Tab Combs @DrTCombs@transportation.social

Is it #NewBikeDay for you? It's not for me, but I had fun pretending it was while watching the latest--New #EBike checklist--video from #BikeShopGirl

#BikeTooter

https://youtu.be/TFi589TqJ4c

Is it really Thursday if you haven't been woken up by a whispered voice saying, "Mom, I think Wiley pooped on my pillow?"

[narrator: Wiley had in fact not pooped on the pillow; it was only a fart and a dream]

#DogsofMastodon #puppy #poop #morning #imagination

It was hard enough to adjust to seeing it screenshot and reposted on the f*cars subreddit. But then to see the reddit version screenshot and reposted into a gratuitously crass video about cars? That makes me want to take my kid and go hide for a few decades.

Just don't do this, people.

I get that my photo of my child is out there on the internet and all, and I'm never going to put the genie back in the bottle, and I'm frankly glad it's getting people to notice the absurdity of auto manufacturers selling tanks as passenger cars.

But everytime I see a version of it copied from somebody else pop up somewhere unexpected, covered in f-bombs, it freaks me out. It's my little girl. Keep your f-bombs off of her, ok? Is that too much to ask?

#Kids #Privacy #Trucks #Youtube

Today in #PLAN639 at #UNC, we welcomed #Mobycon's Mary Elbech. Mary -- a recurring guest expert in this course -- talked to us about international best practices in #multimodal street design, how those designs often get misunderstood in the US, and how to implement them correctly here.

#CompleteSafeEquitable #Streets #CompleteStreets #Planning #RoadSafety #SafeStreetsForAll

We have designed an intersection, a road, a neighborhood, a world, in which people in cars are conditioned to not notice anything around them. Even if what's around them is their neighbors...or their neighbors' kids.

Yeah, I'm upset at my neighbors for putting my kid's life in danger.

But I'm pissed at the system that allows them to do it SO DAMN EASILY.

We know how to design better streets. We just choose not to do it.

#SafeStreetsForAll #VisionZero #Motornormativity #CarCulture

I'm not going to post the video publicly, because I realized that--aside from a few really bad apples--most of the drivers are simply doing what they've been conditioned to do. What their environment tells them to do. What our car-brained culture has lulled us into thinking is safe, despite the 40,000+ deaths on our roadways demonstrates is clearly very much not safe.

Many of the most egregious stop-sign runners are usual suspects -- the silver accord, the black tesla, the old-school 4-runner, the little old lady who delivers meals on wheels. Every now and then we'll get a #lyft or #uber driver scorching it. Yesterday we also got a pickup truck from our local water authority that didn't even tap the brakes.

A lot of them are neighbors, but certainly not all.

The 'runs' ranged from slow rolls to blast-throughs. Most drivers slowed somewhat, appeared to give a cursory glance to their surroundings, and then accelerated on through. Sometimes those cursory glances involved noticing pedestrians present, sometimes not.

Our street is wide & straight, with no sidewalks. On one end is a playground; the other end has a large youth soccer practice area.

There are tons of kids & families that live on & travel up & down the street.

#StopSigns:
This weekend I used a video camera and a single line of code to capture short video clips of every car that ran the stop sign in front of my house.
We live on a very low-volume street; ~12 cars/hour on the weekend.

In eight hours of footage, my setup detected 79 stop sign runners. That's almost 10 per hour. 83%.

#SafeStreetsForAll

omg.

The #Schwinn collegiate cruiser is the #bike that made me fall in love with bikes. My sister bought me one for $10 at a yard sale when I was 12.

I need someone around here to buy and love this #bicycle (and let me visit her regularly).

https://raleigh.craigslist.org/atq/d/chapel-hill-vintage-schwinn-1980s-speed/7600843896.html

#BikeTooter #ForSale

#TIL I learned about dvr-scan, which will detect and extract motion from videos with a single line of code in your command prompt.

It's absurdly easy.

Had I known about it several months ago, I'd have used it to reduce days of footage for a study of pedestrian-vs-driver interactions at rural #trail crossings.

#PedBike #Research #Pedestrian #Safety

[recent close-pass video for context: https://youtu.be/5RBoS4va4Aw]

So the next time you find yourself about to advise someone to 'take the lane,' save your breath, because you're going to need it when you join us in the fight for safe bike infrastructure on every road, for everyone.

#BikeTooter #SafeStreetsForAll

The vast majority of roads in the US present deadly hazards for anyone not in a car. I have no interest myself, nor do I have any desire for anyone else--especially not a kid or a biking newbie--to get any farther into them than absolutely necessary.

No one should have to be an adrenaline junkie with world-class bike handling skills and [body part of choice] of steel to in order to feel safe traveling around their community under their own power.

I'm not risk averse. If my video appears to show me not taking a lane on my bike, rest assured it's not because I'm chicken.

But here's the thing. NO one should have to take the lane. It's scary as $^#$ to put your body in front of a fast-moving multi-ton metal box that's driven by someone with woefully inadequate training.

And if doing that IS in fact the safest way to ride on some roads, then the problem is not with the rider. It's with the road.

Well-meaning bicyclists will often respond to my close pass videos by telling me I should not be afraid to take the lane.

I'm not afraid to take the lane. I'm actually a pretty brave, intrepid person, and I've voluntarily and knowingly done some very dangerous stuff in my life. Rode horses professionally. Learned how to use a trapeze. Hiked the AT. Jumped out of planes...until it got boring.