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Act Now to Save Riding Routes From Rumble Strips!
Cyclists and motorists share a desire for safer roadways. Most of us are motorists as well as cyclists and we have probably all benefited from the wake-up call provided by rumble strips on the Interstate or major state highways. However, as cyclists we also know that there is no such thing as a bicyclist-friendly rumble strip, and over the years a lot of good roads for riding have been lost to rumble strips. [Click here to go directly to send the alert.]
Almost a decade ago the cycling community worked long and hard with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and State Departments of Transportation (DOT) to develop more tolerable rumble strip designs (for example, with gaps in the rumbles so that cyclists can cross them if needed) and to agree to policies that ensured popular cycling routes and roads with shoulders less than four feet in width would not be rumbled without good cause – i.e. a documented history of run-off-the-road crashes.
Today we are faced with a renewed push by the FHWA and state DOTs to rumble strip state highways as a matter of course and without regard to their own policies on where it is appropriate. We are seeing rumble strips being proposed and implemented in more and more urban settings, rather than just rural highways. In an attempt to prevent “roadway departures” by motor vehicles, rumble strips are seen as a very effective countermeasure: they do wake people up. Unfortunately, not every road is the nail to the rumble strips hammer. To be effective, there has to be recovery room; crash history and there have to be no unintended consequences. We need transportation agencies to take closer look into their toolbox.
For example, has roadway safety been improved if cyclists are all but forced to ride in the travel lane of a high-speed rural roadway because the shoulder has been rendered useless by rumble strips? This gets to the heart of the US Secretary of Transportation’s recent policy statement that declares “Because of the benefits they provide, transportation agencies should give the same priority to walking and bicycling as is given to other transportation modes.” This is where the rubber meets the road and we see if Federal and state agencies are going to heed LaHood’s words that, “this is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”
We have researched and issued a report on best practices. We have tried to work with FHWA on this issue. In an unprecedented partnership, the League of American Bicyclists, Adventure Cycling Association, Alliance for Biking and Walking, and USA Cycling have jointly asked them to re-issue their existing rumble strip guidance to states. We’ve met with officials in FHWA’s Office of Safety to ask for their help in applying their own guidance at the state level. And yet we learned recently that 17 states are leading a “Roadway Departure Prevention” program where the indiscriminate and wholesale application of rumble strips is being encouraged. Other states are sure to follow and the hard-won policy protecting cycling routes has been thrown out of the window.
This is a real threat and it is time to act! We need your immediate support and action to try to put a stop to it, today. We are not asking to end the use of rumble strips – they are a legitimate and effective safety treatment. We ARE asking for an end to the indiscriminate and inappropriate application of rumble strips that ignores FHWA and AASHTO’s own guidance on when and where they should be used. Send a message to your State DOT TODAY and ensure you don’t wake up tomorrow and discover your favorite ride has been ruined.
Photo by Dennis Coello
Another example:
Photo from Savannahnow.com
Darren Flusche
League Policy Director
Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.
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August 2nd, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I concur that we need to push back on indiscriminate rumble strip placement. Especially if these features are to take the place of driver responsibility. As a cyclist, I’m sick and tired of being treated one step above road kill by our DOTs and FHWA.
By the way, that picture shows a shoulder that would be tough to bicycle on with or without rumble strips. I would try to ride just inboard of the fog line at any rate. A cyclist trying to ride on such a narrow shoulder would be lunch meat for a careless overtaking motorist. That picture must have been taken in New Mexico…
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I was planning to send the note, but I noticed the contact is out of date for the Illinois Department of Transportation secretary. Gary Hannig is the current secretary; Milton Sees was the acting secretary.
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Thanks, Roger. We’ll look into it.
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Khal, I agree with you about the riding position, but you still want that shoulder clear of rumble strips. Otherwise you have no margin for error.
August 2nd, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Absolutely! That picture was a cyclist’s nightmare.
August 2nd, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Check out the comments on the link in photo #2 if you want to see the deeper problems.
First, the cyclist is hit because he was riding to avoid the rumble strips. Second, the peanut gallery says it was the cyclist’s fault for riding too far left.
Sigh…
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Sorry Kahl but if you look at all the comments, the cyclists rights are well articulated. As is often the case, it appears to a situation of shared responsibility.
