You will eventually need to cross a major street, so there is no avoiding the problem. Unfortunately there are many distractions that kids must overcome to safely do this. One is that they need to come of a certain age to realize that crossing a traffic intersection requires concentration. After you cross the intersection you can daydream all you want, but as we approach and during the crossing, keep your mind, ears and eyes on the task at hand. The reason is simply for safety. Kids and adults can easily be killed at an intersection. This happens regularly.

We see a lot of terrible driving here in Scarborough. In my predominantly Chinese area, it is no surprise that the majority of bad drivers are Chinese. Yes, there is a good representation of other nationalities. While most drivers are bad due to a lack of concentration on driving, their behaviour can still kill and maim the lowly pedestrian. This benign neglect is better than drivers who have selfish and arrogant attitudes, but not by much. Both will hurt you. All bad drivers are a hazard to pedestrians and cyclists. No matter that the pedestrian has right of way, this matters little when the pedestrian is struck and lands up in hospital, or worse, killed.

Many drivers who want to turn right now do not stop for a red light at intersections. I have even seen police do this. These “rolling reds” are especially dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists. When drivers are tired or distracted, they might roll through a red, not see a pedestrian and run over them. I have found it very difficult to teach my kids that, while they have a green light, many adults will drive through a red, even though they are supposed to stop. Kids are simplistic this way, expecting others to follow the rules, especially adults. Adults made them up, so why do not adults follow them? Unfortunately life is not so simple.

The hard reality of life is that in Canada more people get killed and maimed from vehicular crashes than any other reason. Drivers are not to be trusted. People here take driving as a right and not a privilege.

There are still some basic rules to the road that are followed by most drivers. These include driving on the right side of a road, and driving through a green light. Apart from these, all other rules are commonly breached. A pedestrian, for his own safety, must be certain that a driver will adhere to traffic rules or risk getting run over.

At a traffic light, each pedestrian crossing has three major hazards. This depends on whether the pedestrian is crossing with or against the flow of traffic parallel to the pedestrian.

Pedestrian walks against the flow of traffic parallel to the pedestrian: Threat 1: Car 1 signals for a right turn, but has a red light. Pedestrian has right of way. Ensure car comes to a complete stop and the driver sees you, before starting to walk. Beware the inattentive and dreaded ‘Rolling Red’ driver. Threat 2: Car 2 in middle of intersection signals for a left turn, has a green light. Pedestrian has right of way. Ensure car does not enter pedestrian walkway, the driver sees you, before continuing to walk. If in doubt, stop. Threat 3: Car 3 signals to make a right turn, has a green light. Pedestrian has right of way. Ensure car comes to a complete stop and the driver sees you, before continuing to walk. if in doubt, stop.

Pedestrian walks with flow of traffic parallel to the pedestrian: Threat 1: Car 1 signals for a right turn, has a green light. Pedestrian has right of way. Ensure car comes to a complete stop and the driver sees you, before walking. Threat 2: Car 2 in middle of intersection signals for a left turn, has a green light. Pedestrian has right of way. Ensure car does not enter pedestrian walkway, the driver sees you, before continuing to walk. If in doubt, stop. Threat 3: Car 3 signals to make a right turn, but has a red light. Pedestrian has right of way. Ensure car comes to a complete stop and the driver sees you, before continuing to walk. If in doubt, stop. Beware the inattentive and dreaded ‘Rolling Red’ driver..

Pedestrian crosses from South-East corner to North-East corner. Pedestrian crosses in same direction as traffic. Mouse over for descriptions.

Toronto’s suburbs are car oriented. I know this because if you ride a bicycle or walk in Scarborough you have a good chance of getting run over by drivers in a rush to get to wherever. Just yesterday I was riding my bicycle on the road, and a driver drove his vehicle perilously close to me in a threatening way and told me to ride faster because I was slowing him down. Markham is even more car oriented.

Markham built a north-south mini-highway, Highway 69, to the border of Toronto, Steeles Avenue. In 2005 Markham then asked Toronto to extend their mini-highway south to Highway 401. With dissent from local residents, environmental activists and local politicians, this proposal was flatly refused, and rightly so. Local residents feared they would end up with expropriated land and an 8 lane highway through their neighbourhood. The Ontario government refused to force Toronto to build this highway.

The new proposal is slightly different but not all that much better. The mini-highway from Markham (blue dots) will end at Steeles Avenue. Steeles avenue, now a 2 lane road, will expand to six lanes going westbound (red dots). A new 4 lane road will then cut southward into existing farmland to connect up to Morningside Road (pink dots), which now connects to Highway 401.

Morningside Avenue Extension Proposal, 2011, Toronto, Canada. More cars and more traffic for local residents.

