FLCC> Biking to work

[Scott E. Smith]

Eerily quiet on the Newfield front.  A woman on a tandem with her 3 year
old in tow restored my faith in humanity when I hit the Cornell area,
though.

There must have been something in the air yesterday.  On my way home
(turning on to my own road even) I heard aloud sustained honk behind me. 
The truck (beat-up old Ford) didn't pass me then.  He waited till I
signaled and made the left turn onto my road, then floored it as he passed
me on the turn, truck squealing the tires and sliding sideways...missed me
by less than a foot. I always say I'm gonna keep my cool when this happens
and get a license #, but as usual I was too busy yelling obscenities too
get it.  Just 3 "good ol' boys" havin' some fun, I guess...made me feel
like I was in Texas (oops, better not get political here).  :-)

On a related note (sorry about the long post).  I sent the letter (that
follows below to the Journal and got the reply (above it).  I then copied
it to reporter who did the Journal article as I didn't feel I could
shorten it sufficiently.  Any suggestions of how we could get the Journal
to some sort of follow up article to educate the less than educated
drivers???

Scott Smith


Hey Rick,

I sent the following letter into the journal online and got the reply
below.  Maybe you have some pull??  Seriously, even tho I'm a little
wordy, I'll never be able to trim this from 1k down to 250 words, so I
won't be resubmitting it.  Maybe you can do some sort of follow-up to your
article concerning bike/vehicle safety, share the road issues, Ithaca's
plans for road/safety improvements for cyclists, and the City's
encouragement (?) of people to commute by bike.

Scott Smith

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: RE: Online Letter Submission
From:    "Tutino, Andrew" <atutino at ithaca.gannett.com>
Date:    Tue, May 13, 2008 5:44 pm
To:      "'ses83 at cornell.edu'" <ses83 at cornell.edu>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the submission.

This was submitted too late to make Friday's page.

It is also too long for a letter. Please trim to 250 words or less and
resubmit.

Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: webmaster at moc.cmsstage.gdn.theithacajournal.com
[mailto:ses83 at cornell.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 5:22 PM
To: ITH-Letters
Subject: Online Letter Submission

Note: This email is generated. Please do NOT reply to this email.


With his week's "Bike to work day" coming up I'd like to mention a couple
of things about safety.  I have commuted to work by bicycle the last
several years and have been a bike rider most of my life.  As I approach
my 50th birthday this year, I can say I have been fortunate that all my
bike accidents, so far, have been self inflicted, and none involved cars.
I do, however, have a close call at least once a week, it seems.  Most of
these can be avoided if drivers would just use common sense when driving
near cyclists.  Don't get me wrong here.  This is not intended to be
another anti-car rant.  The vast majority of drivers are courteous and
careful around cyclists, many even supportive of cycling.  There is a
small percentage that just doesn't know what to do, and there is an even
smaller percentage that is aggressively dangerous to cyclists.  This last
group knows who it is.  As a bike commuter I have been honked at, yelled
at, cursed at, deliberately cut off, deliberately buzzed within a foot of
my bike, and had loose gravel sprayed at me by spinning tires on a freshly
graveled road.  Luckily, this doesn't happen that frequently, and I doubt
anything I write here will affect that group of drivers.  It's the 2nd
group, the group that just doesn't know that it doesn't know, that I'm
addressing this letter to.

First, cyclists belong on the road.  I've had drivers tell me that
cyclists should ride on they sidewalk or that they should ride against
traffic.  This is just not true.  Cyclists are vehicles and belong on the
road riding in a direction with traffic.  If given a choice, most cyclists
will use an available shoulder if it is safe to use.  For a shoulder to be
safe to ride on, it first has to be wide enough.  How wide is wide enough?
 That's up to the discretion of the cyclist.  For me, the rideable area of
the shoulder has to be wide enough that a car in the driving lane should
clear me by at least 3 feet.  That way, I should be safe from an
unintentional mirror hit.  If the shoulder is not wide enough or is unsafe
to ride on, the cyclist has every right to be out in the lane.  The most
common reason for this is a shoulder littered with glass or other debris.
Just because the shoulder looks perfectly safe from a car doesn't mean
that is.  It still may be littered with glass that can't be seen from a
car.

