Butte County’s flat valley and curving mountain roads have long been popular with cyclists — from recreational bikers to bike commuters. But safety is a major concern—especially on a stretch of Cohasset Road outside city limits.
Steve O’Bryan, owner of Pullins Cyclery, said he now receives three to four crash-damaged bikes every month, and believes that number has increased in recent years as the city grows.
Like other cyclists, O’Bryan finds that stretch of Cohasset Road outside city limits nerve-wracking—especially where the road narrows. O’Bryan said he rides on Cohasset Road very carefully. (Butte County officials recently met with Cohasset residents. See main story for more.)
“I’m over as far as I can get to the right hand side,” O’Bryan said. “I have this weird sensation. The hair on the back of my neck starts to tingle when I know cars are coming too close. So I will pull over. You’re not going to win against a motor vehicle, and a lot of people aren’t aware of how far their mirrors stick out.”
Rudy Bustamante, a 66-year-old retired Spanish teacher who took up road biking as a hobby during the pandemic, has only ridden that section of Cohasset Road twice.
Bustamante’s impression was that some of the people driving there tend to be a little less respectful of bikers.
“They tend to show it by being aggressive,” Bustamante explained. “They honk. They do hand gestures. Sometimes they yell at the cyclists. Of course, they tend to drive way too close to you when there is no need to.”
Michael Shepherd, a local attorney, was struck by a truck’s side mirror on Cohasset Road, bruising his back in 2015. Three years later, his friend, William Doherty, a local surgeon, died after being struck by the side mirror of a truck driven by the same man while trying to avoid a deteriorated edge of roadway. (See ChicoSol story on the accidents and fallout here.)
All cyclists interviewed by ChicoSol called for more signage on that stretch of Cohasset Road and more education for drivers.
Shepherd believes that there should be proper signage on Cohasset Road to remind the drivers to stay at least 3 feet away from bicyclists while passing the bike traveling in the same direction. Shepherd, as a cyclist himself, has ridden bicycles in the Bay Area regularly where that signage is often used.
Jeff Schwein, co-director of Chico Velo, a local non-profit promoting bicycling, agreed with Shepherd.
“California’s 3-foot rule might have saved that cyclist’s life if the driver would have respected it,” Schwein said, noting that he wasn’t in a position to comment on the Doherty accident in particular.
Schwein said that signage can be an educational component for drivers to remember that bicycles are also vehicles that have the right to be on the road, and that they need to ensure the cyclists’ safety while passing.
“There’s obviously a component here where the public works department of the local agency does have a responsibility to keep our roads in good repair,” Schwein said. “However, there’s more responsibility for that driver to recognize that they’re coming upon a cyclist and that’s a vulnerable road user.”
ChicoSol reporters drove up Cohasset Road on a recent afternoon, and only found two “Share the road” signs and one “Road narrows” sign before the road narrows. There is no signage warning drivers to maintain at least a 3-foot distance from bicyclists.
“We are always open to signage,” said Joshua Pack, director of Butte County Public Works, adding that the county is currently doing a comprehensive road safety signing study.
“That study will look at opportunities to improve and maintain signage,” Pack said. “The reality, though, is that we want to be careful and cautious. We want to be smart about the signs we place because you can have issues with over signage. And the reality is (there are) a lot of signs people don’t pay attention to.”
The study should be completed next year and Public Works may have recommendations for the signage on the Cohasset corridor then, Pack noted.
This story was clarified on July 29 to better portray Jeff Schwein’s intent in commenting on California’s 3-feet-of-space law.
Yucheng Tang is a California Local News Fellow reporting for ChicoSol.
It’s pretty well known that there is a segment of the community in Cohassett that does not want cyclists of “their” road and are intentionally aggressive and intimidating to cyclists. There is a little bit of that in any rural area served by a narrow road, but Cohassett stands out as rather special. A fair number of residents commute daily to Chico and compensate for the distance from their work by driving extremely fast and see cyclists as an unwanted hindrence to that.