S2 Module Write Out

Hello everyone, my name is Maelynne. Originally I was going to about Ghost Bikes, but after going out to do field research, I couldn’t find any which forced me to alter my topic on the spot and begin observing and analyzing the behaviors of drivers on the road and how that can negatively impact the lives of bikers  in San Francisco.

The last time I was up here, I briefly touched on the area SoMa, which is, according to an article on Hoodline, is arguably one of the more dangerous areas for bicycles on the streets due to its freeway off ramps, and higher speed limits for cars than any other places in the city making it an area vulnerable for accidents and collisions. So in SoMa, I had walked from City Hall all the way down to 11th and Mission and took note of driver behaviors.

As a result, there were more bad behaviors to be picked out than good. The good behaviors that drivers had followed were following traffic lights and signs, signaling for turns and for switching into lanes. Now for the list of bad behaviors, most drivers drove a little fast, some drove in the bike lane, some were blocking the pathway for pedestrians to cross, some went into the lanes with cars going the opposite direction to maneuver around, and some cars didn’t make complete stops and stop signs.

*shows image 1*

In this photo, I tried to be as discreet as possible to try and not be creepy of this uber who didn’t seem to care about violating multiple laws at once. He’s stopped at a bike lane and he’s at a red zone. This is extremely dangerous for bikers because, if the street were extremely busy, a biker coming from behind the prius would be forced to go out of the bike lane and into traffic to avoid crashing into the prius, but although the bike is avoiding crashing into the prius, the biker can potentially crash into another car.

*shows image 2*

In this next photo its a two way street and the lane where the biker is, is a wide unprotected shared bike lane and in the next photo with the car coming behind it, i watched the car take up the entire lane, which would block any bikers from behind and catch up with the biker and end up going into the lane with cars going in the opposite lane and going around the biker.  If this ended out badly, this situation would have caused a domino effect of accidents and many lives would have been at cost.

To conclude, drivers especially in sf, are more likely and more reluctant to make bad decisions on the road that can directly harm a bikers life and makes its unsafe to share the road.

So be safe drivers; follow the rules of the road and practice safe driving!