BIKE: "didn't hear (or see) the car coming"

[Librik or Babich]

Lane Wimberley wrote:

> Jay related how he didn't hear
> the car coming and only realized something was wrong when everything
> went slow motion as he was flying through the air."

Patrick Goetz wrote:

> I can no longer hear cars coming up
> behind me since I've started wearing a helmet  It's quite unsettling to
> be biking down a quiet rural road and suddenly have a giant, noisy
> pickup blast by completely unanticipated.

Yakkity yak yak properly positioned and non-vibrating mirrors yakkity yak yak
yakkity.

And just to one-up Goetz in the business of making inflammatory statements that
will upset most of the list:

. . . If you consider it difficult or impossible to mount properly positioned and
non-vibrating mirrors on your bike, due its design, maybe that design is
essentially flawed for use in traffic. Perhaps we should attempt a bit of
self-criticism about how well we are prepared by our equipment to meet the actual
challenges of traffic on the public roads. Bicyclists seem to be the only users
who do not have at least two mirrors, and we are always so worried about what is
coming up behind us.

I realize that helmet mirrors are an alternative if the arrangement of the bike
design does not readily permit mirrors, but just how easy is it to re-focus on a
mirror that close to the head at a frequency necessary to stay abreast of the
situation to one's rear (like once every 5-10 seconds)? Someone else can likely
set me straight on this. I tried using a helmet mirror but I kept getting headache
from the constant heaving about of my optic muscles. Anyway, if such mirrors
really did the trick, we would not be reading about how these cars keep sneaking
up on cyclists.

The first question any driver should ask whenever anything unpleasant happens in
traffic is: "What could I have done to help prevent this?" or "What did I fail to
do that allowed this to happen?"

--
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?"