F1 does not care about bike lanes

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Correction

On April 1, I wrongly accused Formula One of secretly planning to add bike lanes to all U.S. race tracks. Turns out I was wrong. On the contrary, FIA is openly planning to remove all bike lanes and instead add race tracks to all U.S. streets. I’m very sorry to have caused so much confusion.

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)

In 2007, Professor Ian Roberts published a paper about the automobile industry, FIA, and Formula One, which is deeply involved with the world’s road safety policies. FIA and ‘road safety’ does not exactly sound like a natural or obvious partnership. Racing relies on a closed road circuit and professional drivers; no pedestrians or cyclists are allowed. Since this is very different from driving in the wild, FIA’s know-how on this topic is kind of questionable. And its health-related checkered past should raise some flags (pun totally intended).

The main question has to be whether FIA supports only the safety of drivers and passengers or protects people walking or cycling. Which of the goals is more important to them:

Goal A: Reducing the number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths by lowering speeds
Goal B: Increasing vehicle safety, so drivers and passengers can survive better at higher speeds

Professor Ian Roberts seems to be assuming it’s goal B. He also pointed to three policies that FIA is favoring the most and the problems that are coming from them:

Road User Education (leads to Victim Blaming)
Increased Road Building to foster economic growth (a disproven narrative)
Private-public partnerships (can lead to ‘Astroturfing’)

Another author, Matthew Ericson from Victoria, Australia, pointed out that the FIA Foundation is less of a charity and more of a lobbying branch of FIA. And by working for the auto industry, they would naturally favor their side of the story. Ericson points out that this is what is expected. Still, the FIA Foundation and the world should have their eyes on the other road users, the vulnerable ones, namely pedestrians and people on bicycles.

FIA’s meek response

The FIA Foundation didn’t seem too happy about having their independence from FIA questioned. They also didn’t like being called a lobbying group instead of an independent charity promoting road safety. But then FIA’s David Ward seemed to confirm everything that was said.

“The FIA Foundation’s response to this challenge is to try to help ensure that growing levels of motorization are much safer and more environmentally sustainable than before. This is our own agenda and not one determined by any corporate interests.”

They took issue with Professor Roberts’s inclusion of the Automobile Industry, FIA, and Formula One in the same bucket when the organization in charge is really the FIA Foundation—a completely independent organization. Sure, the name and FIA’s $300 million donation might sound like the FIA Foundation is just charity window-dressing, but pinky swear—that is just a coincidence. The FIA Foundation is totally free to support any car-centric policy they like, and FIA will never interfere.

The FIA Foundation said it agrees with Professor Roberts that “education” does not work but that “education” combined with “enforcement” would. It also claims to be in favor of NHTSA and William Haddon’s approach to Road Safety from the 1970s.

However, William Haddon, the first administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), made the point that neither PSAs nor police enforcement will improve road safety, as humans are just too human. His approach was “Do Not Preach To Drivers,” instead just making sure their cars can’t go too fast. This can be achieved either through engineering the cities or engineering the cars (e.g., ADAS).
If this sounds familiar to the Swedish version of Vision Zero, that is not a coincidence. The astonishing part is that the NHTSA already had the right solutions in 1970.

Haddon’s Matrix

It’s all about messing with the messaging at FIA. While the FIA Foundation does say they totally agree with Haddon’s Matrix, they quickly bring back the focus on education and enforcement—the tools Haddon or WHO said wouldn’t work. The Foundation also seems to show little understanding of transportation equity and throws in a few attempts at greenwashing.

Messaging is very important; in all of these discussions, people are never mentioned on bicycles or bike lanes. And that is the intended message. When they do mention ‘vulnerable road users, ‘ it just doesn’t sound sincere:

“The key question, however, is whether new roads in Africa will increase exposure of children and pedestrians to traffic moving at higher speeds. We fervently hope not …”

FIA does not offer any real solution to prevent the ‘higher speeds’ but offers hope for the best and thoughts and prayers in case things go wrong. And with that kind of attitude, things always go wrong.

How FIA is shaping documentation and discussion

Through the FIA Foundation, the automotive industry is deeply involved with road safety in America. They have set their sights on the UN, the WHO, the US Vision Zero Network, and have changed a lot of their documentation already:

Whenever possible, the FIA and the FIA Foundation have tried to steer the discussion and documentation away from engineering the roads and lowering speeds.

“Compared to WHO’s World report on road traffic injury prevention, the GRSP road safety documents were substantially less likely to use the words speed, speed limits, child restraint, pedestrian, public transport, walking, and cycling, but substantially more likely to use the words school, campaign, driver training, and billboard.”

We can be sure an army of marketing people and lawyers vetted the FIA Foundation’s response. And despite that—or maybe because of that—the FIA and the FIA Foundation will avoid mentioning safety for vulnerable road users as much as possible. Their main pillars of road safety success lead to more infrastructure and safer cars at higher speeds.

“After the establishment of the GRSP, there were some concerns that car makers would be unlikely to promote initiatives that conflict with their commercial interests. Our analyses provide little reassurance in this respect. For example, whereas the World report emphasizes the importance of speed reduction, particularly to promote the safety of pedestrians, … the GRSP documents emphasize driver training and safety education campaigns, which is contrary to the available research evidence.”

The last 20 years of highway billboards promoting Don’t Drink and Drive had little to no effect. This is California, where they have to force restaurants to post Wash Your Hands in every bathroom. But somehow, Lowering your speed, pretty please, will make all the difference.

Cyclists were never mentioned in GRSP reports. The car lobby wants bicycles off the street. This could be achieved through bike lanes, of course. However, that is not good enough for GRSP; their goal is to completely remove pedestrians and cyclists from the equation. Formula One and FIA want the safety of a closed race circuit.

Post.Scriptum.

Urbanists should be very suspicious of any professional, organization or policy using education and enforcement as tools. While Bike Rodeos and Driver’s Ed can get good results, only the bike lane network’s quality and quantity determine safety and ridership increase. US traffic planners and the Vision Zero Network have failed badly because they don’t focus on engineering the road and separation of speed. ‘Supported’ by FIA members, they also favor education and enforcement as their main tools. They all seem way too interested in making riding a bicycle look scary and in getting bicycles off the street once and for all.

“But at the end of the day, it’s really a question of goals: if the end goal is to build a city friendlier to cyclists, why design them out of it” [Christine McLaren, New York Lab]

More Information

LSHTM – one of the world’s leading public health universities
Professor Ian Roberts: Formula One and global road safety
FIA Foundation: response to I. Roberts
Matthew Ericson: Regarding Formula One and global road safety
FIA Foundation: response to M. Ericson
WHO: World report on road traffic injury prevention
WHO report vs GRSF report
Post-License driver education does not work
Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP)
Commission for Global Road Safety (CGRS)

Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.