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#41
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Lane positioning at stoplight
Norman Wilson wrote:
Personally I've found that Forester's writing contains a lot of useful advice. Some of it sounds odd on first reading, and some strikes me as poor advice even now, but since he lays out all his reasoning it is easy enough to tell the difference. Much of it can be tested carefully by experience as well, so long as one makes the effort to give things a good try and to observe the results as objectively as possible. Forester concocted a system that is remarkably well-reasoned, and explained it thorougly, in a dry yet disturbingly spiteful tone. I agree there is much good advice in there. But I can't sign on to the notion that traffic can be observed and quantified, which is a fundamental assumption of Forester's system. Traffic is always one step ahead of our quantification. There are things in heaven and earth and in traffic that are not dreamed of in [our] philosophy. You don't quantify traffic, traffic quantifies you. Just as a for instance, city bus comes right at me full steam down the wrong way of a major one way street last week, driver apparently hallucinating. With dozens of people swirling around you at all times making mistakes, traffic is a stew of these potentially deadly incidents. That's the right starting point for a philosophy of riding in traffic. People who think they can quantify traffic also tend to think they can control it. And they ride successfully for a time and feel quite in control of things. I doubt this is true for all of them, but in my experience the most vocal in the "vehicular cycling" crowd are wide-eyed newcomers with maybe a year or two under their belts, and they have yet to experience their first serious contact with a motor vehicle. When you feel all that weight and what it could do/does to your body, it has a way of pounding the hubris right out of you. There's no way to describe it but you know it if you've been there. Forester's style is an innocent style. Many of the neo-Foresterites seem to be high maintenance cyclists. They are the type to be surprised and angry when vehicles cut them off, to yell at drivers who don't use their turn signals, etc. They expect a lot from other road users, and are continually disappointed. In short, they are not dealing with reality. I think it's foolish to follow anybody's advice blindly. It is just as foolish to ignore someone's advice because it doesn't confirm your existing biases, and I suspect that's where most of the vilification comes from. I have felt pretty lonely when criticizing Forester or anything remotely related to "Effective Cycling." If there are people vilifying Forester, I think I might like to have a beer with these people. Who are they? cheers, Robert |
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#42
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Lane positioning at stoplight
I have felt pretty lonely when criticizing Forester or anything
remotely related to "Effective Cycling." Robert, that was one of your best ever posts on the subject. I think you managed to cover all the bases and send everyone who ever had a good word for John Forester to Hell. Face it, man, you're a romantic and Forester is a classicist. You guys are never going to agree in this lifetime. But I'm willing to compromise. I am an easy person to get along with as long as I get my space on the road. What we bring to the table here are our skills and experience. If 90 percent of the village says that EC is on the whole a good thing, even if it only serves to focus the attention, then it might be a good idea to take notice. You have a right to dissent. But you have to put up equivalent cases and methods that will stand the tests and proofs that EC has undergone. It is easy to say that you have a better method but to prove it is much more difficult. As far as the whining and hand wringing, I say tough ****. I chose to ride in traffic, nobody forced me to get on a bicycle. -- _______________________ALL AMIGA IN MY MIND_______________________ ------------------"Buddy Holly, the Texas Elvis"------------------ in.edu__________ |
#43
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Lane positioning at stoplight
snip Face it, man, you're a romantic and Forester is a classicist. snip
the way I see it, i'm a realist and Forester, perhaps in a fit of Platonic idealism, is dreaming of some hypothetical side-universe where people don't run red lights, buses dont go the wrong way down busy one-ways, drivers don't fall asleep at 10:30 am and crash into things. It is a universe where all road users are blessed with perfect awareness--they notice everything that passes into their field of vision. It sounds nice but we can't get there from here, except maybe through the back of a magic wardrobe somewhere. sniop What we bring to the table here are our skills and experience. If 90 percent of the village says that EC is on the whole a good thing, even if it only serves to focus the attention, then it might be a good idea to take notice. snip Personally I think 90% of the village should start listening to that 10%, in many other matters besides this. But even I can probably agree that "EC is on the whole a good thing." It is a good system for grounding beginners. Most car-bike wrecks involve beginning riders who are breaking the law and riding like idiots, and EC is good medicine for this. But frankly, as an experienced cyclists I am not so concerned with the wrecks of beginning cyclists. I am concerned with the car-bike wrecks of experienced cyclists, which usually involve a cyclist who rides in a predictable lawful fashion and a driver who makes a horrible unanticipated mistake. You have a right to dissent. But you have to put up equivalent cases and methods that will stand the tests and proofs that EC has undergone. It is easy to say that you have a better method but to prove it is much more difficult. If not impossible. As far as the whining and hand wringing, I say tough ****. I chose to ride in traffic, nobody forced me to get on a bicycle. And even if they did, you would just have to thank them for showing you a superior way to move, a superior way to live. cheers, Robert -- ride with fear and joy |
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