BIKE: Relevant to recent discussions

[Mike Dahmus]

m.lee wrote:

>Let me preface this with... I tend to stop or slow down so much I might as well
>be stopped at stopsigns and lights, but I suspect part of that is I like the
>opportunity it provides me to stretch, take breather, drink water, and various
>other things. Let me also say that on Shoal Creek, I have seen many bicyclist
>unsafely zoom threw both stopsigns and lights and it annoys me. Not because
>they broke the law, but because they were unsafe. They were not paying
>attention which is also the problem with cars, inattentive drivers. Due to
>inattentive drivers and bikes it doesn't matter if you follow the law because
>your probably going to get hit. That is why, I try to be very attentive. While
>driving or biking, I try to keep track of everything that is going on in front,
>behind or to the sides of the road,it  is called defensive driving. I try to
>bicycle the same way.
>
>Now in other countries in the world,(China, Taiwan, Italy to name a few) those
>with less laws actually have less accidents, I.E. with some anarchy on the
>road. Why, because everyone is paying attention because they don't expect
>anyone to behave well or to follow laws. We on the other hand seem to think
>that everyone should follow laws and that on the most part that people will and
>then get upset when they don't...
>  
>
False analogy. There are incredibly few automobiles in two of those 
countries, and the speed of traffic in areas where those modes mix is 
very slow.

>But in the end, I really don't think safety is really about traffic laws, it is
>about paying attention and if you are paying attention and expecting that no
>one else is paying attention, you can break a few traffic laws safely. You can
>probably break a lot of traffic laws and reach a ripe old age. But if you don't
>pay attention than you can follow all the traffic laws and still get hit
>because of this mistaken belief that other people are paying attention.
>
>  
>
This is absurd. Seriously, when driving 45 mph on a major arterial, 
there is not time to assess at every intersection (including driveways) 
whether other people are going to obey the law or not. That's why we 
have the damn signals to begin with.

"just pay attention and yield to everybody else" does not scale. Even in 
Europe, it doesn't scale; it's not a result of our love of the car, but 
rather, an inevitable result of the way the traffic system works.

- MD