I oppose this proposal because not a half kilometer west of this proposal is Highway 48, Markham Road, which is a north-south 8 lane monolith of a highway that connects to Highway 401. Why build yet another north-south 4 lane highway through suburban Toronto to connect to Highway 401 when there is already an existing 8 lane highway doing the same. We do not need more roads to cater to more vehicular traffic.

A more appropriate solution would be to expand Steeles Avenue westbound from Markham’s Highway 9 all the way to Highway 48 or Markham Road. From Steeles Avenue to Highway 401, convert Markham Road into a real highway, increasing speeds from the existing 60 kph zone to an 80 kph zone. Markham Road today is a large highway, largely industrial, with few side streets and traffic lights. It could be easily updated to handle the increased speed limit.

Morningside Road Extension, Aerial Photo, 2011, Toronto, Canada. Prime farmland would be destroyed. The local community would see a huge highway in their backyard.

Sometimes the answer to transportation is not to continue to build more and larger roads. When you already have a huge 8 lane north-south highway not half a kilometer west, and you want to add yet another 4 lane road close by, you know you are addicted to some kind of drug: This drug is the automobile. We need to stop thinking car-centric and start thinking more public transit. Expand the Go train instead. Increase the efficiency of existing roads if you must, but these roads are already at capacity. As Markham and areas north of Toronto expand, commuting by car will become slower and slower. Proposals such as the Morningside Road extension should not be approved. More capacity for cars is not the long term solution to the Greater Toronto Area’s transportation needs.

Map of the Rouge Valley area near Steeles Avenue, which includes Markham Road, Morningside Avenue, the Toronto Zoo, and the Pickering Town Line. The ravine here makes road building problematic. This area will become a national park in the future, so don't develop on it now.

Ted Laturnus is an automotive writer for the Globe and Mail in Toronto, Canada. Compared to the quality of writing on your typical motorcycle forum, his account is very well written, with a wisp of doomsday humour thrown in to break the tension. While I give him no sympathy advantage because he is a journalist, the account of his crash is no less instructive to car drivers and motorcycle riders. GWS, or “Get Well Soon”, as we say to fallen riders. It took over three years for Laturnus to be able to write about his crash, and this from an automotive journalist. A concussion, right knee and calcaneous (heel bone) shattered, permanent limp, recurring vertigo, chronic headaches, and over three months of rehab was what he received. She received a $125 ticket. Do you see the inequity of justice here?

Riders on the more intellectual motorcycle forums welcome crash reports. We pour over and sweat the minute details in order to tease out possible causes and lessons learned. Contrary to popular belief, motorcycle posters are not hellbent and have a death wish for riding a motorcycle. Motorcyclists come from all walks of life and geographic location. Riders are people and cannot be categorized simply because of their choice of transportation.

In a motorcycle crash report many people immediately blame the car driver, but just as many are first to blame the rider, even when they acknowledge that the rider was not at fault and had right of way. The rider’s protective gear is questioned. Was the rider sleep deprived, or stressed due to something emotional happening in his life? Was the rider drinking or doing drugs? Sick and under meds? Pics of the crash scene are welcomed. Photos of the gory aftermath of the crash, both the damaged bike and parts, as well as medical photos of the blood and guts are also welcomed. Motorcycle riders are not so sensitive to the politically correct. Even if there is only a sliver of blame attributed to the rider, s/he will be taken to task. Riders that ride recklessly and have then crashed are told outright they are dangerous riders and need to smarten up or there might not be a next time.

Why do motorcycle riders blame their fellow motorcycle riders who have crashed, even when there is clear agreement that the car driver is at fault? The answer lies in self-preservation. It has been well documented that for motorcycle-another vehicle crashes, well over 80% of the cases are caused by the car encroaching the right of way of the motorcyclist. Even an unintelligent newby rider will find this out very quickly on the road. The car driver makes a mistake, or purposely runs a biker off the road, and the motorcycle rider pays the steep price of recovery from injuries or death. As quoted in David Hough’s Proficient Motorcycling, a father asked a junior rider in hospital, leg broken from a crash with a car, “How could you let a car do this to you”? Ideal crash analysis results in any possible steps a rider could have done to avoid or lessen the incident.

With this perspective in mind, riders seek to understand what strategies they can follow to avoid getting smashed by ignorant drivers. Because a motorcycle is much smaller than a car, riders can take a proactive approach to their own safety. Strategies can include not riding in a driver’s blind spot, wearing reflective gear, using fellow cars to block a threatening left turner, traveling above the average speed of traffic, lane splitting, and so on. The number of strategies seem endless. Some strategies are clearly illegal, but when your health and safety is on the line, any strategy that keeps you safe is better than a legal one that will kill you. This is one of the main benefits of participating in a motorcycle forum: learning and practicing strategies an average rider can use to stay alive.

