Not much needed in a "Be Seen" light

Joerg writes:

Radey Shouman wrote:
Joerg writes:

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 08:04:24 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:00:19 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 07:46:55 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/20/2014 8:18 PM, Joerg wrote:
AFAIU right-hook crashes are the major concern with bike
paths over there. Why do they want to dump the baby out with the bath
water instead of looking for the obvious?
I'd suggest not putting the baby in stinky bath water to begin with.

Worse? Driver are negligent and sometimes dazed out here (drugs, booze,
pills, cell phones) but they sure are a ton more courteous than in
Europe.
Hmm. I've found drivers to be pretty similar in the U.S. and Europe -
IOW, almost all treat me well. I do think that they're a bit more
courteous where there are lots of cyclists, and where there are strict
liability laws. Admittedly, I don't have a ton of experience with the
latter.

I never, not once, got into a critical situation on a US bike
path.
I think I've mentioned that our bike club members have had many more
hospital visits from bike path riding than from road riding, despite far
more miles ridden on roads. The crashes didn't involve cars, but other
cyclists, pedestrians, slippery surfaces, shoulders with sudden
dropoffs, etc. But the broken bones and hospital visits were real.

So why is it that in all my life as a cyclist, and that's decades by
now, there was no critical situation of this kind on a bike path? And
why is it that I got into crashes on the road several times where every
single time the car driver was at fault?

The worst one was where I banged into a car door so bad that the driver
could not open it anymore from the inside.

And why is it that _all_ my friends that were severly hurt were hurt
while cycling on roads? Which serious I mean things like a lost kidney,
ruptured spleen and such.

If bicycling is the dangerous pastime that you have just described it
should be totally banned, and quite obviously cyclists are people who
require local, state, or national, legislation to protect them as you
have just provided proof that they are deliberately engaging in a life
threatening activity as a sport.

At the very minimum insurance, whether life, injury or death, should
be written to negate payment for bicycle injuries as that is a known
danger which would not be engaged in by normally prudent people.
Wityh that kind of argumentation you should also ban the sports of
socccer. It's much more dangerous to the health.
Exactly. Although I never participated on Soccer, I might comment that
I never heard members of a (American) football team or the ice hockey
team sit around the locker room telling each other how dangerous the
sport is.

As I am reading here.

I'll go a little further. I had a couple of friends that were sky
divers, probably the most dangerous sport one can participate in, and
for the several years I knew them I never heard them even mention that
the sport was dangerous.
Then they live a risky live. I did skydiving for many years, in Belgium.
One of the first things our teacher told us was "If you ever loose that
litte knot of afraidness in your stomach before leaving the aircraft,
stop skydiving. Because let's not kid ourselves, it is dangerous".

That sport is very dangerous. And yeah, I did it anyhow. But here is the
rub: _I_ get to decide how much risk I will take. When riding on the
side of a busy road with my bicycle others decide how much risk I will
be exposed to. The guy in the truck back there that just had a few shots
at the saloon, the lady in the sports car that took sleeping pills to be
able to sleep duing the day because if shift work, the kid in the
roaring lowrider who is looking at an incoming text message, and so on.
Whether the sport is dangerous, or not, isn't the point. The point is
that I've never heard anyone who was engaged in any of the more
dangerous sports, or activities, sit around and tell each other "how
dangerous this is".

They do point out dangers to each other just like we do here. For
example, we regularly talked to the "low pullers" who would pull at
1800ft or less. Or about how to approach better in the next formation
jump to reduce the chance of smacking into each other. Mountain bikers
do the same. "If you ride past the curve over yonder don't gain too much
speed on the downhill stretch afterwards because at the end there is ...".

On a previous job I worked with a guy that liked to base jump in his
spare time. On one occasion he traveled to, IIRC, Arkansas, to jump off
a bridge in a park that was open for that kind of thing only one day a
year. Midway through the event, somebody made a mistake and died. My
co-worker said that everyone waited around for maybe half an hour, while
the mess was cleaned up. But they all kept their places in line, and
the party did not stop.

I never hear stories like that about bicycling.


I do:

http://archive.mtbr.com/00/0EFB09F7.php

The Darrington Trail is one of my regular rides. AFAIK several mountain
bikers have died at that same location. Lose your balance and it's over.

