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too scared to bike commute, yes, me



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 8th 18, 09:24 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Oculus Lights[_2_]
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Posts: 48
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak occurrence.
A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45 minutes.
Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence and Central Expressways.
I see some of the same bike commuters on the bike lanes a day or more every week.
But....
cars can be zipping by the bike lane at 50mph
cars can be creeping along with keeping aware of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes fully on the road.
There are some corners and merges where I see at least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.
So here it is, the case for more road construction!!!!! Because a smooth steady homogenous traffic flow is the safest for car drivers and bicyclists alike.
Also the case to get rid of these moronic commuter lanes, placed in the right hand turning lane on local expressways, only serving to aggravate drivers and make them even less attentive of bicyclists because half the commuter lane traffic is scofflaws in the commuter lane afraid of that motorcycle cop blocking the bike lane in order to write nuisance tickets for driving in the bike lane instead of real traffic violations that lead to the crashes that cause my 8 mile commute to take up to an hour instead of the typical 30 minutes.
The mornings GMaps tell me to go all the way to the 101, I may as well call in late for work the moment that comes up on my phone before I leave the house to go to work.
No easy solution.
Living within easy reach of Caltrain would be great, but needing to bike 6 miles to a station that then runs local to Mountain View increases the door to door commute to over an hour.
No viable solution here until viable light rail gets built that actually runs across the peninsula instead of the north south routes that are all that currently exist.
Kinda sucks, and yes, even hardcore like me, can end up too scared to bike commute, yes, me too.
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  #2  
Old September 8th 18, 11:24 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Joerg[_2_]
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Posts: 6,016
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

On 2018-09-08 13:24, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are
consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching
bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak
occurrence. A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45
minutes. Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence
and Central Expressways. I see some of the same bike commuters on the
bike lanes a day or more every week. But.... cars can be zipping by
the bike lane at 50mph cars can be creeping along with keeping aware
of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're
about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their
cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two
minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break
away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes
fully on the road. There are some corners and merges where I see at
least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers
with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a
week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.



I talked to a woman walking her dog and she mentioned that her three
kids live in the Bay Area. They all cycle to work and they _all_ have
gotten hit by cars at least once. With hit she meant accidents that
required medical attention.


... So here
it is, the case for more road construction!!!!! Because a smooth
steady homogenous traffic flow is the safest for car drivers and
bicyclists alike. Also the case to get rid of these moronic commuter
lanes, placed in the right hand turning lane on local expressways,
only serving to aggravate drivers and make them even less attentive
of bicyclists because half the commuter lane traffic is scofflaws in
the commuter lane afraid of that motorcycle cop blocking the bike
lane in order to write nuisance tickets for driving in the bike lane
instead of real traffic violations that lead to the crashes that
cause my 8 mile commute to take up to an hour instead of the typical
30 minutes. The mornings GMaps tell me to go all the way to the 101,
I may as well call in late for work the moment that comes up on my
phone before I leave the house to go to work. No easy solution.



There is. Move out of that rat race. Better yet, becomes self-employed.
That is what I did and never looked back.


Living within easy reach of Caltrain would be great, but needing to
bike 6 miles to a station that then runs local to Mountain View
increases the door to door commute to over an hour. No viable
solution here until viable light rail gets built that actually runs
across the peninsula instead of the north south routes that are all
that currently exist. Kinda sucks, and yes, even hardcore like me,
can end up too scared to bike commute, yes, me too.


