Interesting city webpage on sharing the road

Considering the recent political brouhaha about cyclists on Mercer
Island, I thought this page on the City's website to be interesting:

http://www.ci.mercer-island.wa.us/Page.asp?NavID=1834

Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referr*al/Cpetersky

Claire wrote:
Considering the recent political brouhaha about cyclists on Mercer
Island, I thought this page on the City's website to be interesting:

http://www.ci.mercer-island.wa.us/Page.asp?NavID=1834

That page is calm, rational, and far too full of common sense and
courtesy. I wish everybody on the road would drive like that, and I
mostly try to, myself, in a car or on a bike.

But we can't have much of a discussion based on calmness, or on
rational, polite suggestions. Why don't they mention helmets?

"Pat Lamb" wrote in message
...
Claire wrote:
Considering the recent political brouhaha about cyclists on Mercer
Island, I thought this page on the City's website to be interesting:

http://www.ci.mercer-island.wa.us/Page.asp?NavID=1834

That page is calm, rational, and far too full of common sense and
courtesy. I wish everybody on the road would drive like that, and I
mostly try to, myself, in a car or on a bike.

But we can't have much of a discussion based on calmness, or on rational,
polite suggestions. Why don't they mention helmets?

Well....

Up the road from where I live and where I cycle frequently is a large
quarry. Large trucks are a frequent sight on the road going to and from the
drivers of these huge vehicles are, for the most part, extremely courteous
to little old me on my bike, in terms of how they treat me as another road
user. So I dropped the quarry manager a line explaining how courteous the
vast majority of drivers are to me (& husband & son as we all cycle round
here). I said that how they would hang back until safe to overtake, overtake
carefully giving plenty of room and not pulling back in front of me until
vehicle was well clear, is greatly appreciated. I asked that if possible,
the drivers be told that such courtesy is really appreciated as it isn't
always feasible to take a hand off the handlebars to give a 'thank you' wave
at the time. There was a call for me from the transport manager of the
company - he was thrilled to get the letter and would make sure it was
placed at the quarry where the drivers could see it.

Cheers, helen s

In article ,
wafflycat remove celebrities and change caps to obvious wrote:

Up the road from where I live and where I cycle frequently is a large
quarry. Large trucks are a frequent sight on the road going to and from the
drivers of these huge vehicles are, for the most part, extremely courteous
to little old me on my bike, in terms of how they treat me as another road
user.

This isn't all that surprising. In my experience (and the experience of
every motorcyclist I've ever heard comment on the subject, who typically
spend more time driving near big trucks than most cyclists), the big
trucks tend to be driven by people who actually know how to drive, and
who spend enough time on the road to realize that doing things properly
is actually important.

In general, anything with more or less than four wheels is likely to
be pleasant to share the road with; the two-wheelers are driven by
people who know that their safety depends on being aware of what's
going on around them and being able to react appropriately, and the
eighteen-wheelers are driven by people who know that there's a reason
why being aware of what's going on around them and being predictable
is a Good Thing. It's the four-wheelers that you have to worry about,
not so much because they can be expected to have incompetent drivers
(most are at least competent and aware), but because it's where the
incompetent ones are almost universally found.


dave

--
Dave Vandervies
Why on earth would you expect a problem to occur? Are you saying I'm
incompetent or something?
--Peter Seebach in comp.lang.c