The closest local trail to our house is also one of the scarier ones. A
loooong rock garden, most of the rocks are loose and it's pretty steep
downhill. Once I took a neighbor (experienced MTB rider) out there who
intitially said "Nah, there's nothing worth mantioning anywhere close".
I let him ride ahead and partially into this section I heard him scream
"Holy smokes!". He said he came pretty close to a crash.

Mountain bikes are almost like skydivers and base jumpers. Once the
rescue helicopter has left it's back to business.

Odd that you should make this comment, as you've been telling us how
much safer even hard core mountain biking at night is than riding on the
road. It certainly is possible to die mountain biking, but it doesn't
seem to happen very often.

My own anecdatal approach is admittedly not even wrong, but I know a
number of enthusiastic mountain bikers, and would be surprised to hear
than even one of them had been present when someone died at some kind of
biking event. I would be astonished to find that they were as
matter-of-fact about it immediately afterward as my one base jumping
acquintance was.

Base jumping is much more dangerous than mountain biking, and requires a
higher risk tolerance of its participants. But perhaps people are in
better agreement on how dangerous it is, so less caterwauling seems to
be called for.

It may be that some people hear "biking is not very dangerous" as "one
needn't take care when biking", although they are not at all the same.
For example, handling explosives professionally is really quite safe,
precisely because of the care that is taken.


--

Joe Riel writes:

Joy Beeson writes:

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:40:43 -0700, Joe Riel wrote:

I need to make a smaller one to
see if it is acceptable.

Here's a good test: get into the driver's seat of a car and line up
the mirror you are wearing with the outside mirror on the car. You
should be able to see the corners -- and ONLY the corners -- of the
mirror on the car.

While a reasonable test, there is a difference. The outside mirror
on a car doesn't generally block the normal direction of view;
that's the job of the A-pillars.

Reading between the lines, when you check to your left you turn your
head perhaps 45 degrees, and make up the rest by turning your eyes?
I find that less effective now that I wear glasses for distance
vision -- peripheral vision exists, but is not very clear.

One thing that can help is to mount the mirror above your normal line of
sight. That way you'll have to look up to see the mirror, it's still
easier than looking over your shoulder.

--

On 25/10/14 11:29, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 11:49:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2014 7:58 AM, John B. Slocomb wrote:


As far as I remember there was always, at least as far back when I was
16 years old, a law that required slower traffic to move to the
extreme right side of the road. In fact I can remember signs posted
saying "Slow traffic keep right".

So regardless, a bicycle thundering along at 15 mph would be required
to stay on the right so not to impede other traffic.

The laws you remember may not be the laws currently in effect. Times
have changed, at least in many states. IIRC, the UVC now has statements
explaining situations in which bicyclists don't need to be at far right.
Some states (like mine) have generous lists of examples of such
situations written into law, along with statements indicating there may
be other valid reasons.

Unfortunately, there are some areas whose laws have not progressed
beyond the 1950s. More unfortunately, there are motorists and cyclists
whose thinking has not progressed beyond the 1950s.

Yes, I know. But the idea of riding out in the middle of the road at
less then half the speed of overtaking traffic is not one that I would
recommend as it places the responsibility for one's safety completely
on the shoulders of others.

In fact, I described a case of someone "taking the lane" in which 2
out of the four riders were killed on the spot and the other two taken
to the hospital.

If I remember, you said something like, "well they shouldn't taken the
lane under those conditions."

Since "taking the lane" involves riding out in the middle of the road,
in traffic traveling perhaps two or three times the speed of the
bicycle, it appears that the mind set here is, "Oh, I'm out here where
they can see me so they won't hit me". But at the same time we are
bombarded with news stories talking about an auto hitting a bicycle
while the driver are texting, looking in the mirror to put on
lipstick, etc.

The fact that the UVC has examples of times when one doesn't have to
stay on the right side of the road is, I'm sure, of great comfort to
someone who's wife, husband, children, have just been run over by a
beautiful; young lady who "just had to" send that text message.


I don't know that it really matters where you ride if your number is up.
It must be difficult not to see a group of riders, yet...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-i...316-34usd.html

--
JS

Joy Beeson writes:

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 17:53:27 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

I have never left the road on a bicycle or
anything else because I saw someone behind me preparing to run me down.

I once left the road because of something I saw in front of me, moving
away.