Riding a motorcycle requires 100% concentration on surrounding drivers, the road surface, the weather, your bike and your state of mind. Always staying alert is very tiring in heavy traffic. Getting stuck in a traffic jam when other drivers start to get mad is quite dangerous. Close to home the danger does not decrease. It is human nature that given sufficient repetition and in a familiar environment, a repetitive task can be done in autopilot. We have all done this before: You get to work or to a grocery store in a fog, not knowing your specific route and not recalling the trip, but you have your car keys in your pocket so you must have driven your car. Do this on a motorcycle while returning to your house and you might miss a car that ran a stop sign and end up severely hurt. This is a common occurrence.

Retribution is also a common topic on any motorcycle forum. It is very difficult to keep a cool head when some has just tried to kill you. Some US riders carry guns in order to protect themselves. Any car can become a weapon to hurt a rider, no matter than the driver is a soccer mom in an SUV, geriatric with fading eyesight, a sleep deprived white collar worker, or the distracted young female that nearly killed Laturnus.

Driver distractions are deadly to a motorcyclist on the road. Cell phone talking drivers are especially dangerous to riders, yet surprisingly there is often no consensus to this on a motorcycle forum. As stated before, motorcyclists are people too, and also drive cars. While riders acknowledge that cell-phone talking drivers are plentiful, are a threat to them on the road and can kill them, many riders believe they are better than the average driver and can easily multitask and talk on the phone while they are at the wheel. Ironic is it not? Do as I say and not as I do. The attitude of motorcycle riders can be as selfish and self-serving as a typical driver because they are a typical driver, but with better driving skills and not necessarily better multitasking skills. Even more asinine is that some motorcycle riders ask how they can use their cellphones while riding their motorcycles. As we say on motorcycle forums, these are future Darwin candidates that will remove themselves from the gene pool.

Now that Ontario, Canada has banned mobile devices in cars I have sen a marked improvement in driving. This is better for motorcycle riders as well as everyone else on the road. Yes, there are still scofflaws that flaunt the law and they still drive badly and dangerously. Vigilance and enforcement is still required.

Most troubling is the fact that drivers that maim and kill motorcycle riders state “I did not see him”. Driving requires you concentrate on what you are doing so that you do not inadvertently hurt others.

All this because an empty-headed young female driver was too distracted to notice a motorcyclist. She swears she didn’t see me. I’m pretty sick of hearing this pathetic excuse. She saw me, clear enough, but decided that, somehow, it would be OK to cut me off, that nothing would happen if she completely ignored me. How could you not see a bright purple and chrome, 400-kilogram motorcycle with three driving lights?

While you might think that a motorcycle forum can be brutally truthful to the crashed rider, and it is, there is also lots of support. Medical advice that deals with surgeries, rehab and recovery, first-aid is also provided. Legal advice in order to sue the driver, and dealing with police unwilling to charge the driver, is also given. Offers of how to repair bikes, how much, where to get spare parts are also provided. Brutal honesty aside, forums do help fallen riders build themselves up again.

Once a rider has crashed there is always the hesitation to ride again. On this topic the riding community is divided, most leaving the decision up to the fallen rider. We all know that riding a motorcycle carries a much higher danger factor than driving a car, but the benefits of riding a motorcycle also far outweigh simply sitting in a car. Each rider makes their own decision, or “Ride your own ride”.

Motorcycle riders are have the knowledge to be safer drivers than the average Joe. They hone their skills on the streets, where a lax moment daydreaming might mean a trip to the hospital. Still, riders are human and humans are not perfect.

To all the car drivers in the world, and especially in Scarborough and Toronto, Canada, pay attention to your driving. Do not run over nice people like Tad Laturnus because you were daydreaming. Ditto for young kids at crosswalks, cyclists and pedestrians. In-car distractions are becoming more prevalent while human physiology has not markedly improved. Rather it has regressed. I see proof daily in Scarborough and Toronto.

Speeding through school zones is an ongoing and madening traffic issue in Toronto, Canada. Every year the police, accompanied by children stop speeders near their schools, but it seems nothing changes. Everyone agrees that speeding through a school zone in very dangerous for kids, but drivers are too self absorbed and arrogant to change their behaviour. Preventable.ca is running a small test in West Vancouver where they adhere a sticker of a child on the road. From far away the sticker looks like a little girl fetching a ball. This is to remind drivers in a school zone to pay attention to the road in order to keep kids safe. It is a small test, but well worth trying. I think preventable.ca for their effort in improving road safety for children in BC, but hope that they will also reach out to Toronto.

I often cannot believe how selfish people can become once they get into a car. This is particularly so when people speed through a school zone. The excuses of “I did not see her” are inexcusable when young lives are at stake. As far as I can see, no educational method has worked that will slow down drivers. Preventable.ca has come up with an innovative method that should be tried to determine its effectiveness. Sure there are always improvements one can make in an experiment, but I am surprised at the negativity I see on their site as well as in other newspapers.

