Thanks to Rod McKenzie, the Chief Technology Officer of Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), for sharing his summary of observations from the Distracted Driving Summit (See below for Rod’s bio).  Rod was also among of the distinguished panelists that participated in the Summit, which makes this article even more compelling.  Also, don’t forget to check last week’s article by Adam Hoops, a Transportgooru supporter & ITS industry whiz, who shared with us his views and notes from the Summit (he participated virtually, watching and listening to the proceedings online).

Note: Please register your comments/kudos below for Rod in the comments box below.

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Last week I had the honor of participating in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Distracted Driving Summit. Our panel was focused on technology’s role in both preventing and contributing to distracted driving. I was accompanied by my other panelists in highlighting how technology can help address distracted driving, and must not be demonized in our efforts to end what Secretary LaHood described as an epidemic of driver distraction.

Over the course of the Summit one of the prominent topics was legislation, with discussion on how we as a nation can legislate and enforce against dangerous practices such as texting while driving. While these bans are clearly an essential part of the campaign to reduce the fatalities that distracted driving causes, the American Automobile Association (AAA) amongst others presented data that demonstrated we must do more than just legislate. A survey of AAA membership demonstrated that even though a large majority of people acknowledged the extreme danger of texting or dialing on a cell phone while driving, many of these same people surveyed admitted they themselves had recently done these very actions while driving.

New technologies such as cell phones, PDA’s, after-market GPS systems, and MP3 players have become such a strong part of our lives that we are apparently not willing to stop using them even behind the wheel. Legislation, enforcement and education are extremely important in changing dangerous behaviors and making our roads safer, but we can also integrate many of these technologies into our cars to minimize distraction. Technologies such as hands-free phone and GPS navigation systems must be integrated carefully and seamlessly into the vehicle driving environment. Displays must be easily visible without having to take your eyes off the road and controls must be simple and intuitive, avoiding the need for hands off the wheel. Conversational voice technology is developing rapidly creating new systems that allow text messages to be read to the driver, who can then dictate and send a response using voice command.

Additionally, preventative technologies are already keeping drivers focused on the driving task, helping to prevent accidents caused by distracted driving. Lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, fatigue detection and other technologies ensure driver mistakes don’t turn into accidents. Of course, these technologies must be carefully developed and integrated into the vehicle so that the communication of the additional information they can provide does not itself become a distraction.

Distracted Driving is one of the oldest new problems we have, and while the misuse of new technologies has contributed to the problem, technology and innovation are also a key part of the solution. The multi-pronged approach of legislating behavior, public education and making our technology smarter and safer is the key to ending distracted driving. Just as anti-lock brakes and stability control have been proven to help drivers avoid accidents, technology will continue to adapt to the modern driver’s needs to provide a safe driving experience.

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Author’s Bio:  Rod MacKenzie provides oversight for ITS America’s technical and business development programs. As vice president for programs, he is responsible for leading the program staff and providing day-to-day guidance on program management, project execution, and resource allocation. In his role as chief technical officer, Rod monitors new technologies and assesses their potential to become new products or services within the ITS marketplace, overseeing the selection of technical projects to ensure that they have the potential to add value to the organization and its members.

Rod has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive, telematics, navigation, and mobile infotainment industries. Prior to joining ITS America’s staff in April 2009, Rod was the vice president of advanced applications and services at XM Satellite Radio where he led the development of new telematics capabilities and infotainment services, including real-time traffic and weather, with particular focus on the company’s core automotive business and OEM partners.

Rod holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Brunel University in Uxbridge, England.

About ITS America: ITS America is a non-profit organization engaged in promoting & fostering the  use of advanced technologies in surface transportation systems.  ITSA is the leading advocate for technologies that improve the safety, security and efficiency of the nation’s surface transportation system.

(Source:  WUSA9.com & Moving Momentarily)

Washington’s aging Metro system will be getting a 21st century security makeover that will include video cameras capable of integrating with other “facial recognition” systems in use in the National Capital region.

Some $78 million in grants for enhanced security were recently approved by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.  Grants also include money for 20 additional transit police officers, 3 bomb-sniffing dog teams and security training for 9,000 “front line” employees. The lion’s share of of the grant money will be spent on enhanced video surveillance of Metro’s sprawling rail and bus system.

And $27.8 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security will pay for cameras on buses, in ventilation shafts, at station entrances and near the end of platforms over the next few years. $7.1 million is designated to monitor passengers inside rail cars. Metro Transit Police officers will be able to view in-railcar cameras in real-time on portable computers.

