Now that I have become accustomed to getting around by bike, it seems a lot less dangerous than it used to. Yet so many people feel the need to tell me to “be careful out there” when they see me unlocking my bike. I used to feel this was sexist -- would they say the same thing to a burly guy going out for a ride? They might, if they are like so many drivers out there who think that cyclists are suicidal maniacs out there just “cruisin’ for a bruisin’.” Most people have the perception that riding your bike in the street is so dangerous and that if you do it for a long time, you will get hit by a car. What’s funny is that when I answer with statistics about how low the rates of motor vehicle-bike accidents really are, even in a busy city like Long Beach or Los Angeles, they don’t believe me. I won’t quote all the numbers for you here, but let me just say this: You are just as likely to get into a crash with another bike as you are with a car when you are riding your bike. Most bicycle crashes are solo crashes -- cyclists lose control of their own bikes and crash, injuring only themselves and usually only minimally.
But numbers don’t impress people. And what’s even more interesting, is that terribly frightening statistics do exist about driving in cars, but that doesn’t deter people. So, what gives? Why are people so afraid?
“What gives” is that people are not emotionally affected by actual safety or actual danger. What matters for most is what feels safe or dangerous. That is, perception is more powerful than reality. I think that the reason people feel unsafe on a bike is that they feel exposed, and they hear the other cars whooshing by them and they feel how fast motor vehicles really are. But if one could feel all that in a car, the perception of safety may diminish greatly.
But this post is not entirely about cycling. Cycling (especially “vehicular cycling”) is something that cannot be understood until you get into it. But it is something I have to constantly defend myself for, especially when I have my children on a bike seat in or in the trailer behind me on the bike. We are a family who is committed to alternative modes of transportation, and to remaining active. We are considering going car-free when we make our next move. It’s important to us, and it’s something we’ve been called to.
But there are other things that make us feel unsafe: living in apartments rather than detached, single-family homes can come along with a lot of noise and anxiety. Hearing sirens frequently, or having helicopters fly over one’s head can be enough to make us feel like we need to move to a “safer” neighborhood. And imagining all the possibilities of what might possibly happen to our children -- this can cripple us with fear pretty easily.
Crippling fear is a major problem in our generation. Not just as women, but as parents. In America, people have the perception that “the times” are more dangerous than they used to be, and they keep their children inside instead of letting them go to the park with their friends (for fear of kidnapping, usually) and as a result, we have the fattest kids in the world. Do abductions happen? Rarely. Do they happen to 10-year-olds who are at the park with their friends in a group? Hardly ever. Do these “numbers” matter to people? No. They still would rather risk their kids’ health, ignoring the fact that diabetes and heart disease pose much more real and likely threats to their children, than let them out of their sight, or out of their house, ever.
But here is the truth about safety: No one is ever safe. Ever. Bad things can and do happen. Consider the publicist who was shot and killed (for no apparent reason) driving her Mercedes Benz in Beverly Hills, where the perception of safety carries a high price-tag. Consider the recent tragedy in Tucson. Surely no one is going to say that no one should ever go to meet politicians ever, as it is clearly too dangerous?
Consider my husband’s aunt who, as a child, wanted to ride her bike somewhere rather than riding in the car. Her mother, feeling it was dangerous to ride on a busy street, decided to follow her in the car and told her to cross as a pedestrian at stoplights. Well, she did so, and got hit by a car turning left as she was walking her bike across the crosswalk. Clearly, here the perception of safety (being a pedestrian is perceptually safer than cycling for most people) was clearly inaccurate compared to the real threat (a person not looking when turning left, which could be dangerous for anyone.)
Consider my former co-worker John, who survived the Vietnam War with no injuries but watched other soldiers fall, and then got shot by a robber when he was working from behind the counter at a convenience store many years later.
So what can we do to be safe? Honestly, the only thing we can do is the right thing from our own end. We can decide not to drive drunk, ever. That will make the world a slightly safer place. We can take vehicular cycling courses and learn the ways to best travel in traffic and be seen and as safe as possible. That will keep us from causing our own collisions. We can decide not to hurt people, not to rob people, not to rape people. And the government can play a part by actively prosecuting those who do.
But it doesn’t keep things from happening to us. Remember, when I miscarried I had done “everything right.” I had made good decisions in my life, and every pregnancy I’d had was planned. I was on prenatal vitamins. I was eating healthy. But it just happened to me.
So then, if we can only half prevent things, and the half that we can prevent is us doing harm to others, then what does that say about decisions we make based on perceptual safety?
What we must do is whatever we feel strongly and passionately about. We must do what we know that we know that we know we are called to do, whether it seems safe or not. Because we can be in the midst of war and come out unscathed, or we can be driving luxury cars in Beverly Hills and get murdered. If we believe that God is sovereign, and that He can interfere in our lives but often chooses to let things happen to us anyway, then we have to accept that we are equally safe wherever we go, as long as we are being obedient. We may experience tragedy, we may lose our lives or our loved ones -- or we may not. We may live to see all of our grandchildren and die peaceful deaths. It’s not in our control. And if we start to really believe that, and stop blaming victims and making decisions based on perceptual safety (actual safety can never be determined until after the fact), then we will stop being crippled by fear and get up and get moving, and start actually changing the world.
