Tom Keats said:In article <[email hidden]>,
jj said:I hate to complain, because it's
mostly me with my unfortunate timing - 99% of the time I rarely see a car
or they all drive normally. But today was definitely 'asleep at the wheel
day'. ;-D
Sounds like a typical day of city riding, except you
forgot to mention the soccer mom-piloted minivans
stopped on both sides of the street while the soccer
mom pilots yack at each other. And the drivers on
cross streets who stop at their stop sign and then
start to go just as you're breezing by in front of
them. And the drivers who speedily reverse their
cars around corners. And pedestrians who passive-
aggressively dawdle in front of you right when your
traffic light turns green[1]. And drivers who pull out
from the wrong side of the street. And jaywalkers who
don't realize how fast you're really going, or are entirely
oblivious to you. And the variation on Murphy's Law[2]
where if there's an isolated patch of broken pavement
you want to swing around, an oncoming or upcoming car
will prevent you from doing so. And there's the ever-
popular: "driver decides to make his left turn anyway,
even though he just lost the left turn light and his
oncoming traffic is already moving".
These are all too common, the cager is bad, the clueless cager is worse,
the clueless walker beats them both..... DRIVERS running red lights
here got so bad, that the city installed red light cameras at the worst
intersections...... People now look for the camera, if there is one (or
a police car), they behave, if there isn't they act like they did
before..... One issue with walkers, if they are on the sidewalk, they
are where they rightfully belong, if your on the sidewalk, your not.
Worst though, are the left-turn-on yellows. Here is the scenario, you
have a major intersection, the light goes red, green left turn arrow,
green yellow red. Legally if your in the intersection sufficiently to
block a lane, when the light turns red, you complete your turn. However
people now assume this means if your front wheels are in front of the
stop line, that you should complete your turn. So the green arrow is
taken up by people making left over left turns the other way. Of course
someone will be impatient, cause a collision, and it's several hours
before it's back to normal.....
Quoted message said:
One of my all-time favourites is when a driver tries
to parallel park in a space too small (on a side street,)
and there's a car parked on the opposite side of the
street, so the car gets stuck while it's oriented
more-or-less perpendicular, thereby blocking the
whole works.
I suppose one becomes attuned to such antics and learns
to anticipate bonehead moves before they're made.
One half of the trick is to anticipate they /will/, rather
than won't be made. Hang back and see how it plays out;
verify your hunches. E.g: if a driver on a cross street
up ahead crosses the intersection and then stops, chances
are he'll reverse into you when you're going straight
through, right behind him. There have been times when
this has happened to me and I just stopped & waited for
a couple of minutes to see which way he was gonna go --
kind of like silent-running submarine vs destroyer in the
movies. The last time that happened to me I made the
first move, but I had already picked an emergency line up
the corner curb cut on the right-side sidewalk on the far
side of the intersection. It was a private school bus.
Sure enough, as soon as I was behind him, he started to
roll backward, and I had to swing right and up onto
the sidewalk.
Driving a bike and driving a car have 2 things in common:
1) if another driver can do something stupid, always assume they will.
2) Always have an escape route, on a bike, that often means prepare to
stop.
Your better to be delayed 14 seconds, then the 14 hours spent in the
local ER, getting something set.
Quoted message said:
Some city riders seem to think it's ignominious to slow or
stop for absolutely anything, and end up taking chances
that I wouldn't -- and I've seen a lot of scary and needless
bike/car (and lately bike/ped) near-misses, and a few actual
collisions up ahead of me.
Too many bikes do not have the ( often required by law ) warning device
attached, and too many of them ride on the $#@%!@*# sidewalk to start with.
Quoted message said:I figure the Art of urban riding isn't how fast you
go, but how smooth the flow & rhythm of your ride is.
Hammering one moment, only to have to hit the binders
hard the next is, to me, just frustrating, and there's
really no time saved (and I generally would rather extend
my riding time, than shorten it and quickly get it over
with, anyway.) Besides that's how too many people drive.
Too many people drive ON/OFF they use the gas and brake pedals as ON/OFF
switches, then as smooth controls. Here is an example, driver is
accelerating towards a red light, then jams on the brakes, when they get
there. Me I took my foot off the gas, when I saw the red light ahead,
and coasted to the light, kind of like I would on a bike....
Quoted message said:[1] That's where having a rubber bulb horn can provide
some fun. When they've just gotten past you and you're
out of their line of sight, give 'em a good, resounding,
razzing honk. When they turn around and glare at ya, just
innocently say: "I didn't do it."
I prefer a bike bell, because bike bells have a unique sound, bulb horns
are sometimes seen on very old cars, so while they are looking for the
Ford Model T, they run over the cyclist :-( Anyone who rode a bike as a
kid, remembers the bike bells unique sound, so they look for a bike.....
W