Moving momentarily editor poses an interesting question to the readers and riders: How do you feel about Metro getting federal monies for facial recognition technology at stations? Does it make the system safer?  Register your thoughts below in the comments section.

(Source: AP via Yahoo & DC-ist)

Image Courtesy: www.EdwardBurtynsky.com - Click the image to see more pictures

“Edward Burtynsky: Oil,” opens at the privately funded museum as Congress is struggling with a climate bill that could include a “cap and trade” system to reduce greenhouse gases. Critics say it could drive up energy costs.

“We hoped that there would be something going on around oil,” curator Paul Roth said of the museum’s plans for the exhibit beginning two years ago. “At a certain point, we realized, no, it’s Washington and it’s oil. There will be something going on.”

Burtynsky spent 12 years exploring the subject, following past projects on mines, quarries and farming. The images are divided thematically to show how oil is extracted from the earth and how it drives transportation and development. It ends with a frightening thought — the end of oil.  Some of the most striking images depict the abandoned, rusting oil fields of Azerbaijan in 2006, where the earth has been tapped dry.

Burtynsky’s large-scale, sweeping landscape photographs deftly allow us to “see” oil, both in each powerful individual scene, and together in a longer narrative, which is how the Corcoran has set up his exhibit. In the first gallery, oil fields in California and Houston and refineries in New Brunswick set the scene. In mostly aerial shots, oil rigs dot an otherwise barren landscape fading all the way into remarkable horizons, marking the beginning of the “lifecycle.”  The refineries are highly organized labyrinths of green and silver pipes that look like fine jewelry.

The second gallery, “Transportation and Motor Culture,” is perhaps the highlight of the exhibit. Here, the work alternates between earnest, plain-spoken statements – the obscene, gigantic landfill of black rubber tires – and his “culture” shots that tap into a bit of dark humor. Images of Talladega Speedway, a Volkswagon parking lot, the motorcycle section at a KISS concert, and a Trucker’s Jamboree are all incredible and amusing scenes, dedicated to cultures where the engine sits on the altar. In a way, the images are a tribute to the innovations that began with oil: the extraordinary vehicles in the Bonneville Land Speed-Trials, the intricate architecture of the Nanpu Bridge Interchange in Shanghai. In another way, they’re shameful and embarrassing even to look at: airplane and helicopter graveyards; a Pennsylvania interchange packed with gas station on top of gas station, where no actual people live for miles and miles. It’s a culture not just of extraordinary innovation but of gross excess, and where that line is drawn is not for Burtynsky to say, it’s for each of us to decide and embrace.

The third gallery is a forecast of our future, if we can’t ever find that line. While the first two galleries contain images taken almost solely in the U.S. and Canada (Burtynsky is Canadian), this gallery is mostly Bangladesh, where massive oil tankers go to die. Men and even very young boys earn wages by breaking down the ships in incredibly dangerous and ugly work. In an image called Recycling #2, three young men stand in black sludge up to their ankles, an almost sickly laughable twist on what most Americans consider the clean and pure act of “recycling.”

Image Courtesy: www.EdwardBurtynsky.com - Click the image to see more pictures

Click here to explore more about  Mr. Burtynsky and his impeccable work.

(Source: Examiner, DC-ist)

City officials gathered Friday morning to open the new Union Station Bike Transit Center, the first secure bicycle parking facility of its kind on the East Coast.  The inside of the helmet-shaped facility includes secure parking for over 100 bikes, about 50 rentable lockers, a relatively spacious changing room, and a bike repair shop that is available to the general public, as well as members.

The Post offers more basic details: it’s 1,700 square feet, costs $100 per year for membership, and will contain changing rooms, personal lockers, and a bike repair shop.  All good things, though it’s a shame they couldn’t find a way to include some showers.

DC Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein noted that 60 people had already signed up for memberships to the facility before it even opened today, as evidence of the potential demand for this kind of service in Washington.  Memberships currently cost $96 for a full year, or $12 per month. All members are additionally charged a $20 annual administrative fee. You can also purchase $1 daily passes in increments of $10 (in other words, 10 days worth of access for $10, 30 days worth of access for $30, and so on). You should normally receive your membership card in the mail about five business days after applying, though this early registration process could take a little longer. Membership cards allow users 24/7 access to the parking area.

