FLCC> Biking to work

[Wayne Gottlieb]

David Hill who put together the first piece said he
wanted to get some photos of the day and print a
follow up.  I'm not sure if this will happen.

My original letter was also too long (850 words) and I
trimmed it down to 250.  It wasn't too bad.  I was
surprised that I could say basically the same thing in
250 words.  Was probably better.

This morning 12 of us (5 adults, 7 kids) rode from
Brooktondale and Ellis Hollow to DeWitt.  It was
great. A big chain of bikes, single file.  The kids
agreed to ride up Warren road hill out of Cornell.  I
was so proud.  Cars were fine.  I think they respected
the large group and kids.  We'll probably get a lot of
angry letters later though.  We'll be riding home
together too.  Wayne

--- "Scott E. Smith" <ses83 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> 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
> 
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