FLCC> Biking to work

Fri May 16 12:06:08 EDT 2008

i saw a string of riders on campus this morning coming off of forest home 
turning right across the new bridge by beebe lake...there was a triplet w/ 
a guy at the helm and 2 kids on back....not bill...so bill there is some 
competition for you...and a bunch of other kids and some adults...i have to 
tell you, one kid almost bounced off of a car, the traffic had a green 
light and they turned right onto the bridge...the one kid made the turn got 
a little squirrely and came within inches of bouncing off the side of the car.

stan

At 07:56 AM 5/16/2008 -0700, Wayne Gottlieb wrote:
>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
> >
>=== message truncated ===
>
>
>
>
>
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