The beautiful new facility elicited the following comments (courtesy of Examiner):

• The Washington Post’s Dr. Gridlock compares the Bike Station to a space ship that “took a wrong turn at the Mall and parked next to the train station.”
• The Washington Business Journal points out that the DC Bikestation is part of a nationwide network that includes 12 other stations and 200 expected within the next five years. That, perhaps more than this particular bike station, is a significant story that reporters ought to be following.
• DCist spoke with Andrea White-Kjoss, the CEO of Mobis/Bikestation who says the station “represents D.C’s big statement about what they want to do for bicyclists in the city.”

(Sources: Green Car Congress, Red Orbit, & Reuters)

Jean-Louis Borloo, France’s Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea, presented a national 14-point plan designed to accelerate the development and subsequent commercialization of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in France.

France will invest 2.5 billion euros ($3.6 billion) over 10 years in research, subsidies and infrastructure development for electric cars as automakers race to get the vehicles on the road, its energy minister said.  Speaking at a presentation of the government’s plans for electric vehicles on Thursday, minister Borloo said the investment would be split between pilot projects, battery production and bonuses for carmakers building green cars.

The investment would also cover the biggest cost, namely adapting the electricity grid to allow for the creation of a million charging points by 2015 and over 4 million by 2020.  Borloo said around half the charging points would be in private homes, with almost as many in offices, as well as 75,000 “back-up” charging points in streets and car parks.

The 14 elements of the plan are:

1. ADEME (the French Environment and Energy Management Agency) will launch in early 2010 a new call for projects on infrastructure costs, to support plug-in demonstrators and trials combining infrastructure, applications and target territories, and to validate the functioning of the ecosystem of rechargeable vehicles. Budget: €70 million (US$102 million).
2. ADEME will establish early in 2010 a roadmap for specific new mobility solutions, dealing with developments in transportation of people or goods, based both on technology (new vehicles, dissemination of renewable energy, electric traction, etc.) and service (Vélib, Carsharing, Carpool, etc.) ADEME will then launch a new call for projects, with a budget of €25 million (US$36 million).
3. Renault will establish a Li-ion battery factory in Flins, in partnership with CEA (France’s Atomic Energy Commission), at an investment of €625 million. This site may produce more than 100,000 batteries per year. Bolloré, Dassault and Saft are also conducting parallel projects.
4. A group of large companies and associations of local and state officials are committing to purchase electric vehicles with a range of at least 150 km. The public tenders and private joint purchasing will target a market fleet of 100,000 vehicles by 2015. The first 50,000 are already identified. Led by La Poste, the group includes EPA, Air France, Areva, Bouygues, Darty, EDF, Eiffage, France Telecom, GDF SUEZ, SNCF, SPIE, UGAP, Veolia, Vinci, associations and communities represented by Association of Urban Communities of France and the Association of Regions of France.
5. A €5,000 grant for the purchase of vehicles with CO₂ emissions less than or equal to 60 g/km until 2012. Hybrids with CO₂ emissions are less than or equal to 135 g may receive a bonus of €2,000, as will LPG or natural gas vehicles.
6. Availability of a standard outlet to charge the cars outside of the home. Specifically, no charge should be needed at home.
7. By 2012 the construction of buildings (offices and homes) with compulsory integration of charging systems.
8. Supporting the installation of charging systems in condominiums.
9. Compulsory charge points in parking for office buildings by 2015.
10. Agreement on common European charging standards.
11. Municipalities to receive support to deploy the public recharging infrastructure.
12. Organize the operational deployment of the network. €1.5 billion for public infrastructure.
13. Maximize the use of low-carbon or renewable electricity for recharging vehicles.
14. Giving batteries and battery materials a second life after their vehicular applications, either through reuse (in grid storage, for example), or recycling.

The unveiling of the so-called “battle of the electric cars” plan follows hard on the heels of another scheme announced just two weeks ago that the French government would invest some seven billion euros ($10 billion USD) in the development of a modern freight-transporting railway system in an effort to reduce congestion on the nation’s roads and highways.

French President Sarkozy also announced his plans for a new carbon tax on businesses and private households that is set to go into effect next year. All three interventions are critical elements of Sarkozy’s “green plan” with which he hopes to drive down France’s dependence on carbon-based fuel and lower its emission of greenhouse gases.

Borloo says that nearly two thirds of the 1.5 billion euros ($2.2 billion USD) needed to fund the program will be procured through state loans set be started next year.