August 2nd, 2010 at 5:07 pm
We have no road shoulders on which to bike in southeast central Iowa near Grinnell, Iowa. Iowa DOT guidelines require at least a four foot paved shoulder on newly resurfaced highways. In 2008, the Iowa DOT resurfaced fifteen miles of U.S. Hwy 6 between Grinnell, IA, and Newton, IA. The new, very smooth, four foot shoulder looked very inviting and I was, at last, looking forward to being able to ride from Grinnell to Newton. However, within a few days after the resurfacing project was finished, rumble strips appeared right down the center of the new shoulder leaving only a helmet’s width on each side of the rumble strips on which to ride. We took photos of it and sent them to the Iowa DOT. Their response was that the safety factor of preventing motor vehicles from running off the highway was more important than the convenience of bicyclists.
Sincerely,
Bob Wemer
Grinnell, Iowa
August 2nd, 2010 at 5:08 pm
The contact info for Virginia DOT is also out of date. Pierce Homer left with the election of Gov. McDonnell.
Also, VDOT has a very good policy on shoulder rumble strips (provided staff and contractors abide by it).
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Maybe holding people responsible for their actions will stop this nonsense. The guidelines exist and are being ignored. Publish the names (and pictures) of the people responsible. We should sue the individuals that are making the roads unsafe for us.
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:37 am
The cyclist’s rights were articulated well by some and completely misunderstood by others. Its the usual bimodal distribution.
As far as whether the cyclist merged safely, I didn’t see a comment from a witness who really described convincingly whether the cyclist “jumped” in front of the MV, i.e., a bad merge, or if the MV just hit a cyclist riding in the road.
Bottom line is bad engineering promotes lethal mistakes.
August 3rd, 2010 at 5:57 am
The problem with rumble strips is really insidious and they make the road more dangerous for cyclists than if there was not a shoulder at all. The motorists don’t understand why bicyclists aren’t riding on the shoulder and tend to pass closer than they do on roads that have no shoulder since in that case they understand why we are in the lane. I also think it is a matter of perception – when approaching a cyclist in their lane with oncoming traffic, a motorist has to make a decision on whether or not their is room to pass the cyclist without going into the oncoming traffic. With a shoulder present the lane width appears larger and the motorist feels their is a greater margin for error making it more likely they will misjudge and hit a cyclist in the lane.
August 3rd, 2010 at 6:06 am
I’ve also noticed in some places they are now putting rumble strips on the center line instead of the shoulder. While this would seem to be an improvement it is not if the shoulder is narrow or non-existent because the cars become reluctant to go over the center rumble in order to obtain a safe passing distance so they tend to squeeze by us instead. They recently did this on a road on my commute (the Kal. Kwy from Hanauma bay to Sandy Beach) and now the cars pass me much closer than they used to. The League needs to fight these rumbles as well as the ones on the shoulder.
August 3rd, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Kal Hwy from Hanauma Bay to Sandy Beach was a tight fit for bicycling without rumble strips. Jeeze, I hate to see it now. Further, I see no value in them in that stretch of road. If the road itself doesn’t keep you awake, not sure rumble strips will do much good.
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:38 pm
[...] killed by reckless drivers. The League of American Bicyclists says act now to stop the spread of roadside rumble strips. The National Journal asks if cyclists and pedestrians will squeeze out cars; LAB President Andy [...]
August 3rd, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I don’t know who decided that rumble strips would be good for cyclists and cars. The idea that car drivers can almost fall asleep and hit a rumble strip but not hit a cyclist is just plain ludicris! We need to come up with divided bike paths in this country like the rest of the world and stop pretending like we here in America have all the answers.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:31 am
[...] Read the article and find a link to help compose a message to your state DOT. [...]
August 4th, 2010 at 10:04 am
There is a more insidious problem with rumble strips. They allow motorists to pay less attention to the road and less attention means more risk for others. Like in so many other areas of safety, risk homeostasis kicks in with its unintended adverse consequences.
August 4th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
“…has roadway safety been improved if cyclists are all but forced to ride in the travel lane of a high-speed rural roadway because the shoulder has been rendered useless by rumble strips?”
Since when has it been desirable for cyclists to travel on the shoulder? A bicycle is a road vehicle and it deserves a place in the travel lane of any road that is not a restricted highway.
I’m getting fed up with so-called bicycle advocates caving in to pressure from car drivers combined with their own timidity and fear of the road. A bicycle is a road vehicle – we belong on the road, not the shoulder. If cars want to pass us, they can do so by moving out of the lane, just as they do with any other slow-moving vehicle.
August 5th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
The stated goal of these rumble strips is to reduce the rate of single-vehicle accidents involving distracted, sleeping, or drunk drivers. In other words, the safety of innocent road users is being sacrificed in order to protect bad drivers from themselves. This is backwards. Anyone who can’t remain awake and keep his vehicle on the road, should be off the road, period. I can’t think of a better way to get these bad drivers off the road, then to allow them to drive themselves off the road.
