thielges@uiucdcsb.UUCP (11/08/84)
I would like to defend my stance on a few points. First of all, I do not condone the act of biking carelessly around cars. I agree, this kind of stuff just enrages drivers and does little good. Riding through a four way STOP while another driver waits is just plain rude, not to mention dangerous. I must say as a driver (on rare occasions) I am not angered by the biker who rides through a STOP before me when he/she has a large safty margin. Next, I do agree with hu@sdcvax that bicycles are harder to see for the bicyclist. However, I don't see this as much as a problem for the STOP sign ingorer. I personally, have no problem with noticing an approaching biker. Maybe its because everyone else has a different sounding freewheel from my clunker. (A side note : I think that every commuter bike should make some kind of sound at night. Mine does a 'KLANG klunka tick KLANG'. My roomie's does a musical 'Bing....Bink Ting Bing') I think my main point is that bicycles and automobiles have very little in common. On the rare occasions that I do fire up my 'ol Datsun for a drive, I am very much more cautious than when I bike. Not only because I know I am guiding nearly a ton more of vehicle, but because I know as a driver I am much more out of contact with the outside world than as a biker. The driver suffers from lack of adequate sound and visual input to be able to evaluate a given traffic situation as well as a biker. It is for this reason that I believe that bikers deserve more road privileges than auto- mobile drivers. Finally, I thank all net.bikers for not flaming me for using 'except' instead of 'accept' in my original note. Bart Thielges ...uiucdcs!thielges thielges@uiucdcs
jhs@druri.UUCP (ShoreJ) (11/09/84)
Bart, I agree with much of what you said, but would like to touch on two specific points: > I think my main point is that bicycles and automobiles have very > little in common. . . . > . . . I believe that bikers deserve more road privileges > than automobile drivers.