Included in the electric car plan is the construction of roughly a million battery-charging facilities by 2015, some 90 percent of which will be in private homes, while the other ten percent will be installed in car parks and at roadside stations.

Additionally, beginning in 2012, all new apartment buildings with parking lots will come equipped with battery-charging stations. By 2020, the plan’s architects say they hope to have some four million charging points throughout the country—or nearly two per electric car.

The ecology ministry stated in the meeting that the emissions-free sector of the French automobile industry should be worth a whopping 15 billion euros ($21 billion USD) by the year 2030 and constitute an estimated 27 percent of the total market for vehicles.

Click here to read the entire article.

Note: A big heartfelt thanks to our friends at Green Car Congress who made a concerted effort to provide the readers with an English Translation of this 14 point plan.  For those who wonder, this plan and every other material on the Ministry’s website is only available in French.  What’s up with a Government website only published in French? What were these egalitarian and patriotic Frenchies thinking about non-French speakers when they made the decision that things will get published only in French?  Damn, these folks are very biased in that aspect compared to the Americans.  BTW, I wonder what would Glenn Beck say about the French plan if he found out that Sarkozy is spending more money than Obama on improving/modernizing his  country’s transportation infrastructure?

The following report about the Distracted Driving Summit is prepared Adam Hopps, a transportation whiz, who participated virtually over the past 2 days (September 30 & Oct 1, 2009), tirelessly taking notes while observing the Summit proceedings online.  Shortly after the event finish, Adam e-mailed his observations for sharing it with the rest of the community.  Please note that these are Adam’s thoughts and by no means should be considered as a summary of the event.  Thanks, Adam for helping us stay informed.

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Thanks to the US D.O.T.’s efforts at opening up participation in their Distracted Driving Summit, I spent the last two days as one of 5,000 online viewers who watched industry reps, academics, legislators, and policy experts discuss what Secretary LaHood describes as, “the epidemic of distracted driving.”

For those of us not in the building the department also provided an online “chat and tweet room” so that every expert, novice, and personal advocate could give their two cents in response to what was being said live. It’s a perfect symbol of democracy in the Web 2.0 ear, where on one computer screen you can see live a public servant of 20 years desperately trying to convince people to adopt legislation to allow police to enforce drivers who text, while reading “Mark K” write: “We have too many cops. They like things orderly. Freedom is chaotic, so too many cops affects society.”

It’s also a reminder of how transportation is truly a democratic issue – perhaps one of the few issues that affect every individual daily. We all go places every day. We have loved ones who go places. We are doing this constantly, and as the summit pointed out of course, we move dangerously and with reckless behaviors.

The summit drew on a wide variety of people to make this point:

1. Victims of distracted driving reminding us of the end results
2. Transportation researchers informing us our risk of accident increases 2300% when we text
3. Law enforcement officials telling us the type of distraction doesn’t matter – all distractions are deadly
4. Legislators preaching to us that we need laws to prevent these behaviors
5. AAA reporting that people do it even though they know it’s dangerous
6. Wireless companies ensuring us they want to help as much as anyone
7. Teens sharing with us the life changing effects of their distracted driving.

. . . . And many more people from all areas of the transportation field reminding us that distracted driving kills.

The value of the summit was in the substance of the presenters and the nature of the experience. Even though Secretary LaHood ended the summit by announcing policy changes and an executive order from the President banning all federal officials from texting while driving, these two days were more about the U.S. DOT engaging academia, industry and public officials on an extremely important topic. Sure, there were plenty of Mark K’s commenting wildly in the chat room, but there were also thousands of people discussing the best way to enforce a texting law, or how to really educated teens on driving or even debating the nature of federal transportation laws.

So the people are engaged, we know we need to end distracted driving, but how do we do it? Two major solutions were presented: Do we create a society where law enforcement is responsible for punishing us when we fall to the temptation to text while driving? Or do we make our technology safer and more intuitive and design systems to prevent distractions?

In his closing, Secretary LaHood laid out the end goal: “Driving while distracted should just feel wrong – just as driving without a seat belt or driving while intoxicated.”

Click here to read the Secretary’s blog about the summit and to replay the proceedings.

Note: Please register your comments/kudos below for Adam in the comments box below.

(Source:  Autoblog green)

Image Courtesy: Autobloggreen

If nothing else, the big news of the day is that your iPhone can now make cars honk. The key fob would, of course, work just as well, but it’s not as flashy as using your phone.

