auto-centric concerns

One way I can tell that utility cycling is still too far outside the norm is that folks, even experienced cyclists who know me fairly well, will offer--insistently at times--to give me a ride in their cars if it's rainy and/or dark when I'm going home.

It gets to be mildly offensive at times. I mean, really! Offering me a ride home, as if the three or four or ten or fifteen miles is a huge thing better done by car than by bike. To some degree, I can excuse one offer as being an attempt at politeness. By the time the same person offers three or four times in one event, especially if it's someone who is capable of riding thirty or fifty miles without a whole lot of preparation, and who knows I'm just as capable, it's really baffling, and not a little annoying.

Unlike the bike I use for club rides (which I've not ridden in over two months as I type this--all club riding has been done with Jenn on Bill and Kate's tandem), my commuting rigs are both well-lit and well-marked. I have reflectors facing most directions, and wear a jacket of Illuminite if it's cool enough that I can tolerate the extra layer (I have a couple of reflective vests for warmer-weather use). The Raleigh has a SOTA-circa 1995 headlight set mounted, in addition to the Planet Bike front flasher and rear SuperFlash. I kept a second LED flasher on that bike until recently, but it died of old age and over-use. I wasn't and am not too worried about replacing it, as that bike usually pulls the trailer which blocks the view of the flasher and has two flashers of its own on it. The Vanguard has two SuperFlash lights on the back, plus two reflectors that are my home-made four-inch-square things. I have recently added a CygoLite DualCross Pro NiMH LED headlight to the SOTA-circa 2000 VistaLite Nightstick Code 15 set (that has had the 5-watt bulb replaced with a 10-watt one), along with the Planet Bike 1/4watt flasher. Anyone who cannot see either of my commuting rigs when I'm on the road is either not looking or cannot see well enough to drive legally.

I'm also an experienced utility cyclist, and while some motorists get through my safety perimiter, I usually know where they are ahead of time. I ride as if they won't see me as much as I can, so that when they don't, I'm not in such a precarious position.

I suppose it falls into the realm of perception of relative safety. Folks are taught that cycling is a dangerous activity--witness how we are always told to wear our helmets--when it's typically safer than many other common pursuits, like driving a car. The perceived safety margin due to the cage structure of a car is an illusion--far more folks are injured in car crashes than in bicycle wrecks. Mixed modalities on one road is not the big problem, either--I'm visible enough that motorists, most of whom would rather NOT hit me, can see me easily from a fair distance.

The things that scare or spook me when I'm riding are the same things that do so when I'm in a car--things like the clown who passed me on Westport Road last night, well after sundown, in a light rain shower, driving a dark-colored car with no lights illuminated at all. The only way opposing traffic would know he was there was that he had the sense to use his turn signal for his left turn off Westport Road. If that driver is so oblivious that he's doing without his headlights at that time of day, I wonder about his ability to pay attention to his surroundings enough to be a safe driver.

Oh well. At least he wasn't driving a school bus...I got passed by one of those this morning, and it merited a call to the driver supervisor at the bus compound. When the driver passed me, two drivers coming the other way had to divert from their travel paths to avoid colliding with the bus.

I'm used to folks crossing a double-yellow line to pass me--it happens many times each trip to work or home. I often see folks who have to move to the right to keep from hitting the car that's passing me illegally, attesting to the idiocy of the drivers' choices. When it's a school bus, though, I expect a bit higher level of safety-consciousness, as I told the supervisor this morning when I called to complain about it. I'm not bashful about calling companies if their vehicles pass me illegaly or in an unsafe manner, either (although I make a point of calling while standing still in a parking space or other site out of the roadway).

More training for that driver!