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74 comments on Driving Tests for Everyone, Regularly

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Don Sailorman on July 19, 2006 - 9:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
i rode bicycles to school and college and my work from ages seven to sixty-one, when I retired. Now I ride more than ever and have accumulated more than 100,000 miles of accident-free bike riding. To tell the whole truth, I have never even had a close call.

My insight and tactics:

  1. be paranoid.
  2. Be much more totally paranoic, because they are out to get you.
  3. Realize that half of the drivers are impaired by drugs, alcohol, cell phones or are undergoing car-jacking, and a few are having fatal heart attacks as they realize they just killed that little kid who ran out in the road and is looking at her body and not your bike.
  4. Study bicycle riding from expert survivors.
  5. Ride motorcycles and experience even more malice and evil and danger from cars.

For some reason, big trucks are often kind to bicyclists.
Some school-bus drivers are very bad, but most are good.

  1. Keep your eyes moving: They can come at you from any direction.

  2. Increase paranoia to just barely below the point that the men with white coats takes you away to the rubber room.

  3. Practice panic stops.

  4. Always be mentally prepared to dump your bike in a ditch and take a broken bone rather than instant death.

  5. Do not bike unfamiliar routes except under ideal conditions. Familiarity with route is a HUGE safety factor.

  6. Helmets are good. I have been known to wear motorcycle body armor while on a pedal bike under circumstances where I thought ultra caution was called for.

  7. Stay on the trail. Ride on grass or sidewalks if that is safer in a particular situation. (I always have fat tires.)

  8. Ride an extra couple of miles if the longer route is safer.

  9. Don't ride too fast. Don't ride when very tired or emotionally upset. Do not carry your cell phone with you, or if you MUST, then turn it off until your bike is locked up and put away.

  10. If you can remember license numbers, report dangerous drivers; I've done this several times and have always gotten good feedback from the police. In one case my complaint triggered a huge drug bust.
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WinterIsComing on July 20, 2006 - 2:17am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Great list. I would add

16. Be assertive when it comes to your safety. Don't do anything dangerous for others' convenience.

I learnt this the stupid way about a week ago when I tried to jump with my bike over a gardening hose laid across my path, so as not to piss off the gardener standing nearby. I fell very quickly, onto concrete, and hit my knee pretty hard. Nothing broken, fortunately, but I will be unable to fully load my right leg for a few weeks.

Had I just ridden over the damn thing the worst thing that could have happened was hearing a few curses from the gardening dude. On the other hand, I could have stopped the bike, picked it up, stepped over the hose and hopped on the bike again. That would have been both safe and considerate. Next time I'll do it... NOT :-)

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kjmclark on July 20, 2006 - 7:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You can shorten this list considerably.  In decending order of importance:

  1. Read Effective Cycling by John Forester.

  2. Take a League of American Bicyclists Road I course.

  3. Obey the laws.  Particularly the parts about never biking against traffic and using headlights in the dark and during precipitation.

  4. Avoid biking when and where drunks might be present.

  5. Be extra careful in intersections.

  6. When possible, live in a community where there are lots of other cyclists.

I've found that most large truck drivers are decent about passing safely because they have extra training and experience, know how big their truck is, and know that they may lose their job if they get complaints.
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Don Sailorman on July 20, 2006 - 1:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Amen.
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Gunga2006 on July 20, 2006 - 7:04am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
 I ride my motorcycle with the assumption that everyone is trying to kill me. Not that other drivers are simply incompetent but actually trying to kill me. I think it helps me maintain a high level of situational awareness.
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Mad Maxout on July 20, 2006 - 9:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I always assume I am completely invisible when walking or driving anything. Some days on my commute seem to be "National Idiots Day", days when all the idiots try to drive. It turns out that in many social situations I am so invisible that the Pentagon would be envious if I built a plane so invisible. On a "National Idiots Day" I'm more invisible than the F-117A stealth plane.

I would really hate to be on a bicycle on National Idiots Day.

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Substrate on July 20, 2006 - 3:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I once made the mistake of riding Merrimon Ave. here which few cyclists do because of its reputation, because it was going to save me a gazillion miles.  I found myself doing about 40 mph uphill on someone's bumper, with someone else nipping at my back tire just to keep from turning into a pancake.  After I turned off of it, it was like night and day.  One road makes a difference.  Fortunately there are a lot of nice, lightly traveled roads around here.

The big trucks are a lot more courteous, curiously enough.  It might just be that passing a bicycle is a lot more dangerous a proposition for them because they have to take up much more road, accelerate and stop more slowly, and have worse visibility.  I generally pay them back by getting off the road when I can, and generally try to do so when I can hear them approaching.

Though you take a substantial speed hit, riding a mountain bike, with fat - hybrid type tires, seems to substantially increase your likelyhood to survive.  When I ride my skinny tired bike, I have to avoid patches of gravel and going off the road is practically not an option.  But with the fat tires on the mountain bike, taking an excursion off road is about as hair raising a proposition as cereal in the morning.

I find it curious that you didn't include:

  • - if you have a train of cars building behind you, pull over and let them go

  • - if riding with a partner, ride one in front of the other rather than side by side

  • - don't take up the whole road

Extending courtesy to the drivers behind you is also quite important.  Even I have wanted to run people over for riding side by side and down the middle of the road, and it makes it more dangerous for all involved when passing.
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