Very understandable. I've had enough close calls and a hard crash where
I T-boned a car at high speed while on a road bike. The driver had blown
a stop sign.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
  #3  
Old September 8th 18, 11:44 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Andre Jute[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,422
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 9:24:33 PM UTC+1, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak occurrence.
A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45 minutes.
Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence and Central Expressways.
I see some of the same bike commuters on the bike lanes a day or more every week.
But....
cars can be zipping by the bike lane at 50mph
cars can be creeping along with keeping aware of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes fully on the road.
There are some corners and merges where I see at least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.
So here it is, the case for more road construction!!!!! Because a smooth steady homogenous traffic flow is the safest for car drivers and bicyclists alike.
Also the case to get rid of these moronic commuter lanes, placed in the right hand turning lane on local expressways, only serving to aggravate drivers and make them even less attentive of bicyclists because half the commuter lane traffic is scofflaws in the commuter lane afraid of that motorcycle cop blocking the bike lane in order to write nuisance tickets for driving in the bike lane instead of real traffic violations that lead to the crashes that cause my 8 mile commute to take up to an hour instead of the typical 30 minutes.
The mornings GMaps tell me to go all the way to the 101, I may as well call in late for work the moment that comes up on my phone before I leave the house to go to work.
No easy solution.
Living within easy reach of Caltrain would be great, but needing to bike 6 miles to a station that then runs local to Mountain View increases the door to door commute to over an hour.
No viable solution here until viable light rail gets built that actually runs across the peninsula instead of the north south routes that are all that currently exist.
Kinda sucks, and yes, even hardcore like me, can end up too scared to bike commute, yes, me too.


Now just wait for the outraged cries of "Danger, danger!" from the Krygowski Klowns. You're not supposed to mention the obvious fact that high speed-differentials between cars and bikes are fraught with danger.

Andre Jute
The man who proved that cycling is safer than even the Klowns think
  #4  
Old September 9th 18, 01:10 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
JBeattie
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Posts: 5,870
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 3:24:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-09-08 13:24, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are
consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching
bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak
occurrence. A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45
minutes. Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence
and Central Expressways. I see some of the same bike commuters on the
bike lanes a day or more every week. But.... cars can be zipping by
the bike lane at 50mph cars can be creeping along with keeping aware
of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're
about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their
cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two
minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break
away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes
fully on the road. There are some corners and merges where I see at
least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers
with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a
week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.



I talked to a woman walking her dog and she mentioned that her three
kids live in the Bay Area. They all cycle to work and they _all_ have
gotten hit by cars at least once. With hit she meant accidents that
required medical attention.


And yet they still cycle to work. I got hit a half-dozen times over 15 years of riding in the Santa Clara Valley. It happens, and half of those impacts were inconsequential except to my bike. Working ambulance in San Jose in the '70s, I saw infinitely more people slaughtered in cars.

I just watched my son do a fine job of high-speed car herding. When you have a big motor and high mental processing speed, its not hard. When you get old and slow and lose those things, the world gets scarier. So, you go to Plan B which may be a different route, or riding at a different time or buying an eBike. It is not stopping riding or cowering or hand-wringing. The fact is that traffic is not going to decrease and drivers are not going to get less distracted -- at least not until the apocalypse when the power goes out and we all start running around with cross-bows. Moreover, most of the world is not going to get special trails or entirely separated facilities. You learn methods of coping, like learning how to ride in traffic, being vigilant in those areas where conflicts are common and maybe even taking a different route. I've seemed to manage for the last 50 years, half that time with virtually no special facilities.

-- Jay Beattie.
  #5  
Old September 9th 18, 01:27 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Duane[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,546
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 3:24:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-09-08 13:24, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are
consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching
bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak
occurrence. A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45
minutes. Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence
and Central Expressways. I see some of the same bike commuters on the
bike lanes a day or more every week. But.... cars can be zipping by
the bike lane at 50mph cars can be creeping along with keeping aware
of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're
about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their
cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two
minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break
away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes
fully on the road. There are some corners and merges where I see at
least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers
with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a
week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.



I talked to a woman walking her dog and she mentioned that her three
kids live in the Bay Area. They all cycle to work and they _all_ have
gotten hit by cars at least once. With hit she meant accidents that
required medical attention.


And yet they still cycle to work. I got hit a half-dozen times over 15
years of riding in the Santa Clara Valley. It happens, and half of those
impacts were inconsequential except to my bike. Working ambulance in San
Jose in the '70s, I saw infinitely more people slaughtered in cars.