To be clear, this is not a child on the road, only a sticker that creates an optical illusion of a child. No children were harmed in this experiment. The stickers were placed in a school zone, where they can remind errant drivers to slow down. The sticker seems lifelike from the photos, and should jar drivers out of their robotic stupor of autopilot, and therefore inattentional blindness, difficult to do but necessary if we value the safety of our children.

Negative feedback abounds, so I will attempt a rebuttal.

• Q: These illusions may surprise drivers, who will slam on the brakes, and lose concentration of their surroundings. Drivers may swerve, causing a possible crash.
  A: These stickers are posted in a school zone, which is max 30kph in BC and 40kph in Ontario. Drivers should be going very slowly, paying attention to their surroundings and expecting children. If a driver is surprised by the image, they are not paying sufficient attention to their driving or they are driving much too quickly. At 40kph this image will appear slowly and it will be readily evident that this is not a real child.

• Q: These stickers will condition drivers to run over children.
  A: I think you give drivers too little credit. In all cases drivers should not take any image for granted and therefore should slow down and be prepared to stop for kids, image or not. If you are traveling through a school zone at the proper speed then this will not be an issue. If desensitization becomes an issue, when the stickers wear out they should be removed. Stickers should then be placed in a different school zone.

• Q: Putting the child image further down the road near a crosswalk may lead to running the crosswalk and potentially hurting those that are crossing.
  A: While this may be true, when we drive we see and deal with much environmental stimulus on a daily basis. A crosswalk and a child crossing the road nearby is a very realistic scenario and should not “overstimulate” a driver. If the driver is going at the proper speed limit, through a school zone, the driver should expect children at the crosswalk as well as trying to cross the road not at a crosswalk. In all cases the driver should be aware of their surroundings and drive safely. This will not be an issue at 40kph.

• Q: Once drivers recognize the image the benefits will be negligible.
  A: This is possibly true but is also an acknowledgment that the campaign has worked. The image and their locations can be changed.

No doubt that many of the above concerns are valid if the driver is not expecting kids in the vicinity and the driver is driving at much higher rates of speed. This is not true in a school zone, where the speed limit is 40kph and kids are in the vicinity. While further study and monitoring of this experiment is required, overall I like the intent of these stickers. They have the potential to bring school zone safety into the news and educate drivers. With this campaign and rigorous police enforcement we can all hope that the safety in school zones will markedly increase.

This girl is a sticker on the road, but if you inadvertently run over her you were not paying attention to your driving. Pay more attention to the road.

In this video a donkey gets t-boned and a motorcyclist gets seriously hurt as he head butts a very large truck hauling scrap metal.

Inattentional blindness, also known as perceptual blindness, is the phenomenon of not being able to perceive things that are in plain sight. This can be a result of having no internal frame of reference to perceive the unseen objects, or it can be the result of the mental focus or attention which cause mental distractions. The phenomenon is due to how our minds see and process information. Wikipedia

Motorcyclists are very in tuned to other drivers, because when anyone makes a mistake often the motorcyclists, whether right or wrong, pays the price with a trip to the hospital or the morgue. This leads riders, naturally, to curse the inattention of drivers. When the stakes for bodily harm are higher, people pay more attention. This is also true for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Others have noticed the apparent problem of of drivers not noticing motorcyclists.

…automobile accident reports frequently report driver claims that they “looked but failed to see” the other vehicle. Many collisions between cars and motorcycles involve cars turning in front of an oncoming motorcycle, with the car driver not seeing the motorcyclist. Given that in many contexts, motorcycles are less common that cars, inattentional blindness is more likely. Critically, the difficulty of the primary task in an inattentional blindness task increases the probability that people will miss the unexpected object. In practical terms, the more people focus on aspects of their visual world other than the detection of unexpected objects, the less likely they are to detect such objects. Recent evidence suggests that talking on a cell phone, for example, dramatically increases the probability of missing an unexpected object (Scholl et al, 2003).

Driving is an example. “Many accident reports include claims like, ‘I looked right there and never saw them,’” Simons notes. “Motorcyclists and bicyclists are often the victims in such cases. One explanation is that car drivers expect other cars but not bikes, so even if they look right at the bike, they sometimes might not see it.” Simons recounts a study by NASA research scientist Richard F. Haines of pilots who were attempting to land a plane in a simulator with the critical flight information superimposed on the windshield. “Under these conditions, some pilots failed to notice that a plane on the ground was blocking their path.” source

Magicians have exploited the principal of inattentional blindness in order to perform illusions. Clearly this is not a new phenomenon. The magician distracts the audience in some way so that they do not see what he is doing in another part of the stage, even if in plain view. This deception is then exposed, to the amazement of the audience. Other perplexing examples of innatentional blindness include lifeguards that fail to see a body at the bottom of a clear water pool.

