Dealing with traffic while commuting

"trg" wrote in message
...
Pbwalther wrote:
What is the best way to handle these situations? Like I said, I
usually just keep on pedaling not yelling or making any gestures one
way or the other.


I think you did the right thing. Ignore the shouts. If they do
something like she did, don't go near them. The lady was obviously
temporily or even permanently deranged. You never know when one of
these people has a firearm or something.

Here in Orlando, a guy was shot and killed on a toll road because he
took too long to get the exact change for the exact change bin. That
was a bizarre thing to do. Did they think shooting him was going to
make him find the exact change faster?

It's to encourage the others.

This made me laugh.

....a lot.

a.

"R15757" wrote in message
...
Well, maybe I should say right-center of the lane. Afterall, I was
doing a
track stand while waiting so my front wheel was turned to the center of
the
lane.

Track stands, unfortunately, are quite annoying to the general public. It
appears to be little more than a cry for attention.

When I'm driving, I enjoy watching someone hold a track stand through a
light cycle.

I also secretly hope to see them fall over.

a.

andrew smith wrote:

When I'm driving, I enjoy watching someone hold a track stand through a
light cycle.

I also secretly hope to see them fall over.



Do you ever jump out and knock 'em over real quick?

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:56:56 -0800,
,
Erik Freitag wrote:

Anyway, if you're stopped at the front of the line in the rightmost lane,
I personally think it is more polite to get to the left of the center of
the lane so anyone who wants to turn right can do so.

It's generally appreciated by polite drivers.

Twice in four years I've had drivers not turning right, try passing
going through the intersection.

It could be more of a problem in areas where there's not as many
cyclists on the roads.
--
zk

I had no idea I would start a track stand debate. I do not always do a
track stand at lights. My situation was one where I was the first vehicle
to the light. There were no other cars near me and I had plenty of time to
get a darn good stand. No wobbling, no movement.

Sometimes, if I am on the downslope of a light I will dab simply because it
is hard to stand on a downslope.

My $0.02


"Tom Keats" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Zoot Katz writes:

Approaching drivers don't know they're not going to 'dart out in front
of them' like a squirrel or something.

So it makes the drivers more cautious, and the cyclist
more visible.

My own track stand skills aren't so highly developed
(I dab at traffic lights), but I've seen some really
competent track stands -- with a backward movement
component, just a couple of inches forward and back,
and none of that histrionic oversteering one sees in
those half-assed efforts, which are really just rolling
forward as slowly as possible. I really don't see how
real track stands could be unnerving to drivers, except
maybe for the rider often being out of the saddle while
doing so.

I wonder about the usefulness of track stands in the
/middle/ of traffic light line-ups. Y'know how sometimes
the lead driver in the line-up overshoots the stop line
and then reverses behind it to wait out the red light, and
sometimes they forget they're in reverse gear? Maybe
there'd be an advantage to being ready to stomp outa there.

Maybe later I'll go find an empty parking lot somewhere,
and practice. In the meantime, I'm stuck here doing a
brakes & cables maintenance overhaul.

BTW: earlier I rode down to MEC (for brake pads & inner
cables) and noticed they have these newfangled Filzer[tm]
cyclocomputers. The price is right, if they're durable.
Even the wireless version.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Powered by FreeBSD
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

In my early days, I did fall once at a light.


"andrew smith" wrote in message
nk.net...
"R15757" wrote in message
...
Well, maybe I should say right-center of the lane. Afterall, I was
doing a
track stand while waiting so my front wheel was turned to the center of
the
lane.

Track stands, unfortunately, are quite annoying to the general public.
It
appears to be little more than a cry for attention.

When I'm driving, I enjoy watching someone hold a track stand through a
light cycle.

I also secretly hope to see them fall over.

a.

andrew smith wrote

When I'm driving, I enjoy watching someone hold a track stand through a
light cycle.

I also secretly hope to see them fall over.

a.

It's not a secret any more

Austin

Tanya Quinn wrote:

Unfortunately the answer seems to be keep pedalling. You aren't going
to be able to enlighten these types. Keep smiling, don't let them
sense they've disturbed you. And also don't let the honker win by
moving over and ceding space. Keep where you are, in general these
types don't want to muck up their paint job by hitting you. A caveat
to this though is you'll have to make a quick decision on how crazy
they seem to be, in some cases moving over to let them pass you easier
is necessary for self-preservation.

When the car is covered with dents from previous impacts, it's a good clue.

Austin
--
I'm pedaling as fast as I durn well please!

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:29:09 -0800, (Tom Keats)
wrote:
....snippage...
BTW: earlier I rode down to MEC (for brake pads & inner
cables) and noticed they have these newfangled Filzer[tm]
cyclocomputers. The price is right, if they're durable.
Even the wireless version.

Nice tip, Tom. (And Ryan C. over in .tech) Seems like MEC is the
*only* folks who got it, too.

And for those of us down under (down under Canada, that is), the 5
buck coop membership (yay! go coops!) and c. 20 buck shipping get
seriously offset by the currency conversion. For the total wireless
order, 48can=36.50us, as of this morning.

As you said, hope they're durable.

Buttons should last longer, since you don't have to push a button 5
times to change modes every time you want to see something other than
the default display.


Ferd

(...who re-looks at picture of device before pressing "post" and
suddenly hopes that his assumption that a Chinese-made device sold in
Canada knows about mph as well as kph holds true. Guess I'll find out
in 7 to 9 days, eh?)
Ferd Berfle

"Usenet is Fun!"

".o0 0o." wrote in message
...
I ride to work two or three days a week. Lately it seems that the car
drivers are becoming more obnoxious.

snip

Two suggestions.

1. Keep a disposable camera in a pocket, and start taking pictures (or
pretend to take pictures) of them and their car. People that are doing
something like what happened to you are basically cowards, and get very
uneasy when someone starts photographing them. In this case, the woman would
assume that you were going to turn the photographs over to law enforcement.
If you have a cell phone with you, call (or pretend to call) 911 (or
whatever number they use where you are).

2. Honk back. This works if you have a horn that is equivalent in volume to
a car horn. I have found this to be amazingly effective, the few times when
I've used it. It's made my commute much more enjoyable, knowing that I can
get the evil-doers that are about to cut me off, to stop (of course I'm
still prepared to stop if they don't). The downside is that I've startled
myself when I accidentally have hit the horn button!

The website http://bicyclelighting.com states:

"A loud horn can come in handy on a bicycle to wake up clueless motorists
chatting on their mobile phones as they cruise through red lights, exit
shopping centers without looking for bicycles, and back out of driveways
into the bike lane without carefully looking for bicycles. Always be
prepared to stop or take evasive action if the motorist doesn't respond to
the horn, but I find a loud horn very effective."

This web site has several suggestions for loud horns; Night-Sun has a good
commuter horn, but I opted for a less expensive, though equally effective
solution. This entire website is a treasure trove of knowledge, I should
know, I wrote it.

Avoid yelling. Avoid gestures. These people know that what they are doing is
wrong, they are trying to get a hostile reaction from you.

Steve