By John Allen

Many CRW members arrive at the ride start in motor vehicles. So… are you expecting a shaming session? Well, I sometimes arrive by car too, and I’m going to take a motorist’s point of view in this article. So there!

My last month’s article was about my bicycle ride through an intersection in Cambridge. On January 31 of this year, my son Jacob and I drove through the same intersection in a car. We haven’t been driving often enough in Cambridge to get used to the traffic there. We had an interesting encounter. Our dashcam captured the video below.

Vulnerable road user = victim?

Our incident with the bus holds a lesson about the meaning of the term “vulnerable road user”.

A vulnerable road user is typically described as someone lacking the protection of a metal shell. Yet motorcyclists are not usually heaped into that category, despite the considerable risks of motorcycling. The usual concept of a “vulnerable road user” is, rather, of victimhood — of smallness and helplessness.

Let’s try a different definition: a vulnerable road user lacks strategies to prevent bad things from happening, regardless of the transportation mode. These strategies prevent crashes and build confidence.

Refining strategies

Now let’s look at my strategies and my son’s.

The usual defensive-driving strategies work wherever the normal rules of movement apply. One of those strategies is to establish a lane position before reaching an intersection, to avoid conflict with other traffic.

That rule does not apply at Mount Auburn Street and Putnam Avenue. When I rode my bicycle through the intersection, it confused me, as I described in the earlier article. I kept myself safe, but I encouraged a motorist to turn right, possibly right hooking another cyclist. Only lucky timing prevented that.

Next time, I’ll know that I have to look behind myself, if I choose to ride in the bus and bike lane — as I might, because traffic backs up in the overloaded left lane.

When Jacob and I drove through in a car, the intersection confused a bus driver, who finally realized what was happening. But then if Jacob and I had waited for the bus to depart, we would have also had to wait till we got the right-turn signal again. Instead, we chose to turn across cautiously in front of the bus. It was an uncomfortable choice. We couldn’t be absolutely sure that the bus driver was waiting specifically for us. We had become the vulnerable road users. In the right-hook situation at Mt. Auburn and Putnam, the one who hooks is more vulnerable, not as usual, the one who is hooked!

When I ride through this intersection again, I’ll probably use the bus and bike lane, because the left lane is overloaded, but I’ll know that I am vulnerable and could be right hooked. When we drive into Cambridge again, we’ll avoid turning right at that intersection. There is no way to do that legally without the risk of right-hooking a bus or bicyclist.

A closer look

The Google Street View image below from October 2020 shows signs, signals and markings at the intersection, in case you didn’t see them long enough in the video. There is a right-turn arrow under the car. The two-stage turn queuing box on the far-right corner, shown in the video, had not yet been painted. No other signs, signals or markings have changed. The unusual special bus signal is in its triangle (yellow light) phase.

I have to wonder at Cambridge’s choices with this intersection, especially when a well-known solution could solve the problem. Placing the bus stop after the intersection would restore the normal rules, relieve congestion in the left lane, and have pedestrians crossing more safely behind rather than ahead of the bus.

The takeaway

The normal rules of the road reduce vulnerability by making maneuvers predictable and keeping road users visible to each other. Designs which violate these rules require special caution.

But as to your practical questions for now, whether on your bicycle or in a car, when a situation overturns the normal rules, take extra care, look behind you (as the bus driver finally did) and maybe next time avoid it entirely!

If you just can’t get enough of this, a more detailed look into the incident in the video may be found at this address.