So what if there's no shoulder or the shoulder is unsafe to ride on?
Where should the cyclist be?  Most drivers feel the cyclist should be as
far over to the right as is humanly possible (ie, hugging the white line).
 Again, this is wrong, and is a dangerous place to ride.  Riding too close
to the shoulder makes a cyclist less visible.  It also encourages drivers
to try to squeeze between the cyclist and the yellow line.  This increases
the chance that the cyclist will be hit by either the vehicle or the
mirror.  Most cyclists find that the safest place to be is about 2 to 3
feet out from the white line.  This forces traffic to do something to
avoid the cyclist.  If a car has to make a change to avoid the cyclist,
than the cyclist has been seen, and the driver has to think about what he
or she is going to do next.  It is then up to the driver to determine when
it is safe to pass.  Drivers also tend to leave much more room between the
car and the cyclist when the cyclist is out in the road this far.

If there are multiple cyclists on the road, they can ride two abreast.
Common sense might dictate that a group of cyclists would revert to single
file on a busy road, but legally they have every right to ride double.

What if there's a bike lane available?  Most cyclists will probably use
it, but they aren't required to.  If the bike lane is dangerous for any
reason such as the shoulder discussion above, the cyclist can move out
into the road.  He or she might also move out into the road to pass
another cyclist or to merge into traffic to make a left turn.

When riding past parked cars, most cyclists will ride out about 3 feet
from the parked cars.  This is to avoid being "doored" when someone opens
up a car door without looking first.

What I'm getting at, is that if a cyclist is in your way when you're
driving your car, it's not because the cyclist is trying to be a pain, and
he or she wants to make you get home from work 30 seconds later than
usual.  The cyclist is where he or she is for one reason only...self
preservation.  Please give all us cyclists some room and have some
patience!

No discussion of cycling safety is complete without saying something to
some of my fellow cyclists.  Please, for all of us, ride on the correct
side of the road.  Obey the traffic laws.  Don't ride on the sidewalk,
then jump onto the road, then ride across on the crosswalk, and, in short,
do whatever seems convenient to you at the time.  This stuff only ticks
the drivers off and gives us all a bad name.  You are a vehicle.  If you
want to be treated as a vehicle, then act like one.  This type of riding
also makes you less visible and unpredictable to drivers, making you more
likely to get hit.  You actually have a greater probability of getting hit
by a car when riding on the sidewalk!  Think about that one!  And for
those of you riding at night, in dark clothes, without a light...get some
lights.  No one really wants to be responsible for killing you with a car,
when you didn't even try to be seen.  A helmet isn't a bad idea either.

So Friday is "Bike to work" day.  I hope to see many more people riding to
work.  Hopefully this will get some of them to consider commuting by bike
regularly, or at least get out and ride their bikes.  Riding is great
exercise and is safe when people ride and drive safely.

Scott Smith
Newfield


> This morning I saw 4 times as many other cyclists on the road as I usually
> do!  (I saw 4 of them!  Mind you, none of them were cycling at the time!)
>
> And it's just as well that yesterday wasn't bike to work day.  Why?
> Well...  There are school busses, for example.  Like the one that crossed
> _way_ over the white line as it passed me...  Or the other one...  As it
> was passing me, up a pretty steep hill, one of the kids inside threw a
> notebook at me!  (Luckily notebooks aren't very aerodynamic!)  There was
> also the car that zipped around me (gave me a nice, wide berth - thanks!)
> then slammed on its brakes for no apparent reason.  Still...  I escaped
> all of that uninjured and made it home in record time - an hour and a
> minute!  Woo hoo!
>
> cheers!
> charles
>
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