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From: lrd@drusd.UUCP (L. R. DuBroff)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Re: Bicycles, Violence and Hatred
Message-ID: <1351@drusd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 10:26:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: drusd.1351
Posted: Thu May 30 10:26:08 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 03:55:41 EDT
References: <988@ames.UUCP> <492@ihlpg.UUCP> <972@peora.UUCP> <1564@reed.UUCP> <244@phri.UUCP>
Organization: LAI -- The UNIX(tm) people
Lines: 31

>> Thirdly, a bike is very narrow and therefore should not be allowed to
>> occupy a full lane.

>	Well, I'll admit that there is a certain logic to this, but I
>ride down the middle of the lane in city traffic for my own safety.  If
>I hug the edge of the lane, that's just begging people to try and
>squeeze their car past me, whether or not there really is enough room.
>If I ride down the middle of the lane . . .

If a motorcyclist may speak in net.bicycle, I'd like to say that as an
instructor certified by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, one of the lane
position strategies we teach is positioning yourself such that you make
it clear that you own the lane you are in and you are not going to share
it with anyone.  I'm pretty religious about this and generally (unless
there are considerations that make other positions safer) position myself
just to the left of the center of the lane, putting myself directly in
line with an automobile driver's line of sight.  In spite of this, the
inevitable happened a couple of weeks ago -- I was waiting for a red
light in the right-hand lane, stopped as usual to the left of the center
of the lane, when some damned maniac decided he just couldn't wait to
make his right turn on red.  He tried to create another lane, squeezing
between me and the car on my left.  Not enough room, and even this
eighty-two year old jerk (lots of driving experience, right?) wasn't
going to ram the car on his left, so he did the logical thing -- ran
over my foot (thanks to the MSF for preaching about protective boots),
laid my elbow open, and did over $1,400 damage to my BMW.  To top it
off, as soon as he realized what he had done, he freaked out and ran
the red light to escape, almost causing a massive pileup in the
intersection which had heavy cross-traffic.  The moral -- stay away
from Ford Mavericks driven by octegenarians in a hurry, particularly
if the license plate is Colorado RW-5112.