FREE bike lights – tonight, 8 PM on the corner of Mass Ave & Vassar Street. Christina Clarke Genco Foundation totally made it happen and they were kind enough to invite us along.
The point was to increase road safety on Massachusetts Avenue by installing free bike lights for cyclists riding past with a missing front light, back light, or both. We waved them down, yelled “free bike lights!”, chased them down until they were visible (ok, maybe not the latter), but the idea was to get everyone more visible and, thus, safer.
What I learned? There are probably some fascinating psychological social experiments that could be conducted here, probably around the idea of studying the differences between diverse cultural and social perceptions cyclists have without lights. While the vast majority of cyclists were thrilled to have lights (“Free bike lights? Heck yeah!”), even wondering if this were too good to be true (“Really, free bike lights? What’s the catch?”), there was an occasional odd occurrence of a cyclist momentarily hesitating before shaking his* head and leaving the scene without any added visibility (*most, if not all, of these incidences occurred with males, but then again, the sample size probably was not large enough to draw any significant conclusions about male vs. female nighttime negligence).
So, this brings up the question: When cyclists knowingly cycle without lights, what would their mode of thinking and rationale be, given that they are not price-sensitive (i.e., “free” is not a strong enough enticement)? Maybe they think:
– “Oh, these will just get stolen anyway”
– “Free? No such thing.” *pedals away in denial*
At any rate, more of these bike light giveaways can only be beneficial right now. Here’s to saturing this city in blinking red and white!
