Crashes and deaths: The scary thing about micromobility "devices" in places where motor vehicle operators are unfamiliar with them

The media are full of articles about bicyclists (and pedestrians) getting killed or injured by errant drivers and have been for a long time ("Six People, Including ‘Several' Children, Struck by Vehicle in Gaithersburg, Authorities Say," NBCWashington; "Truck Driver Who Killed 5 Cyclists Is Sentenced to 40 Years," New York Times).

Unless the driver is impaired, the penalties are minimal.

Mostly, this comes down to bicyclists riding in places where the car is overwhelmingly dominant and people have infinitesimal experience "sharing the road."  To them, the road is for cars, cars and nothing but cars.

My experience cycling for about 30 years in DC found two things, at least over the last 10 years: (1) my most harrowing experiences with motor vehicles were with cars with non-DC license plates and (2) over the past ten years especially, it seemed like more and more motor vehicle operators were "deferring" to cyclists, even when the cyclist didn't have the right of way.

I chalked this up to the center city having a much greater representation of modes other than the car--walking first, transit second, and cycling third.  While there aren't tons of cyclists in DC, there are many, and far more than there are in most places.

15th Street Cycletrack, DC.

Pedestrians cross K Street NW in snarled traffic Wednesday as rain turned to heavy snow and slowed the rush hour to a halt. Photo Credit: Bill O'leary, Washington Post

Living briefly in Orange County, California (for a month), I rarely saw cyclists, even though surprisingly, most of the major arterials were outfitted with bike lanes.

Santa Monica.

Scooters are another thing entirely.  First, the standard of quality for roadways isn't enough, in most places, to accommodate scooters safely.  But second, I hadn't really thought about the issue of lack of familiarity on the part of motor vehicle operators, in dealing with pedestrians, cyclists, and now scooter operators.

Even in a place like Orange, California, which has a traditional "main street" like core, the town core is a pod in the midst of a sprawl land use and transportation planning paradigm.  Few drivers are familiar with "sharing the road" on a regular basis.

-- "Man from Orange dies after car in Long Beach hits his electric scooter," Orange County Register

So we shouldn't be surprised, sadly, when cyclists, pedestrians, and scooter operators are killed in such places.