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#11
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
R15757 blurted out without thinking:
Luigi de Guzman wrote in part: I cannot overstate the cross-traffic hazard; a car wishing to turn right on to the roadway isn't looking for a bicycle coming at him from the wrong side on a sidepath, moving at 15-25 mph. He looks left to check for oncoming traffic, sees none, and drives out-- Into you. Only if you're stupid enough to actually ride in front of a car with a driver who is looking the other direction and who is obviously preparing to pull out. So, you never ride in front of a stopped car about to turn right? Because this is exactly what every driver is doing. They are looking for relevant traffic, which, in a right-turn, is coming from the left. The only reason to look right is to check for pedestrians, and that only requires looking five feet down the road. Austin |
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#12
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
R15757 wrote:
Luigi de Guzman wrote in part: I cannot overstate the cross-traffic hazard; a car wishing to turn right on to the roadway isn't looking for a bicycle coming at him from the wrong side on a sidepath, moving at 15-25 mph. He looks left to check for oncoming traffic, sees none, and drives out-- Into you. Only if you're stupid enough to actually ride in front of a car with a driver who is looking the other direction and who is obviously preparing to pull out. .... or who is UN-obviously preparing to pull out. Seems to me the choices a a) make your own back-assward rules, and stop for every vehicle that might under any circumstances come at you from any direction. (Sounds _very_ slow and inconvenient) b) make your own back-assward rules and rely on your keenly honed, super-human reflexes to save you from trouble (Yeah, right!) c) ride according to the rules of the road, so people can actually give you right of way, anticipate your moves, see you where you're expected to be, etc. I pick the third one. If nothing else, it's proven safer, and it's a lot less hassle. -- --------------------+ Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com, replace with cc.ysu dot edu] |
#13
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
"Laura Bush murdered her boy friend" wrote: This is an american board. Get your own internet, you limey twit. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I don't see a smiley face, so I guess you must be serious. Are you? Do you not know that this is NOT an American (note it is capitalized) newsgroup? Do you NOT know the internet is international? |
#14
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
"Laura Bush murdered her boy friend" wrote Yes it is safer. Cause then they can see any car headed towards them. When they're on the right side, the cars are coming from their rear. So say you. Crash statistics say otherwise. Centuries of collected experience say otherwise. My own few decades of experience say otherwise. I know who I'll believe. Pete |
#15
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
In rec.bicycles.misc Leo Lichtman wrote:
"Laura Bush murdered her boy friend" wrote: This is an american board. Get your own internet, you limey twit. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I don't see a smiley face, so I guess you must be serious. Are you? Do you not know that this is NOT an American (note it is capitalized) newsgroup? Do you NOT know the internet is international? you are being baited. leo, meet mr(s). troll. please ignore mr(s). troll. -- david reuteler |
#16
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
"David Reuteler" wrote in message
... you are being baited. leo, meet mr(s). troll. please ignore mr(s). troll. -- david reuteler I elected not to rise. Still, I did appreciate the use of the phrase "limey twit", even though the phrase might more correctly be applied to one living in a present, rather than former, colony. Back to the original discussion about rules, to quote Matthijs van Boxsel in 'The Encyclopaedia [sic] of Stupidity', "We do not follow a rule because it is functional; a rule becomes functional once everybody follows it. We do not stop at traffic lights because the red colour forces us to stop. The red light has a regulating effect because we stop for it. In short, a rule owes its force not to arguments, but to the herd instinct. [...] the effect precedes the cause: what we have here is a case of epimethean causality. Efficiency is not a natural aspect of rules and regulations, but the result of our compliance." In other words, for cyclists or anyone else not to obey established traffic rules is quite senseless. Then again, to debate the rights and wrongs of the rule per se, likewise,doesn't help us to validate or otherwise refute its legitimacy. |
#17
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
Frank Krygowski wrote:
c) ride according to the rules of the road, so people can actually give you right of way, anticipate your moves, see you where you're expected to be, etc. Agreed that (c) is best, but... Riding according to the rules of the road means that people will give me the right of way and see me? What planet are you on? curiously, Robert |
#18
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
Luigi de Guzman replied:
So I'm supposed to stop. At every cross street. Every driveway. Eh? No, you simply shouldn't ride in front of a right turning vehicle if you are riding counterflow on a sidewalk or sidepath. That would be idiotic. But bike riders do it all the time. They get run down, their stupid little accidents infect the stats, and then people in newsgroups start repeating the mantra "riding counterflow on the sidewalk is very dangerous!" See how that works? Here's an idea: instead of riding in front of the grills of cars, the drivers of which have their necks craned in the opposite direction, ride behind them. Eureka! And, yes, if there is no room to ride behind, you will just have to stop and wait rather than take your chances in front of that bumper. Yes, this is less than optimally convenient. It would be better to be in the street. But what if you're trying to get somewhere down a one-way street? To ride only in the street means you would have to go all the way around the block. Riding sidewalks and sidepaths comes with its own set of special problems--doesn't mean it can't be done though. No, thanks. I'll stay in the road, and ride. If they won't yield to me, they'll yield to the Suburban behind me. Don't count on it. Wait a second--you got your own special Suburban that follows you around? That's serious pimpin'. The rules make things easier, even for stupid people. Rules are nice. The uncritical faith in traffic law that I see often on this newsgroup is dangerous, however. Robert |
#19
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
a confused Austin wrote in part:
So, you never ride in front of a stopped car about to turn right? Not if its driver is looking the other direction, no. Robert |
#20
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Bicyclists going wrong way and other crimes
On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 18:55:23 -0400, Luigi de Guzman
wrote: On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:57:09 -0700, Bill Baka wrote: I don't want to become road kill just to follow the law blindly. When in town or a housing development I ride the right way, so if there were no country roads I would be legal all the time. Just an opinion. Bill Baka Nothing we do can change your mind, obviously. I have the same bikepath/ road problem as you; four-lane highway, actually. The bikepath is on the right side on the way home, but the left (wrong) side on the way out. I take the road on the way out, every time. Why? 1) It's faster. 2) The wrong-way bikepath sets me up for unpleasant encounters with cross-traffic. Fine if you're moving slowly, like 9 mph. Not fine if you're tooling along at 15, 16, 17, 18 mph, or up to 32 (the hills aren't very steep here). The road where I have to go wrong way has only 3 driveways in 3 miles, so I know where to slow down and pay attention. I cruise at about 16mph but slow down to about 5 when passing driveways. There are no crossroads to worry about, being very rural. Another part of the problem is that if I do go on the right side in the afternoon the sun is setting directly in front of me so someone might not see me due to the glare. I like to be seen and hence avoided. I cannot overstate the cross-traffic hazard; a car wishing to turn right on to the roadway isn't looking for a bicycle coming at him from the wrong side on a sidepath, moving at 15-25 mph. He looks left to check for oncoming traffic, sees none, and drives out-- Into you. I am extrememly cautious when that is a possibility, and sometimes just get off the bike and act like a pedestrian in a crosswalk. It doesn't hurt my pride that I have to walk the bike a few feet once in a while. Several squealing-brake confrontations converted me from a bikepath-dweller to a road user. I have had no such trouble at intersections since I started following the law. This is California where motor vehicles are king and bicycles are viewed as a nuisance by most of the motorists. I wish they would put in bike paths but with the budget this year that just isn't going to happen. -Luigi Go play in traffic! I avoid traffic like the plague, but I have to endure about 30 miles each way to get to my gravel and dirt playground where there is not only no traffic but no people, and no Cell phone signal. I live in Northern California 40 miles north of Sacramento and have to ride around Beale Air Force Base to get to the fun stuff. Putting the bike in one of my cars would just be cheating. Bill Baka www.livejournal.com/users/ouij Photos, Rants, Raves -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ |
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