On Sat, 30 May 2015 00:14:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/29/2015 10:01 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 29 May 2015 13:30:56 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 9:06:29 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 28 May 2015 16:12:37 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Once again, the question is: Ten foot lane, 8.5 foot truck. Where do
you ride? If you try to avoid it by skimming the pavement edge, you
signal to the trucker that it's fine to brush your elbow and squeeze past.

No thanks. I've tried both tactics; I know what works better.

I see what you are typing but you seem to use the refrain "take the
lane" like a mantra. Keep repeating it and you'll be all right. But
what about taking the lane on a highway where the motor vehicles are
traveling at. say 80 - 100 KPH?

They come over the hill or around the corner and there you are..,
right in the middle of the lane pedaling along at 20 kph.

About a 22 Mtr/sec differential velocity. They come over the hill and
you are 100 meters ahead and they have 4.5 seconds to (1) notice you
and (2) decide what to do. If it is a lady refreshing her lip gloss,
looking in the rear view mirror, well, say a couple of seconds to
apply and sort of mash the lips together, another couple of second to
blot with the tissue and take a final look and you are 0.5 seconds
from Nirvana. A bit of a frown and the thought, "Whatever is that
right in the middle of the road? A Bicycle?" and you are just a
receding picture in the rear view mirror.

And, from what I read, this is not a rare event in the U.S. I read
that over 70% of U.S. drivers surveyed admitted to texting, reading
e-mail, applying makeup or reading the newspaper while driving.

"Oh, I didn't see him", while perhaps not a valid excuse seems to
becoming a common excuse.

First, rather little cycling is done on highways with high speed limits.
Perhaps that means you don't, in fact, disagree with lane control when
necessary at slower speeds. I hope that's the case.


That is, in a left handed way, exactly what I meant. I might add that
much, perhaps most of my cycling is done on roads that are as
described, but that isn't the point.

The point is that, as I said, you appear to preach "take the lane" as
a mantra to solve all bicycle-motor vehicle interaction and it
obviously isn't, as you seem to admit above.

If, as you do not say, the mantra went something like "take the lane
where it is safe to do so" than I wouldn't comment, but you don't say
that.

You describe the wide truck and the narrow road and say, "take the
lane".

I described an incident where two women and two kids, on a 100 cc
motorcycle did exactly that and the results was one truck turned over
and the driver injured sufficiently to be admitted to the hospital,
one woman and one child killed in the crash and the other woman and
child were admitted to the hospital "in critical condition".

You replied to my post saying, "they shouldn't have done that".

IIRC (and correct me if I'm wrong) you eventually said they pulled out
from a side road almost directly in front of the truck. And it's true,
they shouldn't have done that. Nobody is advising such a move.


No Frank, that wasn't what happened and I doubt very much that I would
have described it in such terms. They entered via a slip road at
perhaps a 10 or 15 degree angle to the main road.


So, essentially your "take the lane" advice, while perhaps logical in
certain situations is not the cure all solution that you seem to be
trying to market it as.

I've never marketed it as a cure all solution. FWIW, as safety chairman
of my bike club, I've written articles almost every month on some aspect
of bike safety. There's been far more to say than just "take the lane."

Frank you just went on at some length about the wide truck and the
narrow road, a somewhat similar incident to what I described. and you
said "Take the Lane!"

ONTOH whenn teaching in any field, the principles that are most important
and most often ignored are the ones that should get the most emphasis
and repetition. (I was noted for hammering into my students that I
wanted them to always explicitly show units of measurements and their
conversions in every calculation.) And any casual observation of
American cyclists will show that there are far more gutter bunnies than
riders properly controlling lanes. Heck, look at the arguments the lane
control idea gets in this forum, despite links to dozens of
corroborating sources, despite examination of crash causes, despite
citations of legal decisions, etc.


In the case of a higher speed highway, IME they seldom have blind curves
that hide cyclists until the last second. That's based on my riding in
47 U.S. states (so far) and about a dozen foreign countries. High-speed
roads that do have blind curves or sharp hill crests almost always have
low traffic, meaning the problem you cite comes up infrequently.

I'm in Phuket at the moment and I can assure you that on the "road to
town" where traffic is usually passing me when I'm doing 80 KPH in my
old pickup, there are at least three places where the road curves
sufficiently that you cannot see a cycle 100 Meters ahead and several
hills that are sufficiently abrupt that the same conditions apply.

I can only comment on the places where I've ridden. The place I found
most uncomfortable for lane control was Tallinn, Estonia (although I had
no trouble in another smaller Estonian town). Another very avid rider
of my acquaintance claimed that the formerly communist eastern European
countries were unpleasant that way. He theorized that those who were
finally rose out of communist poverty and scarcity were lording it over
those they perceived as being sticks in the mud, so to speak. I can't
say whether his sociological guess was correct.

I can envision there might be countries this doesn't work at all - say,
places where the rule of law is extremely weak, or places with an
intense "might makes right" culture. (And as I've said, nothing works
100% of the time.) But it's clear to me that in westernized, generally
non-cycling countries, the vast majority of cyclists have grossly
inflated "fear from the rear," and they actually subject themselves to
extra risk by gutter hugging.


Frank, we weren't trying to analyze bicycle fears. Simply trying to
determine why someone chants the mantra "Take the Lane; Take the Lane;
Take the lane" as, apparently, a all purpose act, and when someone
does as advised and dies the defense is "Oh, they shouldn't have done
that".


In the unusual instances where those problems arise, I've done fine by
paying attention to the possibility of traffic from behind.

But Frank, you don't say that, you say, "take the lane". You imply
that in the wide truck, narrow road situation, that you describe, that
every thing will be hunky-dory if one just takes the lane.

My experience, having done it thousands of times, is that yes,
everything is hunky-dory if one properly uses their right to the road.
It's not that nobody _ever_ honks at me. It's not that nobody _ever_
passes closer than I'd like. But the honks are rare and don't bother
me; and the close passes are far fewer than in my gutter-hugging days.

Now you say "take the lane, but watch your arse" which is a
significantly different thesis.

Well, I know one nationally-known bicycling advocate who emphasizes the
use of a rear view mirror, and in fact emphasizes it enough that it
irritates some of his colleagues. I do like my eyeglass mirror and do
keep an eye on rearward traffic, but I can't think of a situation where
it's really made a difference. So I don't think it deserves as much
emphasis.

Gee Frank, you seem to have a very selective memory. I remember a big
to-do over "right turn" crashes a while ago and I seem to remember
that you had something to say in that furor. Now, it has been my
experience that looking behind you to see if anyone is overtaking and
looks as though he might turn is very helpful in avoiding these type
of accidents, but apparently you see no need for that sort of
foolishness.
--
Cheers,

John B.