A car passed me going honkety honkety honkety and I glared at him in
annoyance, then read the sign on his back and realized that he was
trying to warn me that I was being overtaken by a house.

I will freely grant that your life has been much more exciting than mine
in that regard, but my point, that successfully evading a collision coming
from behind is a rare occurence, survives.

Was it a manufactured house, built for moving, or a stick-built house on
a trailer? I have seen the latter being moved, but only late at night,
and only at a pace slow even for bicycles.

--

On 26/10/14 13:06, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/25/2014 7:35 PM, Joe Riel wrote:


Just curious, what was the highest posted speed limit on any of those
roads on which you took the lane? What was the typical speed limit (a
guess). Almost no rides I ride on have less than a 45 mph speed limit.

55 mph would have been the highest. Typical would be hard to say, since
(again) the roads had so much variety. It went down to 25 on some park
roads and, I assume, on some of the residential streets. Heck, we even
rode down one alley for a block.

The most difficult, psychologically, was one heavily traveled suburban
road whose pavement had deteriorated to patches upon patches. Back when
it was smooth, it was wide enough to be comfortably shared; but now,
there were times that I was further left just because the right was so
damned rough. In that situation, I worry a bit that the motorist might
not understand what we're up against. It's speed limit is 45, IIRC.

And BTW, there I definitely rode far left until cars were close,
specifically so they'd notice us far in advance. Most of the time, I
was able to then move right - but not always.



Most country roads here have a 100km/h limit. That's about 62mph. It
takes them some time to register that a cyclist has taken the lane in
front of them, and then some to slow down enough. Before taking the
lane you need to ensure plenty of breathing space between you and any
following traffic you're about to move out in front of. They rarely
anticipate that you will move out just because the nice hard shoulder
vanishes over a narrow bridge, for example.

http://goo.gl/maps/d4GbR

For some reason the bright sparks who thought it would be a good idea to
add a cycle lane couldn't afford to extend it over the narrow bridges -
where it is most needed.

http://goo.gl/maps/ZxT27

--
JS

On 26/10/14 13:28, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, October 25, 2014 6:47:33 PM UTC-7, Phil W Lee wrote:

snip

Anyhow, riding in the middle of the lane on a busy street
with a bicycle is IMHO not smart.

No, it's NOT taking the lane that's not smart. Get some proper
training!


Full disagreement here. And that won't change.

Ignore safety advice at your peril. But I do wish you'd stop
reinforcing motorists sense of over-entitlement by pretending that
they are in any way superior in law. They aren't, and the last
thing any cyclist should be doing is endangering others by
promoting that agenda.

http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/ would make good reading
for you, I think. It should be required reading for all
prospective motorists.

Taking the lane is an imperative sometimes. Taking it all the time
requires a parade permit. There is a happy medium between never and
always -- and that happy medium is easily divined from reading the
UVC.

Notwithstanding the right under the UVC to take the lane, it might
not be the safe thing to do under certain circumstances, e.g. on a
twisting road with poor sight lines. I always find it hard to
believe, though, when someone claims that an entire region (Calfornia
or even just Cameron Park) is simply too dangerous to take the lane
or ride without a retina burning flasher.


I take issue with the "not safe on a twisting road with poor sight lines."

If a motorist is travelling at such a speed that they cannot easily
avoid crashing in to something on the road because they didn't expect
there to be an impediment to their progress, tells me they are in the
wrong for travelling too fast under the circumstances.

--
JS

Radey Shouman wrote:
Joerg writes:

Radey Shouman wrote:
Joerg writes:

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 08:04:24 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:00:19 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 07:46:55 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/20/2014 8:18 PM, Joerg wrote:
AFAIU right-hook crashes are the major concern with bike
paths over there. Why do they want to dump the baby out with the bath
water instead of looking for the obvious?
I'd suggest not putting the baby in stinky bath water to begin with.

Worse? Driver are negligent and sometimes dazed out here (drugs, booze,
pills, cell phones) but they sure are a ton more courteous than in
Europe.
Hmm. I've found drivers to be pretty similar in the U.S. and Europe -
IOW, almost all treat me well. I do think that they're a bit more
courteous where there are lots of cyclists, and where there are strict
liability laws. Admittedly, I don't have a ton of experience with the
latter.

