DIRCs the Jerks?

Lock up your women and children. Stay off the streets. Keep a vigilant eye:

the DIRCs are on the prowl.

Say, what is a DIRC? Walking across the Boulder campus at the University of Colorado, many pedestrians are asking the same question. The issue stems from a measure by the CU Bike Program, which this week started posting numerous signs around busy crosswalks warning pedestrians of these DIRCs. The stick-figure drawings depict “dangerous,” “irresponsible,” “reckless” and “careless” (ah, we’ve solved the riddle) bicyclists colliding into pedestrians, obliviously listening to headphones, and even running over someone’s neck.

Peter, a representative from the CU Bike Program, said it is “staging crashes that are representative of the risks that cyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians face in a reckless or irresponsible environment.”

Yet the publicity fails to address the other side to these biker collisions: careless pedestrians.

So why the campaign?

It doesn’t take a CNN investigation to know that cyclist-pedestrian collisions are an issue on this campus. Just try riding a bike every 10 minutes to the hour. You’ll find 25,000 students and little room for those on wheels. According to testimonials from numerous students at http://recklessatcu.blogspot.com/, the blog created to take comments and complaints about bicyclists, crashes are a serious issue at CU.

“I have observed that CU has some of the worst bike commuters I have ever seen, doing some of the craziest things in traffic and around pedestrians,” wrote one commenter on the blog. Another visitor to the site wrote of the issues with bikers and cell phones, headphones, texting, and obeying right of way laws.

The DIRC signs cite examples of bikers and skateboarders running into Seeing Eye dogs, clipping the canes of blind people, and even hitting parked cars.

But another commenter cited an incident where they had a head-on collision with another biker.

The culprit?

Pedestrians walking four-people wide in the bike lane. Most of the testimonials on the blog acknowledged that our bikers need some caution, but on the same side, so do pedestrians.

“Pedestrians exhibit the same behavior. Take out the headphones! Stop texting and walking!” wrote Kyle Fitzroy on the page.

There are multiple sidewalks that have specifically labeled bike lanes (by the University Memorial Center, Muenzinger Psychology and Macky Auditorium, to name a few), yet pedestrians continue to meander through them, forcing riders to find alternative routes, sometimes into each other.

Adam Scurto, a CU walker and rider, stated that when he’s had an encounter with bikes as a pedestrian, it’s because “I wasn’t paying attention, or reading, just not with it.” Precautions such as bells, lights and good brakes always come in handy.

But why is this a one-way street? Why aren’t there signs for COWS (Clueless, Oblivious, Wandering, Slow pedestrians)? CU is finally acknowledging a pressing problem with cyclists, but when will the pedestrians step up?