The horn honking feature is part of the newly-released Zipcar App, which makes finding, reserving and controlling your Zipcar possible through the iPhone (and, over WiFi, the iPod touch). The app wont’ be able to unlock any car in the system – you still need to scan your Zipcard to start the reservation; only then is the app able to honk that horn. The App is free and available now in iTunes. You can take a tour here.

Funding of transportation-related infrastructure is at a crossroads. Traditional funding mechanisms, such as general and specific tax revenues, are proving to be insufficient to maintain existing facilities and fund expanded capacity. Infrastructure providers and operators are looking to users to make up for the shortfall. Transport-related infrastructure offers an exceptional opportunity for raising funds to establish and/or sustain such infrastructure while providing an attractive return on investment to both public and private investors. Key to achieving such returns are the prices charged to users. But how should user charges be set?

• Should every user pay the same fee?
• Is it practical, commercially worthwhile, and socially acceptable to charge differential prices?
• How should the price be set relative to the cost of alternatives modes or routings?
• How are these pricing principles changed when the facility is congested?
• Can pricing be used to reduce the problems of congestion?
• How does private operation of a facility change the pricing objectives?
• How might the public sector regulate prices?

These questions and more will be addressed in this two-and-half day course offered by the Transportation Center at Northwestern University.

Click Here for a Full-Brochure of the Program.

View Faculty

Facilities & Location

Registration & Fee*Registration

Program Fee (after 10.5.09) $2,700
Early Registration Fee (before 10.5.09) $2,160
Government & academic rate $2,160
Registration

Who Should Attend

The course is aimed at professionals who currently, or might in the future, set user charges; financial personnel; and engineers and project managers who oversee facility maintenance and new construction. It is also applicable to consultants to infrastructure providers, and those who finance infrastructure projects.

Course Format

Program content will be thoroughly integrated by the course faculty, so that participants will emerge with a comprehensive understanding and perspective of transportation infrastructure pricing strategies.  The focus of the course is on the economics of pricing. Some prior knowledge of economics, such as might be obtained from an introductory college level microeconomics course, will be useful.

Topics to be covered include:Full Program Schedule

For additional information please visit the Northwestern University Transportation Center website or contact: Ms. Diana Marek, Program Registrar – 847-491-2280; dmarek@northwestern.edu

(Source: USA Today; Carkeys, UK)

Image Courtesy: USA Today

Automobile technology has exploded over the past two decades and todays cars are far more “intelligent” than the cars of the 70 and 80s.  These days there are more computers and sensors (collectively captured under the term Intelligent Vehicle, a terminology that is more familiar to those involved in Intelligent Transportation Systems) operating side by side with the driver to ensure that the vehicle operates at optimal efficiency while managing the safety of the vehicle by avoiding or alerting/warning about impending collisions.   The state of the art technology deployed in some cars can even slow down the vehicle by applying brakes without driver’s assistance, just to minimize the impact of the crash.  Now, that will soon become yesterday’s technology, thanks to vehicle safety pioneers at Volvo who are hard at work to deploy “full auto brake” and “pedestrian safety” functions.   USA Today reports on this latest vehicle technology development at the Volvo shop.

By now, collision avoidance systems that automatically apply the brakes to a speeding car have become pretty common. But while cars will suddenly slow if they detect an accident is about to happen, automakers have been hesitant to bring them to a sudden and full emergency stop.

Volvo is about to change all that. With the launch of the S60 next year, Volvo will introduce a “full auto brake” and “pedestrian safety” function. Cars will come a full stop at speeds less than about 15 miles an hour if their radar systems detect they are about to strike a car or a person. If the car is going faster, the car will try to come as close to a full stop as possible.

“If the car is traveling faster, the aim is to reduce the impact speed as much as possible. In most cases, we can reduce the collision force by about 75%,” says Thomas Broberg, Volvo’s safety expert. “Considering the large number of pedestrian fatalities that occur, if we manage to reduce the fatality risk 20 percent, this new function will make a big difference.”

Carkeys.com, a British website reports that this effort is part of Volvo’s 2020 vision, which has two goals – firstly, that nobody will be killed or injured in a new Volvo and, secondly, that the average CO2 emissions of the entire range will be below 100g/km. As part of addressing this first goal, the first step forward from the current situation regarding safety is the introduction of Collision Warning With Full Auto Brake and Pedestrian Safety, both of which will be introduced in the new S60, due to be launched next year, and Volvo is also upgrading its Adaptive Cruise Control so that it now maintains a gap to the vehicle in front at speeds right down to zero, rather than the present 18mph minimum.

