Simple Biking Cycling Safety

November 17, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Miscellaneous

This article won’t strike anyone as rocket science and it’s not about wearing your helmet (you should) or sticking to bike lanes (you better). I learned a simple lesson last week about almost getting crushed like a grape on the side of the road. It’s called the “right cross” on a very helpful site (http://bicyclesafe.com) that I found after I started to write this blog entry.

John’s Lesson 247 about bike safety. People can’t see you crossing their path as they enter the road you’re on. Or if they can see you, they don’t think that you’ll actually ride in front of their car while they are at that stop (or yield) sign.

I had great success today as I encountered nearly a dozen instances of this. Luckily for me, I can whistle really loud without any hands or even louder if I want to use my fingers. But what I found most effective was a wave of the hand as I was approaching the car sitting to my right. In all but one case, the driver understood what I was doing and gave me a nod, which I took to mean he would let me pass without killing me. I guess I could be wrong but it worked really well. On the other occasion, I simply braked quickly, slowed down, and went behind the car, shaking my head in frustration. How dare they! :)

Here is the article posted at bicyclesafe.com. A really good treatment of all of the other hazards that get us killed on the road.

This is the most common ways to get hit (or almost get hit).(source) A car is pulling out of a side street, parking lot, or driveway on the right. Notice that there are actually two possible kinds of collisions here: Either you’re in front of the car and the car hits you, or the car pulls out in front of you and you slam into it.

How to avoid this collision:

1. Get a headlight. If you’re riding at night, you should absolutely use a front headlight. It’s required by law, anyway. Even for daytime riding, a bright white light that has a flashing mode can make you more visible to motorists who might otherwise Right Cross you. Look for the new LED headlights which last ten times as long on a set of batteries as old-style lights. And helmet- or head-mounted lights are the best, because then you can look directly at the driver to make surethey see your light.

2. Honk. Get a loud horn and use it whenever you see a car approaching (or waiting) ahead of you and to the right. If you don’t have a horn, then yell “Hey!” You may feel awkward honking or yelling, but it’s better to be embarrassed than to get hit. Incidentally, many countries require bells on bicycles, but the U.S. doesn’t.

3. Slow down. If you can’t make eye contact with the driver (especially at night), slow down so much that you’re able to completely stop if you have to. Sure, it’s inconvenient, but it beats getting hit. Doing this has saved my life on too many occasions to count.

4. Ride further left. You’re probably used to riding in the “A” line in the picture, very close to the curb, because you’re worried about being hit from behind. But take a look at the car. When that driver is looking down the road for traffic, he’s not looking in the bike lane or the area closest to the curb; he’s looking in the middle of the lane, for other cars. The farther left you are (such as in “B”), the more likely the driver will see you. There’s an added bonus here: if the motorist doesn’t see you and starts pulling out, you may be able to go evenfarther left, or may be able to speed up and get out of the way before impact, or easily roll onto their hood as they slam on their brakes. In short, it gives you some options. Because if you stay all the way to the right and they pull out, your only “option” may be to run right into the driver’s side door. Using this method has saved me on three occasions in which a motorist ran into me slowly as they hit their brakes and I wasn’t hurt, and in which I definitely would have slammed into the driver’s side door had I not moved left.

Of course, there’s a tradeoff. Riding to the far right makes you invisible to the motorists ahead of you at intersections, but riding to the left makes you more vulnerable to the cars behind you. Your actual lane position may vary depending on how wide the street is, how many cars there are, how fast and how close they pass you, and how far you are from the next intersection. On fast roadways with few cross streets, you’ll ride farther to the right, and on slow roads with many cross streets, you’ll ride farther left.

As posted at http://bicyclesafe.com

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