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Old March 21st 14, 02:18 PM posted to aus.bicycle
F Murtz[_2_]
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Posts: 193
Default Southern cross drive accident

Stuart Longland wrote:
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 00:25:01 +0000, news13 wrote:

On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 10:13:36 +1100, Trent W. Buck wrote:


And because a bike/ped collision is safer for everyone than a bike/car
collision, and (situation dependent) less likely besides.


How many shared bicycle/ped paths have you ridden.
Ring a bell or sound a horns or hout to advise you're passing and
instant bike stand as they jump in front of you.

Ride wide around them and they mouth off like the dumb gfskers they are.


Yeah, I've had this too.

Yes pedestrians, I *will* give way to you, but a bit of due diligence on
*your* part would be *greatly* appreciated.

40kg of bicycle + 90kg of rider doesn't stop *that* quickly.

And I'm only a gentle plodder. There are some really dumb peds around
and that is before you encounter the headphone brigade.


I suspect the design rules for bicycles haven't changed much in 50
years. 50 years ago we did not have:

- portable music players (okay, there *were* transistor radios)
- mobile phones
- tablet computers

Bicycles 50 years ago did not have:

- gears (unless you were rich)
- hand brakes (many were backpedal brakes)

So ringing a bell was perfectly adequate. One only ever used the
handlebars for hanging on or steering -- to operate the brake you
backpedalled. That meant you had a hand free to muck around with a
woefully inadequate bell. The lack of distractions meant there was a
good chance the pedestrian concerned would hear you and react.

Fast forward all this time, and the pedestrian in front has the iPod
blaring out at top note, and is heavily engaged in some game on his/her
phone. Your bell is no match and in the meantime you're trying to ring
it and trying to simultaneously shift down in gears and brake at the same
time.

I have a lighting system mounted to the bike which includes indicators.
There's a 12V battery on-board which powers the lights plus a radio
transceiver. When I initially set it up, I thought I'd notice the lights
flashing, but found I was sometimes forgetting to turn them off, so I
added one of these:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?
ID=AB3466&form=CAT2&SUBCATID=984#1

Quite handy around errant pedestrians. However it's only useful when
you're about 5m away, and most don't twig that the beeping noise is a
cyclist hitting the anchors. It's useless with cars in traffic though.

Ode for a horn … I'm sorely tempted to go visit a car wreckers to see if
they've got an old one from a truck or some such that'll run off the 12V
supply, however haven't done so yet.

What is that link supposed to do?
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