The general theory is that if a person is distracted and concentrating on doing one task, he will not see other unexpected objects, even if blatant and in plain view. The use of cell phones while driving is given as a common distraction. Such studies have been used as evidence in favour of banning cell phone use while driving in Ontario and most other Canadian provinces, as well as many US states. Car drivers drive on “auto pilot” and do not see extraordinary objects on the roadway.

While it is clear that inattentional blindness does happen to all humans, why this happens is not well understood. In understanding this phenonemonon, riders might develop strategies that might break through a driver’s “auto pilot” and save themselves the pain of a crash.

One theory is that the brain is distracted from its main purpose and, due to inattentional blindness, does not see objects that are within plain view. The distraction could be a personal crisis at work or home, technological (cell phone, radio, GPS), or some other. Drivers then go into “auto pilot” and somehow get to their destinations without incident. It is certainly not a safe method of travel.

If a driver is too tired, sleepy, not awake, is inebriated or has a hangover, could this add to or further impair the brain, taking extra processing power or reducing the brain’s processing capacity?

Another theory is that the brain is exposed to an excess of stimulus from senses, which includes our eyes, ears, nose and skin. This stimulus, if individually processed, would indeed be overwhelming, hiding the most important information amongst the information that is benign. It would be like scanning a large yard of grass and processing the poisonous snake the same as each and every rock and blade of grass. A simple coping mechanism is to filter all stimulus, concentrating on only stimulus that is potentially dangerous or unusual. A simple scan of the large yard would filter out the grass, but find the snake and large rocks (danger to the lawn mower). If this theory is true, a car driver may filter out a motorcycle, bicyclists and pedestrians, and not notice them until they get run over.

Further theories postulate that as cars and other equipment become more automated, operators do not need to concentrate as hard, get bored and increasingly are inattentionally blinded. Repetition of an event (a daily event such as commuting) breeds experience, expectation and therefore inattentional blindness. Rare events (motorcycles, bicyclists, pedestrians) are rare because they are uncommonly experienced and are thus not built into our expectation, leading to inattentional blindness and therefore running them over. As well, while an inexperienced operator is forced to pay attention, the experienced operator has done the task so often that he is more prone to inattentional blindness. The experienced operator is more prone to a “violated expectation”, an event that is outside the norm. This is when bad events occur, such as the “right turner” into a motorcycle, or running over a pedestrian. It seems the more experienced and capable an operator the increased prevalence of inattentional blindness.

Striking is the conclusion of this Human Factors researcher:

It is difficult to reduce errors due to inattentional blindness. One reason is that people are unaware of the blindness. Training mainly affects conscious, voluntary behavior, so it helps little. You can tell a driver to be sure to check the oncoming lane before turning, but the advice will do little good if the driver is looking for a specific address, is in a hurry and in an unfamiliar part of town.

So let’s get some of the theory straight. Inattentional blindness results when your brain adapts and filters out routine events. The more you do a routine the more your brain adapts to the routine. The more experienced and skilled the operator, the more prevalence for inattentional blindness. The less experienced the operator the less possibility of inattentional blindness. This human filter does its job before your conscious mind gets the information, so extra training and other logical conditioning does not help reduce inattentional blindness. Is there something proactive one can do to reduce inattentional blindness? Someone help me out here? If we cannot prevent inattentional blindness through a change of skill set, which relies on the conscious mind, a solution may point to a systemic change of environment. Change the routine enough and on a regular basis so as to retard inattentional blindness.

Yet another theory that does not specifically relate to inattention blindness, but still may be of importance to motorcyclists, is called motion camouflage.

Motion camouflage is a dynamic type of camouflage by which an object can approach a target while appearing to remain stationary from the perspective of the target. The attacking object simply remains on the line between the target and some landmark point, so it seems to stay near the landmark point from the target’s perspective. The only visible evidence that the attacker is moving would be its angle and its looming, the change in size as the attacker approaches.

The theory goes that a car at an intersection wants to turn left. A motorcyclist is riding in the opposite direction of the car. The motorcyclist’s headlight, approaching the car, does not seem to grow larger, giving the perception that the motorcycle is stationary. The car makes the left hand turn and hits the motorcyclist. Riders in Britain have written about the “Sorry Mate I didn’t See You” (Bike Magazine 2005) or SMIDSY phenomenon.

Motion is difficult to perceive when it is directly along the line of sight. Because the object is stationary relative to the background, an observer doesn’t see a change in the overall image and thus isn’t cued to the presence of a moving object. Though the object increases in apparent size as it nears, the change goes unnoticed at first–moving from 1000ft distant to 900ft may not affect the image enough trigger a response. A motorcycle is particularly susceptible to motion camouflage because its cross-section area as seen by an observer is much less than that of a larger vehicle.

