neal@druxv.UUCP (09/23/83)
For you people in net.auto; over here in net.bicycle we've been discussing bike/car interactions. I thought it would be good to extend the discussion to you also. (Anne, you might want to re-post your article over there, though you'll probably be shot if you do....) Anne made many good points. I'd like to emphasize the admonition not to honk your horn when you are right behind a bike. It certainly does scare the shit out of the bike rider, and conveys exactly the wrong message. The biker already knows you're there, since cars are so loud (even when the biker has a helmet on - believe me!). The problem is that for a split second the biker's reflex is to interpret the horn as a signal of immanent danger, causing him/her to behave unpredictably. In fact, the horn simply demonstrates that the driver has seen the biker (and as has been pointed out, the major cause of accidents is drivers not seeing bikers), so the danger factor was actually low. I'm not sure under what circumstances Dave was worried about bikers riding in the middle of the lane. I rarely see bikers in the middle of the lane going uphill. The canyons he is talking about are steep enough that bicycles can frequently hit the speed limit downhill (45, if I'm not mistaken). Even if they aren't moving that fast, on a twisting road it is much safer for them to take up the whole lane so that 1) they have manuvering room 2) cars can SEE them (especially around the frequent corners.) Naturally, if the bike starts to impede traffic, the rider should find a safe stretch to slow down and allow cars to pass. When I'm planning a bike ride I try to go DOWN the heavily-travelled routes and UP the light-duty ones because that way I'll spend less time in traffic, and I'll be moving at a speed more closely matched to the cars, so there's more time for decisions to be made during interactions. Neal McBurnett, AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver. ihnp4!druxv!neal