Cyclists Take a Tumble on Rumble Strips

To a worn-out or distracted driver veering off a long lonely road, a rumble strip is a lifesaving wake-up alarm.

To a bicycle rider, however, the ridges and gouges dug into the highway’s shoulder amount to a butt-wearying, teeth-rattling annoyance. Worse, riders say, a rumble strip can trap a tire and pitch the rider off the bike, possibly into traffic.

Although the two sides are not ready to rumble over the strips, highway officials want to install more of them while cyclists want the expansion controlled and, in some cases, reversed.

“If someone is not paying attention because they are picking the phone off the floor, that’s driver error,” said Susan Notorangelo of Sharon, Wis., a veteran competitive women’s distance rider. “I am not an advocate of rumble strips at all--not short ones or long ones.”

Notorangelo and her husband, Lon Haldeman, are record-setting transcontinental cyclists who organize and lead cross-country bike tours for highly trained cyclists. When possible, Notorangelo likes to keep her riders on the shoulder, safe from motor vehicles.

That’s not always possible when rumble strips are cut into the shoulder, because the strips were made wide to rattle the vehicles, she said. Grooves can be 6 to 8 inches, but a bike tire typically is only an inch wide, and deep grooves can catch a tire, she said: “It’s very, very hazardous to the riders.”

In some cases, rumble strips use so much shoulder that the rider has too little left to ride on and is forced into the traffic lane, Notorangelo said. “You can’t ride on the rumble strips because it’s a hazard, and you can’t ride on the road because the motorists are mad at you,” she said.

Even when rumble strips don’t hog the shoulder, they grab the best part, said Paul Balaguer, tour director of the Denver Post’s annual weeklong Ride the Rockies expedition.

The strips are placed close to the fog line, the white line that separates the roadway from the shoulder. This is the part of the shoulder that’s most likely to be free of debris, because wind generated by passing cars and trucks blows away the trash, Balaguer said.

With a rumble strip abutting the fog line, the cyclist is forced to the part of the shoulder nearest to the edge of the road, even though that’s where pebbles, broken glass and other rubbish most commonly are blown, Balaguer said.

Rumble strips save lives, said Rudy Umbs, chief of safety design in the Federal Highway Administration. About 15,000 people die each year in what are termed “single vehicle running off the road” accidents, he said. Where rumble strips are used, they can cut deaths by 20% to 50%, he said.

The rumble strip is one part of the solution, along with better signage and highway design and alert, well-rested drivers, Umbs said. A typical location is on a straight, long road with little traffic--a highway on which it is easier for drivers to take their eyes off the road, even to fall asleep at the wheel.

At the same time, highway safety officials want to be attentive to cyclists’ needs, Umbs said.

The League of American Bicyclists, a riders’ group, accepts rumble strips but wants highway officials to make the strips more cyclist-friendly. It has the support of Rep. James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, a cyclist and ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. Oberstar has asked the head of the Federal Highway Administration, Kenneth R. Wykle, to look for alternative designs and to see how the strips affect cyclists.

Several states are developing new designs that still rattle motorists while not unduly shaking cyclists, Umbs said. California highway officials recently presented data on a shallower design that seemed to be acceptable, he said.

Nevada also has been installing rumble strips, but cyclists have complained that the strips are too deeply grooved. A spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, Scott Magruder, said the agency will take their complaints under consideration.