But as the object gets closer, apparent size increases more rapidly. At constant speed, an approaching object takes the same time to move from 200ft to 100ft as it did from 1000ft to 900ft, but the apparent size increase is greater. Eventually the object seems to grow suddenly in size, and the motion camouflage is broken. This is called the looming effect. According to the Bike article, when an observer is startled by the looming effect, he may freeze in his tracks. If the observer is an oncoming left-turner, he may stop in the middle of the intersection, making a bad situation even worse.

Indeed either of these theories point to a visual impairment that all humans possess. It is not an impairment of physicality but one of brain processing. How to overcome these visual impairments has not been well studied. The answers to these questions could lead to a marked reduction in traffic crashes and fatalities. Motorcyclists can only hope for advances in the understanding of human brain function.

Other reading: Inattention Blindness, conspicuous safety professional, Stop Signs are Dangerous
-Visual and Stereoscopic Acuity

I have been meaning to get a bike rack for quite a number of years. When the kids were small this was not an issue because they could not ride far anyway, but they are growing. We don’t have a large car, so a bike rack is now a necessity. The Swagman 3 bike hitch bike rack seemed to be the strongest and lightest but well made bike rack I could find. It works very well but the experience of installing it provided some interesting surprises.

Before looking for a rack I asked various people what type of bike rack best suited our needs. Friends had a trunk mounted bike rack, which scratched their car up quite badly, which steered me away. They have since abandoned their trunk mounted racks. Since my car has no roof rack and no option to add a roof rack, this type of bike rack was not possible. The last option was the hitch mounted bike rack. Since I am not a trailer type guy and have no friends that are, I also had to research, purchase and install a trailer hitch, already documented in my blog. It’s all still good.

I am an avid internet researcher, so before looking for a rack brand name I scoured the internet. Mountain Equipment Co-op sold a couple types of bike racks. For a couple of decades now I have been using MEC as a trusted source of outdoor gear and they have not let me down. Now in the internet age I use them as a gold stamp of quality for potential purchases. They sold Swagman, so here is where I started my research.

It is clear that Swagman has a good reputation on the internet, with many happy customers. Robust design, strength of materials, good fit and finish and solid racks were all common remarks. Certain rack styles have issues with certain types of vehicles. You need to match your vehicle and needs to the many available rack on the market.

Swagman 3 bike rack installs 11.5 inches from my bumper, not a good fit

My requirements were pretty simple. I have a type I hitch, 1.25″ receiver, capable of holding dead weight of 100-200 lb, depending on who you talk to. Nissan says 100 lb. The U-haul hitch says 200 lbs, but then says 100 lbs for carrying bikes. The dead weight maximum also includes the bike rack, so if the rack weighted 30 lbs, this means there is less available weight for your bicycles. A lightweight but strong bike rack was in order. I settled on the Swagman single arm Original 3 bike rack, model 64121. It’s design is simple and therefore there is less to fail. It does not fold down because I have no need for this feature. Even with the bike rack installed I can still get to my trunk with ease. I would rather have a stronger rack with fewer possible points of failure. It does not have fancy locking mechanisms. Many people who purchase bike racks have said in hindsight that all the fancy locking mechanisms on their racks are ineffective against bike theft, so the upgrade is unnecessary. Why lock your bike to the bike rack, only to have the thief take both your bikes and bike rack? No, we would be using our rack to transport bikes to a park, then disconnect the rack and put it in the trunk. A simple but robust locking mechanism was best. Unfortunately MEC did not sell this type of rack, and the folding version that they did sell was out of stock in Toronto. I decided to order locally and picked up the rack.

S shaped bend creates a kink, does not allow the rack to seat deeply into the hitch receiver

Firstly, the Swagman bike rack came well packaged and finished in the box. Instructions were not too clear and seemed written for an older design version. Since there are few parts, it was not difficult to put it together. The rack materials are thick and seem extremely strong. Bolts, nuts and washers were all provided, and were heavy and strong. One issue that became evident was that the enclosed square stock that attaches to the hitch receiver was way too long, putting the bike rack upright a full 11.5″ away from the bumper. This stock also did not push all the way into my hitch receiver, resulting in a weaker connection. When the rack and bikes are so far from the hitch receiver, this provides a much longer lever arm, which greatly increases forces and vibration to the hitch receiver and therefore the car. Swagman had also designed in an “S” shaped curve in an attempt to raise the rack 2″, but these curves slightly kinked and fattened the square stock where it went into my hitch receiver. I was not too impressed.

Straight bar stock makes Swagman bike rack fit closer to bumber and deeper into hitch receiver

No matter, I had the Swagman web site, so I sent off an email from their “contact us” page, and got a confirmation email that stated an email was sent. I received no reply from the Vernon, BC company. I took some pictures, put up a web page outlining the issue, and sent this off to Swagman. Again no reply. Upon reading the instructions I could not find any warranty information. The store that sold me the rack suggested I email Swagman and ask. Again, for the third email sent, I received no reply. To this date, Swagman has not replied to any of my emails.

