BIKE: Re: Safe? Yes.

[Librik or Babich]

Thorne wrote:

> Librik writes: <<and the cyclist can use more distinct body language to indicate
> to the
> pursuing drivers that he/she is looking in the mirror. This helps to keep a
> motorist from losing patience with an oblivious cyclist who just seems to be
> tootling along in their own little world.>>
>
> Or, turn your head to look behind.  There's communication for you.  Also:
> hand signals.

The problem with turning the head to look behind is that it is a more ambiguous
signal.  In this case, where the cyclist is just trying to monitor pursuing
traffic, a head check can be taken as the cyclist's intention to move left, as in
a lane change, causing the motorist to delay an otherwise safe and desirable
passing maneuver. Mirrors check do not have quite such an effect on the motorist,
but they do signal awareness. I think head checks are useful when one is actually
changing lanes, but short of that, mirror checks require fewer contortions..

It may just be my opinion, but I feel that a head check onto a motorist who is
already a bit stressed by having to slow to the cyclist's speed may be (taken as)
more antagonistic than a glance in the mirror would be. Other opinions on this
would be welcome.

I do not see how hand signals relate to the problem of assuring a pursuing driver
that one is aware of them. Remember that we are not trying to antagonize them. I
would not discount this tactic, but I cannot picture what gesture is being made
(except for a turn signal in cases where a turn is immanent).

> This remotely activated multi-strobe approach is _way_ more complicated than
> the problem presented, and what am I (the driver) supposed to understand the
> yellow/red strobe, now that it's switched on to mean? Is it a turn signal?  A
> brake light?  Why not just wave?

That is a good point about the problem of ambiguous signals. In my own case, the
lights are arranged vertically along the centerline of the vehicle, red above
amber. If they are taken for turn signals, this confusion does not seem to last.

(As an aside: I do have electric turn signals on my single bike, and they are
spaced about 2 feet apart horizontally. They do a fabulous job of controlling the
flow of cars past me in critical situations such as lane changes or left turns.
The right turn signal helps to convince a suffering motorist that their anguish at
being stuck behind me is but momentary. They let my hands focus on control as I
approach a turn.)

I cannot see what waving can do to slow a car that is 500 feet away and closing at
40 mph. But then this tactic was not well described.

> Very rarely will a car hit a bike the driver has actually seen.

That right there is the essential point, whether one wants to use my high-tech
approach or jeffrey.thorne's more low-key hand waving technique. But as I said,
"visibility" goes well beyond "are you seen? (yes/no)". There are also the matters
of how early one is seen and how much one registers on the driver in the first
moment. In the toughest of situations, one must be both visible and "inevitable."
That is, it must be clear from a long ways off that the cyclist's presence will
have an effect on the flow of traffic. They cannot just come sailing up with
unrealistic notions about how much space the cyclist needs to occupy.

> Wear
> light-colored clothing, and for riding at night a bright white front light and
> red rear reflector or red rear light (or both, I recommend, and sure, the more
> the merrier, and feel free to put some amber in the mix in the back or front).
>  Either the lane is too narrow to share safely with traffic that is too dense,
> or it isn't.  How wide is the lane?  How dense is the traffic?  Can you be
> seen?  If you have 10 cars backed up behind you unable to safely pass, can you
> pull off for a moment?

Perversely, the denser the traffic, the more one needs to hold the lane unless one
is fully exiting the road to let traffic pass. If one plans to squeeze over and
let a car pass in one's own lane, that is one thing. Letting 10 cars pass is
another, as there is a good chance that the rearmost cars will not even know that
a cyclist is there.

A recent mistake I made in a traffic situation involved my surrendering my lane to
let one car pass me in a wide stretch of that lane. This went off fine, but I was
unable to regain control of the lane from the next car (and the next...) before a
clump of parked cars narrowed my lane. This forced me into close contact with a
stream of passing cars which I could not manage to slow. I got more antagonism
from this than I get when I just hold the lane in advance of the bottleneck and
force drivers to change lanes or wait. I have made plenty of such mistakes in the
past, and they have progressively reinforced my comparatively hoggish views on
lane control. But I should make clear that if one wants to be hoggish about one's
lane, one must equip appropriately and pay much more attention to traffic than
cyclists generally do.

> For the bicycle commuter/person wanting to be a bicycle commuter who is
> uncertain about how to deal with his/her own particular route, let me suggest
> the book EFFECTIVE CYCLING by John Forester.

Sales pitch: I would recommend James Hurst's "The Art of Urban Cycling." It is a
much newer book than Effective Cycling, shorter and more readable, and it takes
into account some of the problems that arose with Forester's pioneering but
unpolished work. I highly recommend Hurst's book, and I have it in stock for
$14.95.

> Googling up John Allen's writings
> on cycling (much available on line), or contacting a local cycling instructor
> certified by the League of American Bicyclists
> [ http://www.bikeleague.org/instructors/byState.cfm?s=TX ]

Summing up, danceswithcars' question about riding on narrow roads has gotten two
divergent answers, both my own equipment-heavy traffic-calming methods and
jeffrey.thorne's more conventional, and certainly more accessible, minimal
methods. The important thing is to get out and ride the bike to work in that
real-life traffic. Do your best and expect that stressful things will happen.

But when stressful things do happen, the important thing is /not/ to blame the
eeevil cars and/or the styoopid society, but to ask one's self "what could I have
been doing better?". I have been doing this for a while, and it led me to the rig
and style that I have. And I would not have believed in the value of all this
heavy and expensive visibility crap and habits of obsessive mirror-watching had it
been presented to me some years back. It took instances of terrifying encounters
where I would leave the situation thinking "if only I had such and such a piece of
heavy and expensive crap," or "if only I had been more obsessive about watching my
mirror." It comes together.

--
Mike Librik, LCI #929
Easy Street Recumbents
512-453-0438
45th and Red River St., thereabouts
Central Austin
info
www.easystreetrecumbents.com
www.urbancycling.com

"Is it about a bicycle?"