Traffic and Sound: Is reliance on hearing too heavy?

A couple of years ago, I was riding up a neighborhood street that happens to be a designated bicycle route in town. It has a bike lane that runs parallel to parked cars which can always be a bit precarious, but the street itself feels fairly narrow while riding and with cars driving by and parked to either side of the bike lane it can be more than a little unnerving while traveling through.

Normally when riding this street, cars are parked the entire way up the road. On the day of this photo, car parking was minimal, but it's easy to get a sense of how it feels traveling by a line of parked cars.

As I pedaled down the road, listening for cars coming from behind and trying to look through the rear glass of parked cars for people who may be preparing to exit their vehicle, I was shaken when the person in the car parked directly to my right suddenly swung the driver's side door open without warning. The window on the driver's side of the vehicle had been open, but I probably wasn't making enough noise for the individual to realize I was directly next to her.

Fortunately, as I had experienced similar circumstances in the past, my ninja (okay perhaps not very ninja) like reflexes caused me to veer out into the main lane to avoid getting struck by the door. By chance, there were no vehicles in the lane at that moment, for which I was thankful. The woman who had tossed her door open didn't even realize that she nearly missed throwing me from my bike and potentially injuring me.

At the time, I was very upset because I couldn't understand why she hadn't looked in her side view mirror before exiting the vehicle (at minimum), but I also had grown used to this habit of drivers, so at least I had enough awareness to narrowly avoid the situation.

In this instance, I didn't really think much about the circumstances, but was just annoyed and a bit angered by the situation. Since this incident though, I've experienced a number of both similar and dissimilar situations that have caused me to wonder if hearing is the sense many depend on the most in slow-moving traffic situations.

Just as one small example, a few months ago, I was traveling another city road that is also designated a bike route. This one has sharrows rather than a bike lane, but it is fairly well traveled by bicycles so I believe most people have some sense of awareness on this patch of roadway. In addition, motorized traffic speeds are slower, so generally (with the exception of perpendicular parked cars backing out without looking on occasion) I don't run into many problems.

Offices were not yet open when this photo was taken early one morning, but generally speaking there is a great deal of both motorized and pedestrian traffic in this area.

On this day, I was coming to a crosswalk just as a pedestrian was approaching the corner. I was well aware that I had enough time to get through the intersection prior to the individual stepping foot onto the street, but since he had his head down and was absorbed in whatever happenings were taking place on his phone, I knew I had better stop. As I sat waiting for him to cross the street, he suddenly looked up, startled to see someone. "I didn't even hear you," he said, as he passed in front of me.

Again, I didn't give it much thought at the time. After all, traffic is supposed to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, but the more I thought on the insignificant moment in time, I came to wonder if we humans are relying a bit too much on our sense of sound and not enough on visual and other information?

So many similar happenings have taken place over the years. A person is exiting a vehicle and opening the trunk of her car, only to be startled by my wheels spinning by a second later because she didn't bother to glance up; An individual sits with windows down in his car, looking to his left while waiting to make a right turn, but never looks to his right to notice that I'm sitting in the bike lane, waiting to cross the street. When he starts to make his turn and realizes I'm there, it's as though he's spotting an anomaly and generally responds with displaced anger.

While riding on well-traveled local roads, I have to wonder if humans are relying too much on one sense and not using a variety of these in order to make decisions. A simple turn of the neck or glance in a mirror could potentially save someone from injury, yet it almost seems as though the responsibility for safety falls to those on a bike. Which is not to say that every person on a bicycle is completely aware at all times either, but rather that since a bicycle makes little sound and most people seem to be listening for motorized traffic whether on foot or driving, the onus seems to frequently fall on people riding to remain aware of everything taking place around him/her.

When I was learning to drive as a teenager, my mother always referred to this idea as "defensive driving;" basically, having the awareness and ability to react to any situation or potential situation in traffic. It requires the use of multiple senses (and at times it feels even the use of sixth sense is needed). Because we don't always know what a person will do in a given situation, we prepare mentally to maneuver around a problem before it even happens, so that if/when it happens, we make the appropriate adjustments.

If many people are relying so heavily on the sense of sound, are we really behaving in a manner consistent with the idea of defensive driving (or walking, biking)?

Whether exiting a motorized vehicle or traveling on foot, a number of people seem to rely on their sense of sound above others. Perhaps this is a broad generalization, but in my experience to date, it seems to hold true in a number of instances. As soon as I started paying attention to the reasons behind these moments, I started to wonder if it truly is about hearing and sound being too heavily relied upon in traffic situations.

What do you think? Are our ears doing more of the work when on city streets and roadways? Have distractions lowered awareness when out in traffic (such as cell phones, iPods, etc), thus distracting our sense of sound to a greater degree? Is it a combination of factors, including the ever-increasing traffic on many streets? Feel free to share your experiences and what you believe to be contributing factors to close calls on streets.