August 12th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
I agree with many of the sentiments expressed here citing reasons against using rumble strips, especially comments 18 and 20.
I would like to add, that such an incident with a cyclist injured should not be called an “accident”, as in ‘oops, I’m so sorry’ but properly termed a “collision” resulting in a mandatory citation to the driver. In Germany, the driver vs the cyclist, is automatically held at fault because of the relative size of his vehicle! He must then prove he was not the guilty party through witnesses or other verifiable means, as it is assumed the cyclist will not willingly commit suicide by riding erratically or jumping in front of an overtaking vehicle.
This has the intended consequence of making motorists much more aware of their responsibilities towards unprotected cyclists, thus, by extension, obviating the need for rumble strips except where proven to work on high-speed straight-line roads [curves make a driver more alert]. Even then, the shoulder must be wide enough to accommodate all users.
We have to stop babying motorists as if driving were a right … it is a privilege bestowed by a valid driver’s license for which there are written and practical tests!
Another example also include the tranverse rumble strips and hemispheres designed to alert motorists about upcoming low speed zones. Here the problem is when no gap for cyclists is left to safely negotiate such strips, another example of the car-centric American viewpoint.
Ralph
August 12th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
A 3-foot passing law would also help, creating a virtual ‘bubble’ of safety around the cyclist, as long as he/she “drives” his/her bike according to traffic regulations.
Many drivers actually believe that “Share the Road”-signs with the bicycle symbol are a warning to cyclists!
August 13th, 2010 at 9:40 am
ANY time a vehicle hits a cyclist or pedestrian, the burden of fault should be on the motorist. It should be assumed that if you are controlling the vehicle, you must be aware of the immediate environment. How about a level of responsibility?
Special thanks to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and State Departments of Transportation (DOT) for ensuring tax revenues from cell phones and fuels will have a positive impact on their personal incomes.
August 16th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
There are places where narrow rumble strips are needed right in the white line. I live in snow country and drivers are always cutting into corners and eroding away the white lines between them and the bike lanes. Every Spring the white lines are gone and the city has to repaint every Summer. To grind in narrow rumble strips and then paint might save our city some money because the surface can ware away but there would still be reflective paint down in the rumble strip. We also have problems with drivers drifting into the bike lanes where the streets run into the rising sun on certain months of the year. So I feel my idea for rumble strips would be better. The ones we have in the bike lanes are misplaced and the wrong size.
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:55 pm
who wrote this unsubstantiated opinion piece, Dan Guiterrez?
there’s no such thing as a bicyclist friendly rumble strip?
what a load of unsupported propaganda.
MANY states consider bike traffic in their design and placement of rumble strips. in some states there are discontinuous rumble strips.
designed to be bicyclist friendly while still performing their designated traffic safety function.
Ruble strips are to enhance overall traffic safety on high speed roads by reducing ROR crashes. if a road has a wide shoulder, discontinous rumble strips placed thoughtfully are an appropriate safety enhancement that will also be
‘bicyclist friendly’.
while i agree indiscriminate placement of rumble strips can be worse for bicyclists, thoughtful and discriminate placement can, will and do aid bicyclists comfort and overall road safety, particularly along roads already well suited for rumble strips.
Beck
August 28th, 2010 at 9:09 am
[...] August 28, 2010 at 6:00 am (advocacy) Bikeleague.org Blog » Blog Archive » Act Now to Save Riding Routes From Rumble Strips!. [...]
September 20th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Here’s the OR policy currently. We’ll keep in touch with the ODOT folks to see how well it translates into practice.
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/TRAFFIC-ROADWAY/
6.27.1 Shoulder Rumble Strips (SRS)
Long sections of relatively straight roadways that make few demands on motorists are the most likely candidates for the installation of shoulder rumble strips.
Traffic Manual ODOT Revision 1, July 2009 Page 6-55 Oregon Department of Transportation Traffic Manual
6.27.1.1 Guidelines for SRS installation
All installations on new or existing bituminous shoulders shall be continuous milled-in SRS. Installations of SRS should leave approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) of useable paved shoulder for bicycle use as measured from the outside edge of the rumble strip to the shoulder edge. Regardless, input from the ODOT Bicycle-Pedestrian Program Manager will be requested on all proposed installations, especially in high bicycle use areas. For narrower shoulders, ODOT has experimented with a milled edge-line rumble strips where the paved shoulder was less than 6 feet.
Do not install SRS:
• On bridge decks;
• Where the distance between the fog line and obstructions such as barrier or guardrail is 4 feet (1.2 meters) or less;