Further development depends on vehicles being able to communicate with each other – the idea being that they recognise it and take steps to avoid a collision regardless of what the drivers are doing – and this in turn will require a suitable infrastructure. “We believe that the key is to use systems that are already available for other purposes,” says Jan Ivarsson, Volvo’s Head of Safety Strategy. “The air around us is already charged with communication, most of it used for pleasure or convenience.

“Adding traffic safety communication to this existing architecture is a far more sensible route than trying to invent and agree on a completely new ‘language’ for communicating in the traffic environment.”

Fifty years ago, Volvo introduced seat belts, which are now a “standard” in all vehicles entering the market(s) and has been credited for saving millions of lives world over since its introduction.  Hope this new introduction can repeat the magic for the 2nd time and further cut the vehicle-related fatalities and crashes.  Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Washington Post)

Image Courtesy: Flickr via Apture

They don’t make much sense, yet for one more fleeting season at least, they are the rage in certain circles. Sort of dumb and super hip: the twin characteristics of many things in life.

We are talking about a bicycle. A very special kind of road bicycle, called a fixed-gear bike, or fixie for short.

A fixie has one speed, which makes it difficult to pedal uphill. A classic fixie has no brakes, which makes it difficult to slow on the downhill. A fixie has no freewheel, the part that makes coasting possible. Instead, the chain directly drives the rotation of the rear wheel, which means the pedals always turn while the bike moves.

What else do they have going for them?

Well, fixies are impractical, perverse throwbacks to a time more than a century ago, before the invention of the derailleur and the Tour de France, when the bicycle chain and the pneumatic tube were novelties, and the high-wheel penny-farthing “ordinary” bicycle had just been eclipsed by the chain-driven “safety” bike.

And yet despite all that — or is it because of all that? — a fixie manages the neat trick of simultaneously communicating taste and rebellion.

Washington was a little behind the curve in adopting this fixie chic.  Some date the dawn of fixie chic to the 1986 movie “Quicksilver,” starring Kevin Bacon, which glorified fixie-riding messengers in New York.

Countercultural couriers and speed-demon messengers didn’t invent fixies. The inspiration was handed down to them by the obscure yet mighty gods of the velodrome, who race indoors on one-speed brakeless track bikes. Fixies take the track bike concept and relocate it to city streets.

A fixie map of Washington would center on a handful of neighborhoods. Your fixie is what gets you from your futon in Columbia Heights to your computer screen downtown, then on to peruse the produce and fiction in Logan and Dupont circles, finally delivering you to an outdoor table on U Street NW, a rope line on H Street NE or a bike polo match at Eastern Market. Fixies haven’t made it in a big way to the suburbs, and may never, for strictly topographical reasons. They aren’t good over long hilly distances.

Fixie riders also talk about achieving a sense of “flow” as they navigate streams of cars. They describe a kind of “dance” set to the rhythm of traffic lights. You can’t coast through life on a fixie.

The euphoric riding experience is achieved via the discipline of the fixie’s low technology. In zealous self-denial, a fixie rider experiences more with less. The reason you have to be super-aware of your surroundings and think ahead is because stopping can be a challenge. Fixie riders are like sharks, constant motion is an existential requirement.

Fixies are built for speed, but if you must slow down, one way to do it is to resist the pedal momentum with your leg muscles and knees. (Your poor knees.) Toe clips or cleats help you pull back on the pedals. A more dramatic recourse is the skip-stop, which involves leaning forward, hopping the rear wheel and locking one leg to start a skid when the rear wheel comes down. In the unlikely event your chain falls off, you will be a helpless, speeding missile with only a helmet for protection, if you wear one. Some do, some don’t.

To brake or not to brake is a debate within the fixie community to which conventional bikers can listen only with astonishment.

Riding without brakes gives an extra edge to the riding experience.

“It’s definitely more dangerous,” says David Waterman, 27, a high school math teacher locking his brakeless fixie one night outside the Black Cat on 14th Street, where seven of 15 bikes parked before the show are fixies. He prefers muscle power to skidding as a slowing strategy, because skidding wastes tires. But, he allows, “You look really cool when you skid.”

Click here to read the entire article.