I just watched my son do a fine job of high-speed car herding. When you
have a big motor and high mental processing speed, its not hard. When you
get old and slow and lose those things, the world gets scarier. So, you
go to Plan B which may be a different route, or riding at a different
time or buying an eBike. It is not stopping riding or cowering or
hand-wringing. The fact is that traffic is not going to decrease and
drivers are not going to get less distracted -- at least not until the
apocalypse when the power goes out and we all start running around with
cross-bows. Moreover, most of the world is not going to get special
trails or entirely separated facilities. You learn methods of coping,
like learning how to ride in traffic, being vigilant in those areas where
conflicts are common and maybe even taking a different route. I've seemed
to manage for the last 50 years, half that time with virtually no special facilities.

-- Jay Beattie.


+1

--
duane
  #6  
Old September 9th 18, 03:36 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,538
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

On 9/8/2018 8:10 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 3:24:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-09-08 13:24, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are
consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching
bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak
occurrence. A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45
minutes. Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence
and Central Expressways. I see some of the same bike commuters on the
bike lanes a day or more every week. But.... cars can be zipping by
the bike lane at 50mph cars can be creeping along with keeping aware
of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're
about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their
cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two
minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break
away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes
fully on the road. There are some corners and merges where I see at
least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers
with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a
week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.



I talked to a woman walking her dog and she mentioned that her three
kids live in the Bay Area. They all cycle to work and they _all_ have
gotten hit by cars at least once. With hit she meant accidents that
required medical attention.


And yet they still cycle to work. I got hit a half-dozen times over 15 years of riding in the Santa Clara Valley. It happens, and half of those impacts were inconsequential except to my bike. Working ambulance in San Jose in the '70s, I saw infinitely more people slaughtered in cars.

I just watched my son do a fine job of high-speed car herding. When you have a big motor and high mental processing speed, its not hard. When you get old and slow and lose those things, the world gets scarier. So, you go to Plan B which may be a different route, or riding at a different time or buying an eBike. It is not stopping riding or cowering or hand-wringing. The fact is that traffic is not going to decrease and drivers are not going to get less distracted -- at least not until the apocalypse when the power goes out and we all start running around with cross-bows. Moreover, most of the world is not going to get special trails or entirely separated facilities. You learn methods of coping, like learning how to ride in traffic, being vigilant in those areas where conflicts are common and maybe even taking a different route. I've seemed to manage for the last 50 years, half that time with virtually no special facilities.


Agreed. There will be no biking nirvana in this country unless society
undergoes radical and catastrophic changes. So it's better to learn how
to cope.

And courses like this https://cyclingsavvy.org/ can teach a person how
to cope.

Note that these people are not macho militants. Among other things, the
course discusses timing your riding moves to take advantage of gaps
between "platoons" of cars, or finding alternative routes, or inducing
motorists to cooperate. They also discuss using segregated bike
facilities, with the very important inclusion of spotting and mitigating
the unique hazards of those facilities.

The most difficult part of the program is convincing someone that there
actually is something to learn. Most bicyclist already know everything -
just ask them!


--
- Frank Krygowski
  #7  
Old September 9th 18, 10:50 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,261
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 1:24:33 PM UTC-7, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak occurrence.
A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45 minutes.
Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence and Central Expressways.
I see some of the same bike commuters on the bike lanes a day or more every week.
But....
cars can be zipping by the bike lane at 50mph
cars can be creeping along with keeping aware of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes fully on the road.
There are some corners and merges where I see at least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.
So here it is, the case for more road construction!!!!! Because a smooth steady homogenous traffic flow is the safest for car drivers and bicyclists alike.
Also the case to get rid of these moronic commuter lanes, placed in the right hand turning lane on local expressways, only serving to aggravate drivers and make them even less attentive of bicyclists because half the commuter lane traffic is scofflaws in the commuter lane afraid of that motorcycle cop blocking the bike lane in order to write nuisance tickets for driving in the bike lane instead of real traffic violations that lead to the crashes that cause my 8 mile commute to take up to an hour instead of the typical 30 minutes.
The mornings GMaps tell me to go all the way to the 101, I may as well call in late for work the moment that comes up on my phone before I leave the house to go to work.
No easy solution.
Living within easy reach of Caltrain would be great, but needing to bike 6 miles to a station that then runs local to Mountain View increases the door to door commute to over an hour.
No viable solution here until viable light rail gets built that actually runs across the peninsula instead of the north south routes that are all that currently exist.
Kinda sucks, and yes, even hardcore like me, can end up too scared to bike commute, yes, me too.


