WWTBAM Bored

I used to bike everywhere until someone stole my bike right out of my basement about 5 years ago. Silly me, I didn't have it locked to some massive pillar because I thought the house was locked up; obviously, someone either left the basement door unlocked, or it was done by a friend of the people on the 2nd floor whom they had invited to a big party.


At any rate, circumstances dictated that I didn't get another bike. Which is probably just as well, as bike deaths in the Boston area are at any alarming high. So are pretty silly bike lanes which do nothing to prevent the cyclists from being hit, but do screw up traffic (even more than usual).


What really upsets me is that the cyclists being killed are generally not the crazed-loony cyclists that have sprung up around here. People who think they are in the Tour de France, probably taking the same drugs Armstrong et al did. Cyclists with their heads down, weaving in & out of traffic. Cyclists who scream invective at you if you try to open the door to get out of your car when they're within miles. Cyclists who mosey down the street 2 or 3 abreast. Or traveling single file but in a group of about 30.


Cyclists are supposed to obey traffic laws for vehicular traffic. I generally did that or walked the bike; you can walk a bike down a one-way street in the direction you want to go. You are not supposed to ride in the not-this-way direction.


At any rate, someone I'd not be wise to correct for life-related reasons mouthed off to a large group last night that the most recent victim was one of those loonies.


No, they weren't, it turns out, not surprisingly. They were a thyroid surgeon, who had moved here from some country where bicyclists are not run over so much. A victim this winter was a local musician who had just retired from their day job. In both cases, they were hit by trucks.


The loonies don't get mowed down because drivers generally avoid them the same way we avoid, if at all possible, cars that are weaving all over the road.


Cyclists who are obeying all the rules get killed by drivers who "didn't see them".

I can totally see how the "just didn't see them" thing happens. I'm a bike rider but as a car driver you get attuned to looking for larger 'threats' to watch out for while driving. I don't dare take my bike out on narrow back roads without a flashing red light on the back. On roads like this, with many dips, turns and shaded areas many bikes are almost unseen until you are right on top of them.

From a drivers perspective, we've had a bad trend starting here in Tennessee. A couple of years ago a law was passed requiring cars to leave a 3' gap when overtaking and passing a bicycle. All well and good and that makes sense. However, it appears to me that bike riders are getting too comfortable with believing that all cars will pass with that 3' boundary and are becoming a bit less defensive. A bike rider has to assume that they have not been seen by that car overtaking them until they see or hear some evidence otherwise. No matter what the laws are, some bike riders seem to forget that when a bike and a car occupy the same space, it never goes well for the bike rider.

We have people in cars getting killed, too. Does that happen in Boston?

BackInTex wrote:We have people in cars getting killed, too. Does that happen in Boston?

Only when they're lured out of car preserves with bait such as gas for $2 per gallon. --Bob

Every sizable street here has bike lanes. I'm sure the UofA has a lot to do with that.

It's a problem. Colorado thinks of itself as being such a great bicycle Mecca, yet the League of American Bicyclists says we are #7 in the country in bikeability based on Legislation and Enforcement, Policies and Programs, Infrastructure and Funding, Education and Encouragement, and Evaluation and Planning.

Part of the problem comes from the attitude Ghost expressed so well, bicyclists overloaded with testosterone and awash in a very mistaken belief that they own the road, part from motorists who are awash in a very mistaken belief that they own the road, and part from the two or three (or four or five) cyclists riding abreast and not caring about the car traffic holdup. Part of it is that 3-foot gap, which you simply cannot depend upon, especially on narrow mountain roads.

Even Ride the Rockies, which emphasizes safety at the beginning, middle, and end, has had riders killed. One poor rider was killed by a bus at a stoplight.

I'm a little worried about my Alaska cycling. There's a 2.5 mile stretch between our cabin and town with very little shoulder and no bike path. Once you get to the highway with the bike/pedestrian/ATV path on the side, you're OK. I'm just hoping for the same alertness and care from drivers that got me through my first decade or so of reckless bike riding until I finally grew up enough to watch out for myself. This is no guarantee, I hasten to add. Here's hoping for a couple more decades of safe cycling.

SportsFan68 wrote:I'm a little worried about my Alaska cycling. There's a 2.5 mile stretch between our cabin and town with very little shoulder and no bike path. Once you get to the highway with the bike/pedestrian/ATV path on the side, you're OK. I'm just hoping for the same alertness and care from drivers that got me through my first decade or so of reckless bike riding until I finally grew up enough to watch out for myself. This is no guarantee, I hasten to add. Here's hoping for a couple more decades of safe cycling.

I'd be way, way more worried about the bears who don't give a rat's hiney about that 3-foot clearance than I would about a narrow shoulder. Stay safe and have a blast!

Someone pulled a new idiocy, at least one I had never before experienced, on me today. They cycled behind my car in the middle of the lane. Right up on my bumper. I could not understand why this person could not comprehend that if I had to stop short, or, worse, back up, I'd have had very little chance to have seen them at all. Before we collided. Its only because they were peddling so slowly (they were in fairly heavy traffic, for pity's sake) & wobbling that I managed to see them. Kind of weaving in & out of view in my rear-view mirror.


Now, when cyclists are 2, 3, 5, whatever abreast at least the driver ahead of them sees the ones that are over where cyclists are supposed to be, on the side of the road. But this person? Its damn lucky for both of us I saw them at all.