Don’t be the dancing bear

Ah, the dancing bear experiment — it’s supposed to carry a lesson for motorists on how to avoid collisions with bicyclists.

To me, it provides a good lesson in how not to ride a bicycle. So, please bear with me.

You are smarter than the average bear. So, please, don’t be the bear.

The dancing bear experiment is clever indeed in showing how people can be misled, but is itself misleading.

The dancing bear is slipped as an unexpected element into the midst of an orderly and societally understood pattern, the passing of a soccer ball among several players. The experiment cleverly misleads the viewer, concealing the bear (see comments at end of this posting), but the experiment also is misleading on another level, in suggesting that such concealment is the norm.

The experiment is also unrealistic in that both the viewer and the dancing bear are passive. There is no actual interaction possible between them, as, after all, the experiment is canned.

Riding a bicycle on the road according to the orderly and societally understood rules of the road is like passing the soccer ball. Riding as a ‘road sneak” is like being the dancing bear.

So, don’t be the bear. Follow the rules of the road, and ride to be visible. Test that other road users have seen you, using assertive/defensive road positioning that requires a reaction from the other road users, up to the point where you would have to yield if they don’t.

Example: when approaching an intersection with stop signs in the cross street, and a vehicle is in the cross street is coming up to the stop sign, merge away from the curb as needed to put yourself in plain view of the vehicle’s driver, where the driver expects to look for traffic. Keep moving and keep pedaling nearly to the point at which you would have to make a quick stop. Your good braking technique makes it possible to be more assertive than you otherwise would. When the driver stops, you know that the driver has stopped because of you.

Another example: before merging farther into the street, for this reason or any other (e.g., to overtake a double-parked vehicle), signal your intentions early enough to give the next driver behind you plenty of time to react. Then check that the driver has slowed, or else merged to overtake you safely.

A bicyclist who violates the rules of the road and operates passively will get into “dancing bear” situations much, much more frequently than one who obeys the rules of the road, rides to be seen and interacts with other road users.

The good lesson of the dancing bear experiment is that it is possible for road users to become distracted, even from things which are in their plain sight. The bad lesson is that it conveys an essentially fatalistic message, “think of yourself as a victim.” It has nothing at all to say about how to avoid being one.

Yes, bears can be taught to ride bicycles. But again, you are smarter than the average bear. And those are the bare facts as I see them.

*****

Some ways that the experiment conceals the bear:

• The viewer is asked to concentrate on the team in white. The other team is in black, like the dancing bear.
• The team in black is of four rather thuggish looking young men with stubble beards. Ugh, who wants to look at them! The team in white is much more photogenic and has two male and two female members, more distracting.
• The white team’s passes are first at the left side of the image, then at the right. The bear moves from right to left.
• In the middle of the video there is a pass by the white team that is delayed, so it hard to follow, and then a high pass that goes over the bear’s head from left to right. There is a pass by the black team that looks as though it is from from the white team until it lands in a black player’s hands. This confusion occurs just as the bear passes across the middle of the image.

Here’s another experiment: ask someone who has not seen the video before to follow the passes by the black team, and then ask whether that person notices the dancing bear.

And yet another: ask a person who has not seen the video before to keep looking at the middle of the screen, and then ask whether that person notices the dancing bear.

This last experiment is most similar to actual traffic operation, in which a driver’s attention concentrates on directions in which other road users are expected to be found.