Cycling educator John Forester gets a lot of flak from people who reject his advocacy of cycling skills, preferring a populist, facilities-based “paint and path” approach.
Forester has brought abuse upon himself with his abrasive, confrontational style. But let’s not anybody forget that Forester was a game changer. His book Effective Cycling, first published in the 1970s, pioneered with its advice on crash avoidance maneuvering, lane positioning, preparing for turns, nighttime equipment needs — supporting this advice with a review of research literature.
Recently, Forester also has been criticized from another side, for not recommending assertive enough lane positioning. (I understand that he has revised his advice in the recent 7th edition of his book, Effective Cycling — though I haven’t read that yet.)
Still, Forester’s advice on avoiding car-door collisions in the early editions of Effective Cycling — though a bit weak by current standards — was very different from that of other cycling authors. I’d say that Forester pushed the indicator needle about 3/4 of the way across the dial.
My comparison of advice on avoiding car-door collisions in four books from the 1970s: Forester’s, and the very popular ones from Eugene Sloane, Fred DeLong and Richard Ballantine — makes all this clear enough, I think.
Thanks, John, for acknowledging the other John. Many who are excellent are also abrasive and for good reason: its tough to suffer fools gently.
P.S. As an LCI who has also taken an advanced Motorcycle Safety Foundation class after getting back into motorcycling after a long hiatus, I can vouch for the similarities between John Forester’s approach to bicycling safety and the MSF approach to moto safety. Not to mention, I agree with both.
I do not find Forester at all abrasive when he talks about what and how to do things in a given cycling situation. He falls off the edge when he starts to talk about the social sciences.
I think that my discussions of cycling in the social sciences are no more abrasive than my discussions of traffic-cycling. It is just that those discussions hit the emotions, just as my discussions of traffic-cycling hit the emotions of the cyclist-inferiority believers. I know of only one sociologist who has participated in cycling affairs: Prof. John Finley Scott, and we were in strong agreement as long as he lived. Others, such as Pucher, Lusk, are not social scientists but planners, public health experts, ideologues, and such, with no academic connection with sociology. If my views were contrary to the standard social sciences views, then, surely, my opponents would have found a sociologist to present the opposite view. Instead, the opposition is presented by people outraged because my views hit their emotions directly. My view is even accepted within the informed cycling circle; I Am Traffic is based on the view that most Americans suffer from the cyclist-inferiority phobia that I have described for forty years. I suggest that it has just taken longer for my social theories to become accepted than for my traffic theories.
RIP Richard Ballantine: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/07/richard-grant
Acknowledging John Forester: We must never forget that forty years ago Forester’s was a voice in the wilderness and that there are still a majority of cycling clubs and advocacy organizations who “just don’t get it.” Abrasive? That’s relative anyway. In sunny California, he might be considered abrasive. In the Big Apple, he would be seen as quite genteel. Achilles wasn’t a pussycat, either. If ya wanna take on city hall, ya gotta be tough. Apologies for the mixed metaphors.
Oh, I don’t know if Forester is as sold on that “take the the lane” concept as he claims. In 2007 truck driver Marcos Almaguer was given a whopping 45 day jail term for running over triathalete Kendra Payne, largely based on Forester’s expert testimony that because the edge of the road was “rough and covered with gravel,” she should have gotten off her bike and walked! Forester believed in 2007 that Payne should have walked for the same reason he believed in 1975 that cyclists should take the lane – because there was money in it. In. 2007, it was expert fees, in 1975, it was book sales. But money, always money.
At least the Payne case motivated the California Clubs to lobby for a 3-ft pass lW, something Forester has always dismissed as “unnecessary”.
Mr. Epperson, this concerns a legal case in which statements are fully documented. Please provide the exact words, with reference to source, in which you maintain that I said that Payne should have been walking.
I see that Epperson has, again, failed to provide the evidence required to support his allegations against me. He can’t, because I never stated that Payne should have been walking. Furthermore, Epperson’s statement that the truck driver was given a jail term “largely based on Forester’s expert testimony”. That is entirely false, because I never participated, in any way, in the criminal trial of the truck driver. I participated only by assisting the attorney defending the trucking company in the civil trial, which turned into a settlement conference before testimony. The account of my participation is given in my list of cases to be found at:
http://johnforester.com/Consult/cases4.htm
The road was sufficiently wide for safe overtaking, as the truck had overtaken Payne and entered a left curve, so that its trailer was already tracking to the left, away from Payne. Payne came to a place where the right side surface was particularly bad, with multiple pot holes and lots of gravel. Instead of stopping and waiting for the truck to complete overtaking her so she could ride on the better surface, she continued to ride over the bad surface, and suffered the consequences when her rear wheel spun.
I think that providing the link to Forester’s own summary of the case provides a more elequent refutation than anything I could write, and I would urge anyone whose interest in the matter has been piqued by this exchange to read both it and the archived newspaper articles from the period.
I will only note that I am unable to find “stopping and waiting for the overtaking motor vehicle to pass” listed as a vehicular cycling technique in any edition of the book.
Epperson his here arguing that in what he would create as vehicular cycling, if a cyclist comes to a piece of road surface that would be dangerous to ride over, he must ride over it, to preserve Epperson’s view of vehicular cycling. I consider that just plain nonsense.
Please explain, Epperson, how it is that my summary of the case supports your claim that some different view is more likely, and that money was the motivation for my view. Come on, Epperson, you started this, so it is up to you to support your argument with evidence instead of only innuendo.
I see that Epperson has failed to provide the evidence that might support his argument, evidently thinking that what he has written says it all. Well, it doesn’t. The climb in question has 3796 feet of elevation gain and 1078 feet of descent in a distance of 6.8 miles. The upper half of this climb has roadway of nominal width 18 ft. However, with the left side being the downhill side, portions of the left side have fallen away to produce total widths of 15 ft and 14 ft near the accident site, as measured by the CHP in the accident report. I simply say that under these conditions controlling the road (which is only as wide as a wide lane) is not a practical proposition, so that road sharing (being equal to lane sharing) is the preferred mode. That worked until the cyclist came to a spot where the right-hand edge of the roadway also had fallen away into several potholes with scattered gravel about, just when the truck’s trailer was overtaking her. The cyclist chose to ride over the dangerous spot, which caused her accident.
Fascinating case. And great post about the history of riding standards.