My solution was to not use the Swagman provided square stock and to find my own. I settled on a 10.5″ length piece of 1.25″ diameter square stock. I drilled the hole for the hitch pin and the holes to attach to the rest of the bike rack. Overall the rack is now 5.5″ away from my bumper, resulting in a much smaller lever arm and therefore force on the hitch receiver. There is now only 2″ between the bike rack and the hitch receiver. Though I could have reduced this residual 2″ I felt it was more than adequate.

Once installed I found the innermost bike would clang against the bike rack upright. My solution was to sew a long sleeve and attach to the bike rack, preventing metal on metal contact. It also covered up the Swagman logo.

Overall I am happy with the Swagman bike rack, but I had to do some work to make it fit properly. If you do not have the tools to cut heavy metal square stock and drill 3 holes, then maybe consider another type of bike rack. I almost returned this Swagman rack because of the very poor fit to my car and poor customer service.

Here are some pros and cons to the Swagman bike rack:

Pros:

• Strong construction, great fit and finish of bike rack
• Lighter in weight than other racks, but still heavy duty
• Came with all necessary components
• Does not excessively shake when carrying bikes (after I replaced the square stock with a shorter one)
• Inexpensive ($130CAD)
• Simple and relatively light (Original 3 bike version, model 64121)
• Comes with a hitch pin (does not say on the box)

Cons:

• No email or other support for their product
• No warranty. Not stated on box or instructions. No email reply about warranty. No warranty info on their web site. Other manufacturers offer at least a 1 year warranty on their products. Thule, Yakima and Saris all offer a limited lifetime warranty on their products. Even Canadian Tire bike racks (SportRack) have a 1 year warranty.
• Rack did not fit well into my hitch receiver and would have bounced a lot more and with a lot more force (due to 2 times longer lever arm) if I did not fabricate up a shorter piece of square stock.
• Instructions were for an earlier version of the rack
• Innermost bike will clang against the bike rack upright. I sewed up a cloth sleeve to protect my bike and the bike rack.

Question: Hi Don, I was trying to find a contact us link on your blog, but I was unsuccessful.

Anyway, I was searching Google Images for a specific Hot Wheels car. I stumbled across your photo on your old blog and saw that you had it. I am really interested in trying to find the name of the car. I am looking to purchase it for a friend.

That’s the image, from the left it is 8th car down, 4th column over. Futuristic orange/red/chrome one. Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated! :-)

Justin

Answer: Well, Justin, It’s a strange request but I’m always interested in extending a friendly hand out to the Internet world.

I took that photo a long time ago, so had to dig in my son’s large set for the car you’re looking for. It’s a “Wild Thing” Hot Wheels, 2002, Malaysia, in flake orange, designed by Larry Wood. It has 3 wheels, 2 on the front and 1 on the back, so here in Canada it would be licensed as a motorcycle.

The first photo shows what looks like grey scratches on the front left quarter panel. These are actually reflections from the road surface. The photo is 2 times the car’s actual size.

Almost his complete collection of Hotwheels

I have been wanting to add a bicycle carrier to my 1997 Nissan Altima car for the longest time. A bike carrier that goes into a trailer hitch receiver allows the bikes to not contact the car, reducing fears of scratched paint and dents. While shopping around for hitch receivers I found the U-Haul hitch receiver (#24999) for $130CAD, cheaper by $40-$50CAD than other brand names. U-Haul wanted an extra $40 for installation, which I could save if I did it myself. There would be unforeseen trade-offs which I will explain.

The Nissan Altima is a small midsize car and not really designed to easily carry multiple bicycles. It has no roof rack capability and has no grooves built into the sides of the roof to add a roof rack, precluding a roof rack-based bicycle carrier. A trunk mounted bicycle rack is possible but from past experience with friends who use one, they seemed unstable and could not be tightened down sufficiently. Trunk-based bicycle carriers, from my experience, are also prone to scratching up the car’s paint and creating small dents in the bodywork.

At first a trailer hitch-based bicycle rack seemed huge overkill, but it keeps the bicycles away from the car enough to not scratch the paint nor dent the bodywork. There would be, however, more work to do. One needs to first mount a trailer hitch receiver to the bottom of the car, then add the hitch-based bicycle rack.

As a small midsize car the Nissan Altima is not really designed to pull a trailer. The owner’s manual recommends that you not exceed a tongue weight (direct weight on the hitch receiver) of 100 lbs and pull no more than a 1,000 lb load (combined trailer and contents). This is probably extremely conservative. The recommended hitch receiver for the Altima and most smaller cars is a Class 1 hitch, capable of a tongue weight of 200 lbs and a pull weight of no more than 2,000 lbs, using a square 1.25″ receiver opening. Therefore the hitch receiver would be rated stronger and more capable than the vehicle.