I never, not once, got into a critical situation on a US bike
path.
I think I've mentioned that our bike club members have had many more
hospital visits from bike path riding than from road riding, despite far
more miles ridden on roads. The crashes didn't involve cars, but other
cyclists, pedestrians, slippery surfaces, shoulders with sudden
dropoffs, etc. But the broken bones and hospital visits were real.

So why is it that in all my life as a cyclist, and that's decades by
now, there was no critical situation of this kind on a bike path? And
why is it that I got into crashes on the road several times where every
single time the car driver was at fault?

The worst one was where I banged into a car door so bad that the driver
could not open it anymore from the inside.

And why is it that _all_ my friends that were severly hurt were hurt
while cycling on roads? Which serious I mean things like a lost kidney,
ruptured spleen and such.

If bicycling is the dangerous pastime that you have just described it
should be totally banned, and quite obviously cyclists are people who
require local, state, or national, legislation to protect them as you
have just provided proof that they are deliberately engaging in a life
threatening activity as a sport.

At the very minimum insurance, whether life, injury or death, should
be written to negate payment for bicycle injuries as that is a known
danger which would not be engaged in by normally prudent people.
Wityh that kind of argumentation you should also ban the sports of
socccer. It's much more dangerous to the health.
Exactly. Although I never participated on Soccer, I might comment that
I never heard members of a (American) football team or the ice hockey
team sit around the locker room telling each other how dangerous the
sport is.

As I am reading here.

I'll go a little further. I had a couple of friends that were sky
divers, probably the most dangerous sport one can participate in, and
for the several years I knew them I never heard them even mention that
the sport was dangerous.
Then they live a risky live. I did skydiving for many years, in Belgium.
One of the first things our teacher told us was "If you ever loose that
litte knot of afraidness in your stomach before leaving the aircraft,
stop skydiving. Because let's not kid ourselves, it is dangerous".

That sport is very dangerous. And yeah, I did it anyhow. But here is the
rub: _I_ get to decide how much risk I will take. When riding on the
side of a busy road with my bicycle others decide how much risk I will
be exposed to. The guy in the truck back there that just had a few shots
at the saloon, the lady in the sports car that took sleeping pills to be
able to sleep duing the day because if shift work, the kid in the
roaring lowrider who is looking at an incoming text message, and so on.
Whether the sport is dangerous, or not, isn't the point. The point is
that I've never heard anyone who was engaged in any of the more
dangerous sports, or activities, sit around and tell each other "how
dangerous this is".
They do point out dangers to each other just like we do here. For
example, we regularly talked to the "low pullers" who would pull at
1800ft or less. Or about how to approach better in the next formation
jump to reduce the chance of smacking into each other. Mountain bikers
do the same. "If you ride past the curve over yonder don't gain too much
speed on the downhill stretch afterwards because at the end there is ...".
On a previous job I worked with a guy that liked to base jump in his
spare time. On one occasion he traveled to, IIRC, Arkansas, to jump off
a bridge in a park that was open for that kind of thing only one day a
year. Midway through the event, somebody made a mistake and died. My
co-worker said that everyone waited around for maybe half an hour, while
the mess was cleaned up. But they all kept their places in line, and
the party did not stop.

I never hear stories like that about bicycling.

I do:

http://archive.mtbr.com/00/0EFB09F7.php

The Darrington Trail is one of my regular rides. AFAIK several mountain
bikers have died at that same location. Lose your balance and it's over.

The closest local trail to our house is also one of the scarier ones. A
loooong rock garden, most of the rocks are loose and it's pretty steep
downhill. Once I took a neighbor (experienced MTB rider) out there who
intitially said "Nah, there's nothing worth mantioning anywhere close".
I let him ride ahead and partially into this section I heard him scream
"Holy smokes!". He said he came pretty close to a crash.

Mountain bikes are almost like skydivers and base jumpers. Once the
rescue helicopter has left it's back to business.

Odd that you should make this comment, as you've been telling us how
much safer even hard core mountain biking at night is than riding on the
road. It certainly is possible to die mountain biking, but it doesn't
seem to happen very often.


Happens a lot out here. It's not just death, there are people who are
seriously and often permanently disabled after a major tumble.

Trail riding is much safer than riding on a major thoroughfare or county
road at night provided it is done with the proper care. The trick is not
to ride dare-devilish and also not to ride steep rock gardens at night.
Or walk them. But most of all have really good lights, that's key.


