Sierra Club -- cycling is scary

On 5 Jan 2005 13:31:24 -0800, "gds" wrote:


dgk wrote:
On 5 Jan 2005 12:15:10 -0800, "SlowRider"
wrote:
....
Last week we had a particularly grisly episode in which a cyclist was
riding on the shoulder of I-10 at night without lights and got hit by
several vehicles. The body was so ripped up that it took two days to
determine its gender!
Even I, who always wears a helmet, would concede that a helmet would
not have been of much use. But lights and some judgement - (there is a
frontage road along that section of the interstate)


I once, when young and foolish, hitched along an interstate. The wind
caused by passing trucks could blow a biker right off the shoulder.
You really have to be nuts, or drunk, to try that.

dgk wrote:



I once, when young and foolish, hitched along an interstate. The wind
caused by passing trucks could blow a biker right off the shoulder.
You really have to be nuts, or drunk, to try that.

False.

There are many areas in the western US where the Interstates are the
only way to get between towns. I've ridden hundreds of miles of such
Interstate with no problems beyond having to watch for trash on the
shoulder.

And FWIW, the data I've seen shows that Interstate highway cycling is at
least as safe as regular cycling. That is, very safe indeed.


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Frank Krygowski wrote:
dgk wrote:



I once, when young and foolish, hitched along an interstate. The
wind
caused by passing trucks could blow a biker right off the shoulder.
You really have to be nuts, or drunk, to try that.

False.

There are many areas in the western US where the Interstates are the
only way to get between towns. I've ridden hundreds of miles of such

Interstate with no problems beyond having to watch for trash on the
shoulder.

And FWIW, the data I've seen shows that Interstate highway cycling is
at
least as safe as regular cycling. That is, very safe indeed.


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Yep! out here in the west there are actualy organized rides that use
major highway shoulders. And it is true that is sometimes the only
route without a detour of hundreds of miles. But there are the issues
of debris on the shoulder, very fast and high mass trucks, etc that
must be considered. And it usually is a poor decision to use the
shoulder when a frontage road in good condition is 15 yards away and
riding on such a highway in pitch black darkeness w/o lights is a bit
reckless (and illegal)

On 4 Jan 2005 18:14:12 -0800, wrote:

From the January issue of the Sierra Club's magazine, ostensibly trying
to encourage people to ride:

When I saw the Subject line in the OPs article I thought it was going
to refer to an incident I was involved in. Last fall my girlfriend
Julie and I were on a Sierra Club outing to ride the Katy Trail in
Missouri.

On Saturday, October 16, twelve participants (plus the driver) were
in a 15 passenger van (plus a trailer full of bikes and gear)
traveling from St. Charles, Missouri to Clinton, Missouri when we were
involved in a nasty accident west of Sedalia. I just suffered bumps
and bruises, but Julie had two broken ribs.

Of the 13 people, two were hospitalized for a few days, three went
home, the driver (three dislocated toes) went back to St. Charles,
one of the hospitalized women's husband stayed in Sedalia with her,
and five of us completed the ride. Julie followed along in a van we
rented.

Both of our bikes were damaged and I finished the ride on my Fuji
touring bike using Julie's rear wheel. Mine was too tacoed to re-true
and Julie's rear rack was crushed, but between the two we made
one rideable bike.

BTW, Julie and I will be leading a Sierra Club cycling outing in
Summit County, Colorado in August. If you're a member, see "Bicycle"
in the Outings section of the latest club magazine. :-)

YABTW, I'm not in Sierra Club for the politics, I'm in it for the
outings. ;-)


jeverett3ATearthlinkDOTnet http://home.earthlink.net/~jeverett3

Joshua Putnam wrote:
In article , sonicechoes-
says...


It isn't surprising that riding drunk leads to accidents. Balance is
pretty damn important to riding a bike and I bet it goes ride down the
tubes when you drink. Is it possible that 1/4 bicycle accidents
involves a tipsy rider? Who checks to see? I don't think breathalyzer
testing is required for a bike rider.


Bicycling while intoxicated is illegal, so breath tests can be used, but
I doubt they're as rigorous about it as they are with car accidents.

Still, the numbers aren't at all surprising -- people here might not call
them "cyclists," but many people who lose their licenses after repeated
DUIs will then ride a bicycle to the bar or the liquor store instead.


Bicycling while intoxicated is actually not illegal here in NC. It is
specifically exempted from impaired driving laws.

Wayne

Well that sure shows a legislature with good judgement!

Joshua Putnam wrote:
Still, the numbers aren't at all surprising -- people here might not
call
them "cyclists," but many people who lose their licenses after
repeated
DUIs will then ride a bicycle to the bar or the liquor store instead.


Good insight. In the absence of real data, that seems like the most
intuitive explanation: heavy drinkers who happened to be riding bikes
rather than "cyclists" who had been drinking.

JR

dgk wrote:

The wind caused by passing trucks could blow a biker right off the
shoulder. You really have to be nuts, or drunk, to try that.

The only time I was blown down on my bike was when I was on a runway at
a military base behind a C141 going to full throttle for a takeoff. I
knew the plane was taxiing to the runway, but I thought I could get
across the runway before the plane got in position. My middle name is
now "FOD."
Riding on freeways next to large trucks going 80 mph is no sweat.

RFM

Wayne Pein wrote:

Bicycling while intoxicated is actually not illegal here
in NC. It is
specifically exempted from impaired driving laws.

Wouldn't you just love to know what legislator's personal
saga lies behind this particular exemption?

John Everett wrote:



When I saw the Subject line in the OPs article I thought it was going
to refer to an incident I was involved in. Last fall my girlfriend
Julie and I were on a Sierra Club outing to ride the Katy Trail in
Missouri.

On Saturday, October 16, twelve participants (plus the driver) were
in a 15 passenger van (plus a trailer full of bikes and gear)
traveling from St. Charles, Missouri to Clinton, Missouri when we were
involved in a nasty accident west of Sedalia. I just suffered bumps
and bruises, but Julie had two broken ribs.

Of the 13 people, two were hospitalized for a few days...

In other words, the author of that article should be saying "You should
be scared stiff of motoring."

Why not write and tell him?


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]