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By Kathryn Kingsbury
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[Reprinted from The Capital Times , June 24, 2002]
Bicycle advocates say that reckless driving along Seminole Highway is becoming more frequent, and they're urging law enforcement to clamp down.
"We've had two spring-summer cycling seasons in a row where Seminole Highway has been this epicenter of conflict between motorists and bicyclists," said Jeanne Hoffman, outgoing executive director of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin.
"They should set up sting operations. Have the Sheriff's Department and Fitchburg police ride under cover until they have a gray Bronco try to run them off the road."
Fitchburg Police Sgt. Thomas Schmit said his department actually receives more complaints from motorists about illegal cycling behavior - such as not stopping at stop signs - than the other way around. But that may be in part because fewer cyclists carry cell phones, he added.
"We are trying to increase our patrols out there," he said. "I think the issue is just people not cooperating, and the roads could be wider."
Cyclist John D'Onofrio broke a rib last fall when he was pushed over by a motorist on Seminole Highway. He has logged thousands of miles on the road and says it's only in the past few years that drivers seem to be neglecting safety.
"It's getting worse," he said. "People drive faster. They don't give you enough room. They don't understand that we know the laws."
Seminole Highway has been the Madison area's "backbone road" for recreational cyclists for years because of its relatively low traffic count and because it moves from an urban to a rural area within a couple of miles, according to Hoffman. It also has a designated bike lane for most of its length.
But it's also becoming a favored route among drivers who have recently moved to the booming suburbs south of Madison. Commuters use it to get to Verona Road, the Beltline and County PD. Between 1990 and 1999, the number of vehicles traveling on Seminole Highway between McKee Road and Fitchburg's northern city limits rose from 3,950 to 8,000, according to the state Department of Transportation.
"Seminole was never designed to handle that many cars," says Fitchburg Mayor Mark Vivian. "(It) has purposely been kept as a two lane rural road to protect the environmental characteristics of that area."
He suggests the solution may be to close off the interchange between Seminole Highway and the Beltline.
"The cars are using the bike lanes as a turn lane and it's very difficult for a cyclist to traverse around such confusion," Vivian said. "I think eliminating the interchange would address the problem of that being a commuter route."
He said he is pushing for the state Department of Transportation to include that change in its plans to update Verona Road and the Beltline starting in 2009.
Two-wheeled obstruction:Darlene Dash, a Verona resident who frequently drives between her home and Fitchburg, is concerned by the number of cyclists she sees on country roads. She says that they are a danger on roads that, unlike Seminole, lack designated bike lanes.
She said cyclists sharing a lane with motor vehicles end up "obstructing traffic." They should pull over so that cars can pass without crossing the center line, she said. "We are forced to go into the other lane and therefore endanger our safety."
Roads without designated bicycle lanes are "not made for bikes," Dash said. "There's no room for them."
But Arthur Ross, Madison's pedestrian-bicycle safety coordinator, counters that Wisconsin statutes define bicycles as vehicles, entitled to use almost any road.
"The only place in which a bicycle cannot travel is a place where there's a sign that specifically states there's no access for bicycles," he said.
There are no provisions in Wisconsin law requiring a bicyclist to yield to a passing vehicles, Ross said. "It's not an obstructing traffic issue. If you have to stop behind a bus, is that bus obstructing traffic? If all the vehicles are slowed down in a traffic jam, do they have to part to let you through?"
Joe King, research and action coordinator for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance of Dane County, has taken to passing out flyers outlining traffic laws to cars and bicycles stopped at traffic lights on County PD and Seminole Highway during rush hour.
He said most of the problems on Seminole are due to carelessness on the part of automobile users and cyclists, but that he has also witnessed several instances in which drivers intentionally used their vehicles to intimidate cyclists or push them off the road.
"There were a couple times in the past year where my wife and I were personally threatened with bodily harm from hostile drivers" while cycling on Seminole Highway, King said. Both times, drivers rode closer than the three feet allowed by law and then swerved into the bike lane, he said.
King reported the incidents to Fitchburg police, but the first case was dropped because the couple could not remember the full license plate number. A citation has been issued in the second case.
D'Onofrio's injury came last September after a Madison man allegedly used his car to block the path of D'Onofrio and another cyclist, then got out and pushed D'Onofrio over. The alleged assailant, Alan Phillip Jerome, was charged with disorderly conduct and put in a deferred prosecution program.
Schmit is quick to point out that road rage can go both ways. In late April, a Fitchburg cyclist received a citation for disorderly conduct after allegedly spitting on an SUV parked outside of a house on Seminole Highway.
The cyclist, John Moxness, told a reporter he had gone over to the house because he had repeatedly seen the vehicle's driver speed up and edge toward the shoulder when approaching cyclists. He said his goal was to talk about the rules of the road, but the conversation quickly degenerated.
Moxness asked a Fitchburg police officer to issue a traffic citation against the driver. She declined to do so because of conflicting stories, she wrote in her report.
Efforts by The Capital Times to contact the driver were unsuccessful.
Schmit said drivers have to learn how to behave around cyclists, such as giving them plenty of room when passing and not making right turns in front of them, and cyclists need to obey laws by not riding more than two abreast or running through stop signs, he said.
Hoffman says that the majority of drivers respect cyclists and vice versa. "It's a very, very small group of motorists that are intentionally intimidating bicyclists. It's that group that's the most reason for concern," she said.
"That is when Fitchburg police and the Sheriff's Department need to act, because there's very little that bicyclists can do. No amount of pamphlets that the Bicycle Federation hands out are going to change these people's minds."
Schmit said he is dismayed by the rudeness he's seen on the part of both motorists and cyclists. "I think there definitely needs to be more patience. Today's society is going 100 miles an hour."
He paused to listen to the police scanner. A voice reported that a cyclist had just been hit at the intersection of Fish Hatchery Road and County PD.
"The bicyclists are going to lose every time," he said.
The cyclist, who sustained only minor injuries, was later ticketed for going against a red light.
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