Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Bike Safety Campaign "To Do" List

Hi everyone. The last meeting was more than a month ago, and I want to remind people of the issues that we discussed. Let's keep this campaign alive and start moving on some of the tasks listed below. Projects are in bold font, follow up tasks (things you all can work on) are in blue font.

Suggestion 1: Stop the destruction of trails and motorized use of them in protected areas.
  • Publicize that riding on wet trails after heavy rains creates great erosion and therefore is discouraged.
  • Request another class hosted by the good folks at Gold's Gym to teach mountain bike skills. The last one was not just educational, it was inspiring. Education has a way of getting people to see things in a different sort of way.
  • Encourage leaving some bike paths as natural as possible to facilitate skill building.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Request how DLNR/DFW intends to respond and prevent trail destruction. Determine the interest in learning biking skills and the who, when, and where of teaching it.

2 - Speak with staff at Gold's Gym about a mountain biking class.

Suggestion 2: Ensure that written rules that state cyclist share the same rules of road as vehicles remain, and try to rewrite many of them so that they are easier understood and enforced.

  • Encourage cyclists riding against traffic to obey the rules of the road and ride with it to be consistent and avoid accidents.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Lead this effort. Can we get a name or group of names that are willing to look into doing this?

Suggestion 3: Request how Dept of Public Works can maintain road bike lanes and shoulders, many of which are a hazard to ride on because they are littered with debris.

  • Determine what DPW needs to develop more road bike lanes, shoulders, and cycle safety road signs.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Contact DPW to learn what’s needed and what other cycle safety initiatives they could propose or construct and that we can support.

2 - Read the "Hazardous Shoulders" blog post on this site and add areas to the list of places that we may want to contact DPW about maintaining.

3 - Photograph these areas to add to this blogsite and to present to DPW.

4 - Draft an official to DPW asking them to begin properly maintaining road shoulders that biking frequently use.

Suggestion 4: Develop a letter to the CNMI government in support of cycle safety and funding for road safety initiatives.

Note: Someone was going to do this, but I haven't heard anything about the letter being sent. Please fill us in on where this is sitting.

Suggestion 5: Develop pamphlets and flyers that promote cycle safety to be distributed by Motor Vehicle Dept to all new drivers; taxi, bus, car rental, and truck companies; Shell stations; doctor offices; and riders to hand out.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Get examples from other states' campaigns and edit/modify content for Saipan. Create an attractive promotion pamphlet that can be printed for volunteers to distribute.

Note: Who are the two people stepped up and offered to do some initial printing for us? Is the offer still good?

Suggestion 6: Develop a radio cycle safety script for free radio time offered.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Develop two or three 20 minute scripts that can be read or talked about on the radio, i.e., question and answer style that explains sharing the road, driver education, rules of the road as they pertain to vehicles and bicycles, and other topics cyclists want to educate drivers and others about. *Look into what the London Traffic Council and others did to promote cycle safety for ideas.

2 - Contact CNMI radio stations to request air time.

Suggestion 7: Purchase for resale several informative and eye catching bumper stickers that promote cycle safety.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Search online websites to decide on the best 3-4 to order. Get us a price, so that we can look into funding for initial purchase. See this site.

Suggestion 8: Conduct a cycle safety survey that can help determine what percentage of Saipan’s population thinks or knows about bike safety and sharing the road with bicycles to help justify and support safety projects and funding.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Conduct the survey (see blogsite tab "Bike Safety Public Awareness Survey").

Suggestion 9: Develop a cycle /road safety petition that can help support a government supported cycle safety campaign.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO:

1 - Help develop a petition and collect names and signatures of supporters.

Suggestion 10: Determine how to best combine all of the above and more into an organized cycle safety campaign that can help DPS help us make the roads safer.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I have a couple of "bike awareness" bumoer sticker designs that I would like to make. I was hit head on 10 years ago or more. Also, I think it would be really good to implement a critical mass bike ride. At least once a month, a mass of bikers would really get people talking about bike riding. Oh and one more thing, approaching the Gov. in regards to the enormous tourism benefits bike paths can have, traffic decongestion, and health benefits to the community at large. I have been thinking of this for a while. I lived in Hawaii for some years and wanted to be able to ride but it was just too dangerous to make it any fun. That didn't really stop me but it should have, and I know that it stopped everyone else. If there is anything that I can do to help increase bike safety/community on Saipan please let me know.
BR,
Ben Wood

Rachel Zuercher said...

Ben,

Thanks for the note. It seems like you have a lot of ideas and we're certainly in need of bumper stickers and a person to organize these group rides. Feel free to email me with any ideas and I can spread them around the bike community here. There is a health awareness festival coming up in November that we're been invited to present at. Would this be something you're interested in helping with? Let me know. Thanks!
Rachel