Researching U-Haul’s trailer hitch on the internet was educational. Who knew that U-Haul is the largest retailer of trailer hitches in North America? Less of a secret was U-Haul’s terrible reputation for botched installation of trailer hitches as well as the lack or maintenance and breakdown of their rental fleet. Yikes. Numerous calls to my local U-Haul led to continuous busy signals, employees that would not look up the necessary hitch for my vehicle, or flat out would refuse to help me, requesting I leave my name and number and they’d call back “whenever”. I had serious doubts about dealing with U-Haul.

Eventually and accidentally, the trailer hitch specialist answered the phone. “Ali” said he could not get me an operator but could look up my vehicle and order me a hitch, which he did. He also said it would be in for pickup in 3 business days. Three business days later I received a call from U-Haul, not Ali, stating my hitch was back ordered and I would need to wait an additional 10-15 business days, when it will arrive from its voyage from Florida. They did not know and did not want to guess any more accurately. Since I did not put any money down yet and could cancel my order at any time, I agreed. Surprisingly after 10 business days I called the office and my hitch had arrived. I paid for it and picked it up.

One may ask why I did not order my hitch online from U-Haul. The U-Haul site is based in the U.S., while I live in Canada. When I looked up my hitch by vehicle manufacturer, model and year, I found my hitch. The issue was that I was unsure if the hitch price was $US or $CAD, as nowhere on the site states the currency. Their call centre stated that products were priced in Canadian dollars but I did not want the hassle if they were in error. Would I also have to pay shipping charges to Canada as well as possibly duty, or could I pick up the hitch at the U-Haul store? Because the web site did not address any of my concerns I opted for local ordering and purchase instead. Here again is a clear example of lots of money spent on their web presence and functionality, only to be undone by poor web usability. Almost Ok is not enough.

U-Haul’s web site makes a statement about their lifetime guarantee on all their hitches. The condition, not clearly stated, is that this warranty applies only if U-Haul installs it and you pay an extra $5CAD. If you opt to install it yourself there is no guarantee whatsoever. Bummer. So much for faith in your U-Haul product. They also did not tell me this at the store nor on their website. All other hitch competitors offer a 1 year manufacturer’s guarantee.

U-Haul’s low price also does not include a hitch nor hitch bolt. The hitch is the piece of metal that is inserted into the hitch receiver. The chrome ball is then bolted to the hitch, and the trailer goes on top of the chrome ball. Because I only want to use my hitch receiver for a bicycle rack, I did not want a hitch nor ball, but if you really wanted to pull a trailer, competing hitch packages that include a hitch and hitch bolt (Reese and Curt) may be a better deal, and they do come with a warranty.

A bicycle rack that uses a trailer hitch keeps the bikes off your car's paint

Interestingly the U-Haul hitch receiver mounts using 7 bolts, 4 bolts on the left and 3 bolts on the right, where as the Curt (#288907), Reese (#7712) and other competing hitch receivers mount with only 4 bolts, 2 on each side. I had read that U-Haul’s hitches were made by someone else, like Curt, but the Curt design seemed inferior to the U-Haul. The extra bolts was a benefit for the 7 bolt, made in USA U-Haul hitch. Hitch bolts are 10mm x 1.25 thread x 30mm hex bolt CL8.8.

Overall the hitch looks to have good quality. All welds look strong and are clean, sanded down and smooth. Instructions were pretty clear. All pieces stated in the instructions were present in the box. The cross member on either side of the hitch receiver part came padded with cardboard. Too bad the hitch receiver came with peeling paint. The hitch receiver portion is 5″ long, uses a square 1.25″ receiver opening. The receiver hitch pin hole is 0.5″ in diameter and is 3 3/8″ away from the base of the receiver portion (measured from the car to the centre of the hole). The wall of the hitch receiver is 3/16″ thick.

Installation was pretty easy. Seven nuts were already welded to the Altima’s frame rails. The fit of the hitch was great. It is better to loosely tighten the hitch with a couple of bolts, get all the other bolts to thread before you tighten everything up. I put a piece of plywood down on the ground, layed down on the plywood, supported one side of the hitch with my leg and the other side with my arms. One note about the finish of the hitch is that my hitch came with peeling paint on the outside of the hitch receiver. There is no powder coating or anything fancy, but at least the hitch should not come with peeling paint. The hitch extends 0.25 inches/0.5 cm longer than my bumper.

Overall I would say that I did save about $35 with the U-Haul hitch receiver over its competitors. The package did not come with the receiver ($20) nor hitch pin ($10), but I did not need the receiver. The hitch, DIY install, comes with no warranty. I will have to repaint the peeling paint ($5) of the receiver portion of the hitch. The hitch is regulated by the government so I hope the quality is high. Even though I was only ordering and paying for the product, dealing with U-Haul was a hassle. What should have been a simple transaction turned out to be troublesome. I’d hate to get into a really troublesome situation. At least I saved some money.

Cross Post: Nissan Club