Let's go over this since I nearly bought it yesterday: what traffic APPEARS to be to you and what it truly is can be entirely different. The roads you are talking about - Lawrence and Central are a couple of dangerous roads but there are comparable and much safer routes. The wider the bike lane and/or shoulder the safer they are. Believe it or not, cars DO respect white lines on the road even if they don't respect bicycles.

Also you find that off of main expressways that if you respect drivers they almost always respect you. I ALWAYS make room for cars to pass if there is room to do so. Many people do not do that and cause friction between the two groups that isn't necessary.

If you are driving anything other than an economy car that 8.5 miles is probably one gallon of gas or nearly so. Double that to get $7. That's a years gas bill of about $350 or a real nice dinner with your significant other and a nice bottle or two of wine to go with it.

That's also about an hour and a half of exercise per day and 7 1/2 per week which puts you into the category of healthy cyclists and will extend your life at least 5+ years according to exercise research.

What's more - I have an appointment 25 miles from my home to Palo Alto Medical Center two times per year. It takes me now 2 hours to get there and an hour to return against commute traffic and later in the day. I can ride my bike 1 1/2 hours each way. I can even take far more scenic changes of route that don't much effect my time.

I think that I've only been hit this once by a car and it was someone rolling a stop sign and going very slowly. Rather than handle it like I did I would suggest letting a lawyer do it. It wasn't so much that I could have made significantly more by using a lawyer as much as the damned paperwork.

I think that it was here that I did the numbers on bicyclists fatal accidents and I really wouldn't worry about it. You really do stand a greater chance of dying in a car accident.
  #8  
Old September 9th 18, 10:53 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,261
Default too scared to bike commute, yes, me

On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 5:10:32 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 3:24:36 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-09-08 13:24, Oculus Lights wrote:
Been thinking about this for the past few weeks. My observations are
consistent from day to day enough to see that one day of watching
bicyclists nearly getting killed by car drivers was not a freak
occurrence. A new job has me driving to work, 8.5 miles, 20 tp 45
minutes. Some of you in Silicon Valley know the main roads, Lawrence
and Central Expressways. I see some of the same bike commuters on the
bike lanes a day or more every week. But.... cars can be zipping by
the bike lane at 50mph cars can be creeping along with keeping aware
of a possibly biker alongside or crossing a side street where they're
about to turn onto or or off of depending on which shortcut their
cellphone mapping is telling them to take, all to save one or two
minutes of time... and phone calling and not even being able to break
away from other driving distractions long enough to keep their eyes
fully on the road. There are some corners and merges where I see at
least one close call a week between inattentive and arrogant drivers
with a bicyclist. telling me that if I biked to work a few days a
week, that eventually the odds could hit, and so would I be.



I talked to a woman walking her dog and she mentioned that her three
kids live in the Bay Area. They all cycle to work and they _all_ have
gotten hit by cars at least once. With hit she meant accidents that
required medical attention.


And yet they still cycle to work. I got hit a half-dozen times over 15 years of riding in the Santa Clara Valley. It happens, and half of those impacts were inconsequential except to my bike. Working ambulance in San Jose in the '70s, I saw infinitely more people slaughtered in cars.

I just watched my son do a fine job of high-speed car herding. When you have a big motor and high mental processing speed, its not hard. When you get old and slow and lose those things, the world gets scarier. So, you go to Plan B which may be a different route, or riding at a different time or buying an eBike. It is not stopping riding or cowering or hand-wringing. The fact is that traffic is not going to decrease and drivers are not going to get less distracted -- at least not until the apocalypse when the power goes out and we all start running around with cross-bows. Moreover, most of the world is not going to get special trails or entirely separated facilities. You learn methods of coping, like learning how to ride in traffic, being vigilant in those areas where conflicts are common and maybe even taking a different route. I've seemed to manage for the last 50 years, half that time with virtually no special facilities.

-- Jay Beattie.


I've done MANY rides from Mountain View to San Francisco along El Camino Real which doesn't even have a bike lane and with the most dangerous drivers possible without worrying about it.
 




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