View Single Post
  #629  
Old March 21st 17, 08:53 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
NFN Smith[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 33
Default AG: Always signal

Joy Beeson wrote:

The driver's manual says that you don't need to signal your turns
unless your actions might affect other people, but making it a habit
to signal whenever you have no reason to refrain from signaling saves
CPU cycles that can be better spent elsewhere. If you notice that
there is someone who might be affected by your actions, you can move
straight to deciding how his actions are going to affect yours -- you
don't have to initiate the signaling subroutine because it's already
running.

Besides, if there's someone around and you haven't noticed, it's
better if at least one of you has a clue.


Actually, going a step further -- beyond signaling direction, it's good
to get in the habit of signaling for road hazards.

I normally ride alone, and on the occasions that I'm riding in a group,
I always have to take extra effort to remember to signal for stuff that
I may be navigating around. However, I realized that this can also be a
way of alerting motorists of reasons that I may be not as near to the
side of the road as they think that I should be.

I've noted in the past that in the question about how far to the right
you should ride, the general guideline of "as far to the right as
practical" is OK, but there is a difference between the understandings
of "practical" between a cyclist and a motorist. For a motorist that
isn't a cyclist, most tend not to recognize the numbers of things that
accumulate beside the road that a motorist (with the weight, size, speed
and 4 wheels of a closed-cabin car) don't even notice, but are much more
of an issue to a the lighter weight, smaller size, slower speed, and 2
wheels of a bicycle.

If broken glass has been pushed to the side of the road by car traffic,
a motorist may not even notice, but that's a significant threat to a
cyclist, especially a bicycle with high pressure tires. Therefore, if
I'm swerving left to avoid the glass, I definitely want to signal,
although I'm more likely to be pointing at the hazard that I'm trying to
avoid (as if a cyclist was behind me), rather than signaling a momentary
move to the left.

Smith
Ads
 

Home - Home - Home - Home - Home