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From: draughn@iitcs.UUCP (Mark Draughn)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle,net.politics
Subject: Re: Bicycles, Violence and Hatred
Message-ID: <132@iitcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-May-85 03:05:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: iitcs.132
Posted: Fri May 17 03:05:01 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 29-May-85 23:43:34 EDT
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Reply-To: draughn@iitcs.UUCP (Mark Draughn)
Distribution: net
Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Il.
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Xref: watmath net.bicycle:1204 net.politics:9108
Summary: 

After reading some of the discussion on this subject a couple of things come
to mind.
     I drive a car a lot and I'm almost always irritated by bicyclists on
the road.  Sometimes this is because of stupidity on the part of the cyclist,
but usually it's because I'm afraid of them.  You see, my car weighs 2 tons
and doesn't turn terribly quick because of it.  At least not compared to
bikes, which seem to make instantaneous right-angle turns.  It's easy to
imagine a bike swerving into my car before I could react.
     I don't mean to imply that cyclists are too stupid to watch where
they are going, after all, we drivers manage to hit each other regularly
because our minds are on something else, or a dog runs out in front of us,
or something.
     Some cyclist here said that he/she faces more of a hazard from other
bikers, often running into an errant cyclist.  (I imagine that the freedom
from serious injury, and the resulting low level of regulation, is
one of the things that makes cycling so much fun.)  Unfortunately, some
bikers behave that way on the road, and when they hit cars instead of
other bikes, things can get ugly.
     I suppose that in the end it's a matter of communication.  How do
a cyclist and I make our intentions known to each other?  When I'm coming
up behind a cyclist, I honk my horn to let him know I'm going to pass.
Usually he will move to the right, or wave, or something, and then I pass.
That's communication.  Occasionally, however, he flips me the finger.  That's
not communication; and it hardly proves my superior communication skills/
morality/intellect to hit him with my car :-)
     Part of the idea behind the Heimlich maneuver is to make sure thet
EVERYONE knows what it is.  One thing that Heimlch tried to do was to establish
a universal way to tell somebody that you are choking -- put your hand to
your throat.  It would be great if some general ways to communicate
could be taught to drivers and cyclists.
     With that in mind, there are probably a few signals already in
existance that are nearly impossible to interpret.  Some thought
on this would probably help the problem.

                                             Mark Draughn

p.s. Comments would be appreciated, flames will be endured.