a more wholesome way to continue to enshrine automobiles over alternatives that are better for people and society.
Imagine Beowulf (or your favorite dragonslayer) choosing not to slay the dragon terrorizing his realm, but instead choosing to replace it with a dragon that breathes no fire at all (or at least with one that breathes less fire and does so discreetly in the smoking lounge). But except for that meaningful detail, this new dragon still retains all the other lethal dragony characteristics of its predecessor — the claws, the sharp venomous teeth, the pointy horns, the barbed tail. This new non-combustive dragon is still plenty deadly to have around.
And that imperfect analogy explains what dampens my enthusiasm for electric cars — even the cool electric conversion of a 1970’s VW wagon I’ve seen around town, and would secretly love to own.
It’s an imperfect analogy because cars are still good things to have around — electric cars better yet — for “high speed personal mobility.” But we have structured towns and cities in such a way that we invite — invite — their most violent effects.
Author and architect Greg Ramsey, even suggests that the panacea of the electric car could even make things worse:
The negative impacts of car-centric planning are immeasurable. Americans spend more on cars than third-world citizens spend on their entire budgets. The average American household expends 30-50% of its energy on car trips, and approximately 40,000 people are killed in auto accidents every year,
[…]
Cars are ultimately extremely inefficient. They are designed to drive across the country at a blurring speed not allowing the occupants to appreciate or explore the area they travel "“ they are shut off from community from the point of departure until they reach their destination. It has been suggested that the solution to making cars “ecological” is running them on renewable energy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The impact of cars (high speed personal mobility) on our already fragmented communities and natural spaces would be exponentially increased.
(Ramsey could be lowballing the number of annual fatalities, or perhaps referring to deaths in a specific country or region. I’ve read worldwide estimates from 500,000 to 800,000 annual fatalities due to car accidents.)
I recently received an e-mail about yet another infographic, this one was titled “The Impact of the Electric Car.”
I thought, Impact, heh heh… I’d like to avoid an impact from any car.
It was not, as I assumed it would be, a piece of pro-electric car propaganda. It was distributed by a company called Compliance and Safety. They sell instructional videos, and make a lot of infographics. (Somebody must have told them that bloggers can’t resist an infographic.)
The infographic raises skepticism about the environmental benefits of electric cars, the consumer sticker shock, the value of government boosterism and subsidies. I don’t know how much of it is true. But it concludes without ever mentioning bikes or walking, and without questioning the way that cities are structured.
The infographic doesn’t suggest a damn thing, except that electric vehicle adoption “is only one part of a solution.”
You don’t say.
How about we slay the dragon.
Maybe not slay. That sounds so violent. But disinvite cars from many of the places where people need to walk and bike.
Maybe not even disinvite in some cases, but create environments where cars are so hampered for the safety of people, that motorists are forced to think, I might as well be on a bike or walk if I can’t go any faster than this.
This kind of dragonslaying is not a one-slayer job. It takes collective will.
It takes municipalities willing to get over their dysfunctional (and intellectually lazy) relationship with car-centric infrastructure and planning.
It takes some counter-intuitive ideas such as traffic calming, 20 mph zones, road diets, cycling infrastructure, pedestrian zones, and sprawl repair. (I especially like sprawl repair.)
I’d hardly heard of some of these ideas two years ago, even though I had long history with bike commuting, and living car free.
If we care about human life and health, we need to focus on reducing collisions as well as reducing emissions.
The electric car is a solution that hopes people are only looking up at the pollution, and not down at all the carnage on the ground.
Happy Accident Anniversary, Arleigh. I’m glad to know you are back in the saddle, and as active as before. Thank you for entrusting us with your audience.
[Update — 6/26/2013: A company called Vroom Vroom Vroom also claims credit for the infographic in this post.]