A short list: 1. Me traveling along Cherry east-bound at MSU. Girl pulls out of sorority parking lot on bicycle, also heading east. Me traveling in a commanding lane position 5 feet from curb roughly right-center in the lane. She riding along the face of the gutter. Car approaches from behind and passes me by [...]
Step one, DO NOT WATCH THESE VIDEOS by the AAA and the LAB!!! Oooops. You watched them, didn’t you? And after I told you not to. So, is it clear why theses are bad videos? Here’s a hint: lane positioning. It simply cannot be that these videos are a mistake and that Andy Clarke, president [...]
I often walk to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I do not head downtown first on those days. Plus, I like to mix it up. Walking home yesterday — all of 3/4 mile — I saw five separate incidents of people being silly on the streets. Upon seeing the first one, I thought: Oh, [...]
Mighk Wilson, of CyclingSavvy and author of Bicycling Is Better, posted this on Facebook this morning: An idea for discussing lane control with non-cyclists (and perhaps even cyclists): I’ve tried this a couple times and it certainly gets people thinking. I either show them an image or video of a lane-controlling cyclist on a high-speed [...]
Visibility on the road is far more a matter of lane positioning and far less a matter of color under most road/weather conditions. The proposed reflective vest bill (HB 1937) solves no problem that exists on Missouri’s state highways. Bicyclists are not suffering deaths or injuries comparable to people in cars. Perhaps we ought to [...]
It’s being sold as a safety measure: HB 1937 would require bicyclists to wear reflective vests on state highways. What it’s more likely to accomplish: Making bicycling more difficult and less attractive. The language of the bill offers no exceptions, so it is reasonable to assume that a bicyclist would be required to wear a vest even when crossing a [...]
In the classroom portion of CyclingSavvy we present a nifty interactive pie chart demonstrating that a bicyclist who knows how traffic works and follows the rules can mitigate 96 percent of the most common types of crashes. That leaves a 4-percent slice of the pie called “other.” I had a close encounter with “other” this [...]
Warning: This post may piss you off. Good. Can you spot the problem(s)? I’m torn. On the one hand, I am a supporter of everyone enjoying bicycling in all of its many forms. Get out there and have fun! But… This video represents more than simply the predictable results of running a stop sign. This [...]
One of the reasons you should be reading Commute Orlando is because it’s like an on-going traffic class. This week Keri Caffrey demonstrates why a leftward position at intersections is the safest way to proceed straight across. General rule of vantage: “The best vantage in your lane will generally be gotten from where a car [...]
Here’s more from the ol’ helmet cam — downtown to MSU. I go downtown for coffee every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. This is my route to school. One difference: Walnut between Kimbrough and Hammons is being renovated, so it’s closed for a bit. I take Elm instead. You’ll notice two “close” passes. The speed [...]
The headline is good advice (it’s also the law). Anyway, here’s a video of my trip downtown yesterday morning for coffee and a bagel: UPDATE: Check out the analysis of rear lighting by Steve at DFW, Point to Point. Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle equipment, bicycle safety, cycling
Here’s a follow-up to my previous video of bicycle infrastructure in suburban Wilmington, Delaware. What you will see is painted shoulders with bicycle lane markings. But simply putting lane markings on a shoulder does not create a proper bicycle lane. These lanes demonstrate a complete lack of understanding about how to handle intersections. These lanes [...]
Pretty… …but dangerous. These suckers are slippery when wet and piled up on the road. Let’s be careful out there today. The Weather Channel iPhone app let me down. It said no rain. I wore my raincoat anyway, but I left my rain pants at home. Halfway downtown this morning the light mist turned into [...]
Last year I reported here, based on a conversation at a STAR Team meeting, that the city was uninterested in painting more bicycle lanes. With the creation of new lanes on Division and Benton and the discussion at night’s STAR Team meeting, it has became clear to me that painting more bicycle lanes is in [...]
Disclaimer: Nothing I have written in this post should be interpreted as walking back the idea that bicyclists should follow the rules of the road. This seems to me to be a fact: Unpredictable behavior by bicyclists seems to be what the average motorist expects, i.e. bicyclist behavior is predictable in its unpredictableness. Predictable behavior, [...]
