"Share the Road" Signs

[Also Posted to the bicyclism Email List]

=v= For the most part I don't think "Share the Road" signs
(and programs) do much good. The gist of the problem is
that most motorists don't know the situations under which
it's appropriate for a bicyclist to take the lane. Some
motorists have even shouted "share the road" at bicyclists
who take the lane appropriately!

=v= Pennsylvania has a good StR sign, though, because it
shows a bicyclist IN FRONT of a motorist:

http://www.share-the-road.org/

_Jym_

"Jym Dyer" writes:

[Also Posted to the bicyclism Email List]

=v= For the most part I don't think "Share the Road" signs
(and programs) do much good. The gist of the problem is
that most motorists don't know the situations under which
it's appropriate for a bicyclist to take the lane. Some
motorists have even shouted "share the road" at bicyclists
who take the lane appropriately!

=v= Pennsylvania has a good StR sign, though, because it
shows a bicyclist IN FRONT of a motorist:

San Fransisco has some signs similar to that, citing a section
of the CVC, and stating that bicyles may use the full lane.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Bill Z. wrote:
San Fransisco has some signs similar to that, citing a section
of the CVC, and stating that bicyles may use the full lane.

Sunnyvale (CA) has some, too. I like them better than the "share the road"
signs that I've seen, which often seem to imply that motorists and cyclists
can/should travel side-by-side regardless of the road conditions.
--
Darin McGrew, , http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, , http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"I used to have a handle on life, but it broke."

What about this sign?

http://www.everythingbakersfield.com...oad120x100.JPG


--
Warm Regards,

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

=v= That "bikes and cars in mystical yin/yang cosmic
balance" symbol is just the sort of thing that gives Marin
County its partially-deserved bad name. I think only 4%
of the transportation there *isn't* cars, with most cars
being monstro-SUVs with ecology bumperstickers on
them. Bleah.

=v= Nice place to bike, except when they close off your
biking roads to film car commercials.
_Jym_

"Jym Dyer" wrote in message
oups.com...
=v= That "bikes and cars in mystical yin/yang cosmic
balance" symbol is just the sort of thing that gives Marin
County its partially-deserved bad name.

Bakersfield is in Marin County??


--
Warm Regards,

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

"Claire Petersky" writes:

"Jym Dyer" wrote in message
oups.com...
=v= That "bikes and cars in mystical yin/yang cosmic
balance" symbol is just the sort of thing that gives Marin
County its partially-deserved bad name.

Bakersfield is in Marin County??

No, but a wiseass columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle once
suggested a sign saying, "You are now leaving San Francisco County,
fruit and nut capital of the world, and entering Marin County, famous
for its hot tubs and peacock feathers."

The "hot tubs and peacock feathers" are a reference to a hit piece _60
Minutes_ (?)* put out on TV one year, where they visited Marin, beat
the bushes, and interviewed the most spaced out people they could
find, and passed those few people off as representative of the county
as a whole.

Since they were merely bashing liberals and people into psychobabble,
nobody lost their jobs.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

* The program appeared a long time ago and I might have gotten the
name wrong, but I do remember the peacock feathers and hot tubs, as
people were joking about it for some time.

i agree. good ol' pasadena california has some of these signs too, but even
worse, they also have another one that says something akin to "bicycles
watch for right turning cars" at an intersection on a road that is
ostensibly labelled as a class 2 "bike path". talk about sending the wrong
message. :-P

mike

"Jym Dyer" wrote in message
oups.com...
[Also Posted to the bicyclism Email List]

=v= For the most part I don't think "Share the Road" signs
(and programs) do much good. The gist of the problem is
that most motorists don't know the situations under which
it's appropriate for a bicyclist to take the lane. Some
motorists have even shouted "share the road" at bicyclists
who take the lane appropriately!

=v= Pennsylvania has a good StR sign, though, because it
shows a bicyclist IN FRONT of a motorist:

http://www.share-the-road.org/

_Jym_

=v= The hot tubs and peacock feathers were before my time, but
I've had plenty of real-life adventures in Marin County to draw my
own conclusions from. It's a nice place to bike, except for all those
SUVs (car transportation is something like 96% of the trips there,
and most of them appear to be SUVs, the better to have a huge
bumper to put groovy and environmental bumper stickers on). Oh,
and expect to be banned from roads when they're filming car ads,
which they do just about every week.

=v= Bakersfield is indeed not in Marin County, but Marin is where
the stupid cosmic ying-yang "Share The Road" symbol originated,
commissioned by the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. This was in
the wake of a number of bicyclists killed by drivers of SUVs.

=v= San Francisco was not immune from such folly, either. The
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition came up with a "co-exist" symbol
based on the peace sign, with a bike on one side, a car on the
other, and the bottom two wedges turned into a road with a dashed
line down the middle. (Which meant that both the bike and car
were on sidewalks ... which is not inaccurate for San Francisco.)
_Jym_

"Jym Dyer" writes:

=v= The hot tubs and peacock feathers were before my time, but
I've had plenty of real-life adventures in Marin County to draw my
own conclusions from. It's a nice place to bike, except for all those
SUVs (car transportation is something like 96% of the trips there,
and most of them appear to be SUVs, the better to have a huge
bumper to put groovy and environmental bumper stickers on). Oh,
and expect to be banned from roads when they're filming car ads,
which they do just about every week.

There were no SUVs in the 1970s, when the "hot tub and peacock
feather" documentary came out on TV. Curiously, the peacock feathers
scene (a nude woman surrounded by men tickling her with peacock
feathers) was supposedly filmed in San Francisco, where such goings on
were easier to find. :-)

The program was simply a hit piece. If you go to any town and beat
the bushes hard enough, and pass off the 10 flakiest people you can
find as typical of the community, the place will look pretty bizarre.

=v= San Francisco was not immune from such folly, either. The
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition came up with a "co-exist" symbol
based on the peace sign, with a bike on one side, a car on the
other, and the bottom two wedges turned into a road with a dashed
line down the middle. (Which meant that both the bike and car
were on sidewalks ... which is not inaccurate for San Francisco.)

How true. I've even seen cars driving on the sidwalk in San
Francisco, not just parking there, and bicyclist do whatever they
like. You could ride around completely starkers without raising a
local's eyebrow. :-)

How do you tell a San Franciscan from a tourist? If you happen to see
someone wander by completely naked, the tourist will pull out the
camera and the San Franciscan will continue to sip his or her latte
and ignore the spectacle (unless, of course, there is something really
hot to look at - but as a spectator at the Bay to Breakers race once
quipped, "why is it that the people who run with their clothes off are
the last people you'd want to see with their clothes off?")

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB