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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcsb!thielges
From: thielges@uiucdcsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Why I STILL blow of STOP signs
Message-ID: <16200067@uiucdcsb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Nov-84 23:15:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.16200067
Posted: Wed Nov  7 23:15:00 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Nov-84 08:33:32 EST
Lines: 33
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcsb:16200067:000:1731
Nf-From: uiucdcsb!thielges    Nov  7 22:15:00 1984

I would like to defend my stance on a few points.

First of all, I do not condone the act of biking carelessly around cars.
I agree, this kind of stuff just enrages drivers and does little good.  
Riding through a four way STOP while another driver waits is just plain
rude, not to mention dangerous.  I must say as a driver (on rare occasions)
I am not angered by the biker who rides through a STOP before me when he/she
has a large safty margin.

Next, I do agree with hu@sdcvax that bicycles are harder to see for the 
bicyclist.  However, I don't see this as much as a problem for the STOP
sign ingorer.  I personally, have no problem with noticing an approaching
biker.  Maybe its because everyone else has a different sounding freewheel
from my clunker.  (A side note : I think that every commuter bike should make
some kind of sound at night.  Mine does a 'KLANG klunka tick KLANG'.  My 
roomie's does a musical 'Bing....Bink Ting Bing')

I think my main point is that bicycles and automobiles have very little in
common.  On the rare occasions that I do fire up my 'ol Datsun for a drive,
I am very much more cautious than when I bike.  Not only because I know I
am guiding nearly a ton more of vehicle, but because I know as a driver I
am much more out of contact with the outside world than as a biker.  The
driver suffers from lack of adequate sound and visual input to be able to
evaluate a given traffic situation as well as a biker.  It is for this
reason that I believe that bikers deserve more road privileges than auto-
mobile drivers.

Finally, I thank all net.bikers for not flaming me for using 'except'
instead of 'accept' in my original note.
					Bart Thielges
					...uiucdcs!thielges
					thielges@uiucdcs