My own anecdatal approach is admittedly not even wrong, but I know a
number of enthusiastic mountain bikers, and would be surprised to hear
than even one of them had been present when someone died at some kind of
biking event. I would be astonished to find that they were as
matter-of-fact about it immediately afterward as my one base jumping
acquintance was.


Then they probably aren't hardcore enough :-)

I am definitely not hardcore, else I'd own a serious downhill machine
which I don't. Although I'd consider it if I had to buy again because XC
bikes don't seem to take my XC riding style too well.


Base jumping is much more dangerous than mountain biking, and requires a
higher risk tolerance of its participants. But perhaps people are in
better agreement on how dangerous it is, so less caterwauling seems to
be called for.


Base jumping is probably one of the riskiest sports there is. I don't
mind jumping out of aircraft above a reasonable altitude (4000ft above
ground level) but I would not do base jumps.


It may be that some people hear "biking is not very dangerous" as "one
needn't take care when biking", although they are not at all the same.
For example, handling explosives professionally is really quite safe,
precisely because of the care that is taken.


Biking is dangerous. One has to be aware of the dangers and how to
mitigate. In the case of lights it's easy, just get some lights that car
drivers see very well and that make you see the road well enough.

Then, one should keep in mind that bikes (and human heads ...) don't
have much of a crumple zone, that brakes can fail, that tires can blow
unannounced and with gusto, that chains can break, and so on. I try to
ride my bike a little bit like the aircraft pilot who at all times keeps
an eye out for a safe emergency landing spot. For example, I no longer
hammer up a hill in high gear standing in the pedals. Anyone who ever
had a chain snap knows why.

When doing all this or at least most of it the dangers become not so
significant and it can be quite safe. Just like prachuting can be where
I never had an injury.

Yes, handling explosive can be very safe but it does carry major risks.
On an oil rig assignment one of the colleagues had his neck seriously
scarred. "Now, let me tell you how this happened ..." he said, while we
were mounting dozens of charges for a core sample taker. He was a
meticulous and careful guy but one day such a charge went off and tore a
chunk of his neck away. He was life-flighted and barely made it.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:22:10 PM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 25/10/14 11:29, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 11:49:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2014 7:58 AM, John B. Slocomb wrote:


As far as I remember there was always, at least as far back when I was
16 years old, a law that required slower traffic to move to the
extreme right side of the road. In fact I can remember signs posted
saying "Slow traffic keep right".

So regardless, a bicycle thundering along at 15 mph would be required
to stay on the right so not to impede other traffic.

The laws you remember may not be the laws currently in effect. Times
have changed, at least in many states. IIRC, the UVC now has statements
explaining situations in which bicyclists don't need to be at far right.
Some states (like mine) have generous lists of examples of such
situations written into law, along with statements indicating there may
be other valid reasons.

Unfortunately, there are some areas whose laws have not progressed
beyond the 1950s. More unfortunately, there are motorists and cyclists
whose thinking has not progressed beyond the 1950s.

Yes, I know. But the idea of riding out in the middle of the road at
less then half the speed of overtaking traffic is not one that I would
recommend as it places the responsibility for one's safety completely
on the shoulders of others.

In fact, I described a case of someone "taking the lane" in which 2
out of the four riders were killed on the spot and the other two taken
to the hospital.

If I remember, you said something like, "well they shouldn't taken the
lane under those conditions."

Since "taking the lane" involves riding out in the middle of the road,
in traffic traveling perhaps two or three times the speed of the
bicycle, it appears that the mind set here is, "Oh, I'm out here where
they can see me so they won't hit me". But at the same time we are
bombarded with news stories talking about an auto hitting a bicycle
while the driver are texting, looking in the mirror to put on
lipstick, etc.

The fact that the UVC has examples of times when one doesn't have to
stay on the right side of the road is, I'm sure, of great comfort to
someone who's wife, husband, children, have just been run over by a
beautiful; young lady who "just had to" send that text message.


I don't know that it really matters where you ride if your number is up.
It must be difficult not to see a group of riders, yet...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-i...316-34usd.html

--
JS

They seem to be luckier than the group in Quebec that was run down from BEHIND. IIRC three of them were killed out of six hit.

Cheers

James wrote:
On 25/10/14 11:29, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 11:49:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2014 7:58 AM, John B. Slocomb wrote:


As far as I remember there was always, at least as far back when I was
16 years old, a law that required slower traffic to move to the
extreme right side of the road. In fact I can remember signs posted
saying "Slow traffic keep right".

