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From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Re: Bicycles, Violence and Hatred: tickets
Message-ID: <66@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Apr-85 10:20:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.66
Posted: Fri Apr 26 10:20:09 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Apr-85 06:26:04 EDT
References: <1439@druny.UUCP> <2640002@csd2.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 44

> >Reasons why you shouldn't pass cars on the right at a light:
> >
> >You are breaking traffic regulations
> >You are unecessarily creating hostility towards other cyclists
> >You give motorists an excuse to run you off the road
> >You may get run over by someone turning right
> >It is difficult to see you and an unexpected move
>    therefore it is harder for the auto driver to avoid having an accident
> 
> As for the fourth and fifth arguments, I am pretty sure the best place for a
> bike to be is where it is seen by the cars around it. At an intersection,
> Such a place is to the right and in front of the front car standing at
> the intersection, where he can't make a right turn without immediately
> bumping into your rear wheel. That's my opinion, anyway.

Not really.  (1) When you come up on the right side of a car, you are
coming up on the driver's "blind side".  Think about it, from the point
of view of the driver of a car.  Where do you look for traffic to come from?
That's where your attention will be.  Statistically, a large number
of accidents happen when the driver makes a right turn into a cyclist who is
tryng to go straight through on the driver's right side.  (2)  In Austin,
(and probably in most places), the lanes near most intersections are
too narrow to accomodate both a car and a bicycle.  The safest place to
be is *in the middle of the lane*, where a car would normally be.  The
car behind you can see you best because that's where the driver expects
another vehicle.  After negotiating the intersection, you can move to the
right when the road widens.  (80% of accidents happen at intersections,
by the way).

This is all discussed quite thoroughly by John Forester in "Effective
Cycling", just published by MIT press, and (more readably) by John
Allen in "The Complete Book of Bicycle Commuting", published by Rodale
Press.  Every cyclist ought to read one of these thoroughly.  You will
be surprised by how much you don't know about the real causes of
accidents.

-- 
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
	religious conviction."  -- Blaise Pascal

	Bill Jefferys  8-%
	Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712   (USnail)
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