Blog: Let's stop it with these Transportation Clowns!

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When cities call in the “Transportation Education Clown”

When cities get their most vulnerable residents killed, it can become costly for them. Sure, the police report will support the city, and the county’s coroner and the DA will call it an “accident“, but that might only work in federal court. In civil court, a half-decent lawyer will get the city to pay six to seven-figure settlements because many accidents can be traced back to something the city or its police force did or didn’t do, making them not so accidental. Just last year, a cyclist who hit a pothole received a $6.5M settlement from Oakland. Yes, sometimes, even all the help from the police report, the coroner, and the DA might not be enough. So the city still needs one more weapon to turn cyclists away: Victim Blaming – and to help with that, we need The Transportation Education Clown.

How did the “Education Clown Meme” come about?

The clown meme has become standard when talking about victim blaming. The meme itself goes back to Edmonton’s Vision Zero project. Edmonton pushed a campaign that instructed pedestrians to basically dress like clowns to be better seen, whereas no similar campaign was run for drivers of dark grey or black cars. They installed “No Jaywalking” signs on an intersection after two law-abiding pedestrians were killed. Those pedestrians were killed despite having the right-of-way, and the city still pretended they were jaywalking. There was no similar outreach towards the real cause of these deaths – drivers violating red light laws and drivers making illegal turns. They had the same campaign about distracted walking that many cities do, but nothing targeting distracted driving. For example, a pedestrian can legally wear headphones or text while walking in a crosswalk. A driver shouldn’t even have a phone in the car. The sound of notifications could distract them and lead to vehicular manslaughter in seconds.

The Power of Data

While Edmonton’s Vision Zero campaign seemed to put all the blame on “Jaywalkers,” Chris Nelson assembled data about vehicle crashes in Edmonton. And, of course, the data painted a completely different picture of car crashes in Edmonton:

drivers hit 24,702 other motor vehicles, 1,875 fixed objects, 478 vulnerable road users, 141 animals
drivers hit 1,875 fixed objects like trees, bushes, fences, poles, posts, signs, parking meters, curbs, barriers
drivers hit 256 law-abiding pedestrians and 171 people on bicycles
… and there might or might not have been 51 “Scary Jaywalkers“

Out of more than 27,000 crashing cars, 91% were car-on-car crimes. Altogether, at least 99.8% of crashes had nothing to do with “jaywalkers” (the endearing car industry invented nickname to shame victims). Almost all of Edmonton’s Vision Zero campaign focused on the 0.2% of pedestrians. Then, they ran an expensive ad campaign showing a pedestrian crash test dummy in a crosswalk wearing headphones, having alcohol, and looking at a mobile phone while being hit by a car. And just for the record, there are no federal laws in Canada or the US prohibiting this, except for being hit by a car. That is somehow – at least theoretically – outlawed by California’s Vehicle Code; many city and law enforcement agencies, however, want to treat it as collateral damage and the “price of doing car business.”

Let’s return to the city and the drivers hitting fixed objects like 35 buildings, five bridge supports, 35 utility boxes, 22 bus shelters, and 32 fire hydrants. Now the city clearly knows that visibility isn’t the main issue here, otherwise they would have quickly painted those 35 buildings in brighter colors. And they would have also increased the size of those 32 small fire hydrants dramatically, but they did not. But they did imply that all those pedestrians – who were killed while having the right-of-way – should have worn clown wear. Chris Nelson ended his report about the flawed Vision Zero project in Edmonton with an ad campaign of his own: “Since 2003, zero clowns have been hit by drivers in Edmonton, always dress like a clown when attempting to cross the street.“
And the Education Clown meme was born.

Does Clown Wear even work?

Just last month, the Las Vegas Police did a pedestrian safety outreach. They dressed up an officer in a turkey costume and had him try to cross the street in a standard zebra crossing. During this pedestrian safety stin,t the LVPD caught over 100 drivers in 3 hours and wrote citations. One police officer said that, on average, over 200 drivers don’t see or choose not to see the officer in a turkey costume. So why would anybody think the problem is the turkey? Would dressing like a clown or wearing a white helmet prevent collisions here? It should be clear to any self-respecting traffic engineer, safety advocate, or even law enforcement officer that this is all about inferior infrastructure.

“To increase traffic safety we have a police officer in the crosswalk dressed up in a turkey costume. And if you can’t see a man dressed up in a turkey costume, you are not going to see one of our small children.” [LVPD]

The name of the game is Victim Blaming

But we don’t have to go to Canada for this. The Bay Area has plenty of similar examples. When two female cyclists were killed in and around Palo Alto, a “bicycle safety instructor” just happened to show up and “raise awareness” when KRON4 was there to film it. The two cyclists were killed where the city and county said they would be safe. One was run over in a bike lane, and the other one was while waiting in a bike box. Listen to how the reporter does a fantastic job of pointing out what happened and what the drivers did wrong. The “Bicycle Safety Instructor” seems to agree but then leads the conversation away and toward his “services” of selling safety and clown gear. The man is wearing all the symbols of failed American bicycle advocacy: bike helmet, clown gear, and shame mirror. And he makes it sound as if not doing the same is what killed those cyclists. In context, these women weren’t “defending themselves” enough.

The most critical information the reporter and the “bicycle safety trainer” never mention, however, is the failed infrastructure. Why isn’t an unprotected bike lane enough along Foothill Expressway, and why is a bike box sufficient at night? Nobody in the Netherlands, Sweden or Denmark would have to wear this “as their best defense.” Because people on bicycles there are defended by their laws, their traffic planners and their engineers – but safety in America requires everyone to dress like a clown.

Clown-wear was invented by “Vehicular Cyclists”

The advice that the only thing people have to do is wearing a bike helmet and high-visibility clothing to be safe might actually have killed many people. The statistics would surely point that way, as people with bike helmets and high-visibility gear don’t get killed or injured at a lower rate. No, this is all about discrimination and victim blaming of course. Cities want to avoid lawsuits, and America’s “vehicular cyclists” want to make money by selling “bike trainings” – and a perfect marriage was born. Many European advocates live by the motto “as easy as riding a bike”, which is why adults in the Netherlands, Denmark, or Sweden don’t need “smart cycling training” – only Americans do.

Actually George Stancer – the UK grandfather of Vehicular Cycling – believed “that cars should at night be obliged to travel at a speed which would enable them to stop should they encounter another user in the road. It should be their responsibility to notice the unlit road user, not the responsibility of the cyclist.” So the call for clown-gear to “be seen” must have been introduced later and probably pushed by The League of American Bicyclists (LAB). But George Stancer’s thinking did make its way across the pond. To this day, red tail lights for bicycles are not required in the US; they are only passive reflectors. Pedestrians aren’t forced to wear blinking stroboscope lights either, nor are the dogs. So either the law really hates dogs, pedestrians and cyclists or the law understands that these things might lead to a false sense of security.

Post.Scriptum.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and other studies have proven time and time again that “Transportation Education” works well with kids but not adults. If someone does not want to “believe” in climate change or vaccines – they can’t be educated to do so. The real job of the Education Clown is not to teach, but to reframe the conversation and shame the victim. California’s Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) did the same with their ‘Pedestrians Don’t Have Armor’ spot. While the pedestrian has the right-of-way and several drivers are breaking the law – the OTS makes the pedestrian look like a nincompoop. And that is how California can waste a lot of bicycle funding on useless Transportation Education.

So, let’s all endorse clowns for children’s birthday parties, but our political parties should keep them out of their policies.

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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.

Blog: Let’s stop it with these Transportation Clowns!

When cities call in the “Transportation Education Clown”