So regardless, a bicycle thundering along at 15 mph would be required
to stay on the right so not to impede other traffic.

The laws you remember may not be the laws currently in effect. Times
have changed, at least in many states. IIRC, the UVC now has statements
explaining situations in which bicyclists don't need to be at far right.
Some states (like mine) have generous lists of examples of such
situations written into law, along with statements indicating there may
be other valid reasons.

Unfortunately, there are some areas whose laws have not progressed
beyond the 1950s. More unfortunately, there are motorists and cyclists
whose thinking has not progressed beyond the 1950s.

Yes, I know. But the idea of riding out in the middle of the road at
less then half the speed of overtaking traffic is not one that I would
recommend as it places the responsibility for one's safety completely
on the shoulders of others.

In fact, I described a case of someone "taking the lane" in which 2
out of the four riders were killed on the spot and the other two taken
to the hospital.

If I remember, you said something like, "well they shouldn't taken the
lane under those conditions."

Since "taking the lane" involves riding out in the middle of the road,
in traffic traveling perhaps two or three times the speed of the
bicycle, it appears that the mind set here is, "Oh, I'm out here where
they can see me so they won't hit me". But at the same time we are
bombarded with news stories talking about an auto hitting a bicycle
while the driver are texting, looking in the mirror to put on
lipstick, etc.

The fact that the UVC has examples of times when one doesn't have to
stay on the right side of the road is, I'm sure, of great comfort to
someone who's wife, husband, children, have just been run over by a
beautiful; young lady who "just had to" send that text message.


I don't know that it really matters where you ride if your number is up.
It must be difficult not to see a group of riders, yet...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-i...316-34usd.html

Sad to keep hearing about these cases. At least no one was killed.

I hope the driver's "mandatory checkup" went well. Here they usually day
"the driver was treated for shock."

--
duane

Duane wrote:
James wrote:
On 25/10/14 11:29, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 11:49:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2014 7:58 AM, John B. Slocomb wrote:

As far as I remember there was always, at least as far back when I was
16 years old, a law that required slower traffic to move to the
extreme right side of the road. In fact I can remember signs posted
saying "Slow traffic keep right".

So regardless, a bicycle thundering along at 15 mph would be required
to stay on the right so not to impede other traffic.
The laws you remember may not be the laws currently in effect. Times
have changed, at least in many states. IIRC, the UVC now has statements
explaining situations in which bicyclists don't need to be at far right.
Some states (like mine) have generous lists of examples of such
situations written into law, along with statements indicating there may
be other valid reasons.

Unfortunately, there are some areas whose laws have not progressed
beyond the 1950s. More unfortunately, there are motorists and cyclists
whose thinking has not progressed beyond the 1950s.
Yes, I know. But the idea of riding out in the middle of the road at
less then half the speed of overtaking traffic is not one that I would
recommend as it places the responsibility for one's safety completely
on the shoulders of others.

In fact, I described a case of someone "taking the lane" in which 2
out of the four riders were killed on the spot and the other two taken
to the hospital.

If I remember, you said something like, "well they shouldn't taken the
lane under those conditions."

Since "taking the lane" involves riding out in the middle of the road,
in traffic traveling perhaps two or three times the speed of the
bicycle, it appears that the mind set here is, "Oh, I'm out here where
they can see me so they won't hit me". But at the same time we are
bombarded with news stories talking about an auto hitting a bicycle
while the driver are texting, looking in the mirror to put on
lipstick, etc.

The fact that the UVC has examples of times when one doesn't have to
stay on the right side of the road is, I'm sure, of great comfort to
someone who's wife, husband, children, have just been run over by a
beautiful; young lady who "just had to" send that text message.

I don't know that it really matters where you ride if your number is up.
It must be difficult not to see a group of riders, yet...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-i...316-34usd.html

Sad to keep hearing about these cases. At least no one was killed.


But will they all be able to ride and continue life as before? One big
mistake in judging cycling safety is only counting deaths and not
looking at all those with long term health consequences and major
hospital stays.


I hope the driver's "mandatory checkup" went well. Here they usually day
"the driver was treated for shock."


If car drivers are inebriated the outcome can be much worse:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingn...oto_stirs.html

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/