Your Bike to Work Day Morning Media Roundup
Posted By Thomas Bahde on May 21, 2010
On the one day we might expect a more sympathetic or positive portrayal of bicycling for transportation in our local mainstream media, here’s what thousands of San Diegans read and heard yesterday and this morning on local news stations, channels, and websites about Bike to Work Day:
Maureen Cavanaugh of KPBS’s “These Days” thinks bicyclists wear “knee guards.”
Channel 10 equated the estimated 5,000 Bike-to-Work riders with the Amgen Tour of California.
SignOnSanDiego implied that one has to “sweat like an ox” in order to commute by bike.
Voice of San Diego didn’t mention it.
NBC 7/39’s website had a nice, short write-up and piece of fluff about “Bike to Work Songs.”
CBS 8’s website didn’t mention it.
SDNN had the best and most balanced coverage, with a piece by Chris Nixon, who “experimented” with car-free living last year.
Some readers wonder why Bike San Diego bothers to waste space on what the mainstream media does or does not cover with regard to bicycling. We are interested because most San Diegans don’t read Bike San Diego just yet; most of your neighbors, and certainly most of the drivers you will encounter today and every day on your commute, watch, read, and listen to the mainstream media. How bicycling appears there matters to every bicyclist in San Diego because it is a direct reflection of how you appear on a bicycle from behind the steering wheel.
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2 Responses to “Your Bike to Work Day Morning Media Roundup”
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Nice recap. Paying attention to how it is that local media sources represent bicycling is important. This is (partially) where notions of bicycling are constructed. I’d be interested in hearing the claims for a case that suggests that media analyses are a ‘waste of space.’
It’s interesting to learn which local media sources chose to ignore Bike To Work Day. From the local automobile “traffic” engineers to the news reporters/editors who drive to their offices in cluster-f*ck Mission Valley, there is plenty of evidence that San Diego is an auto-centric establishment…It was encouraging to see many commuters break away from that yesterday.
…Though, it is fair to point out that SDUT’s Our Region coverage of BTW Day was rather well done for the most part. It’s nice to finally see the UT speak about bicycling w/ a positive tone.
However, the number one bullet point in the SDUT’s ‘Cycling Safety Tips’ is incorrect and reinforces a popular and deadly misconception. The “tip” encourages cyclists to ‘Ride with traffic as far to the right as practical.’
CVC 21202 states that ‘Any person riding a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride as close as PRACTICABLE [emphasis added] to the right-hand curb or edge of the road way except under any of the following conditions:’ conditions found here http://sdcbc.org/CABikeLaw.pdf
I understand that bullet points need to be kept brief but the journalist misused the expression ‘practical’ when he/she should have used ‘practicable.’
Practicable means ‘safe.’ And it’s up to the cyclist to determine what is safe for him/her and not up to the motorist behind him/her.
What may be practical for a motorist (i.e. constantly move out of the way of cars) may be deadly for a cyclist.