Want to be hit by a car while riding a bicycle? Wear a helmet!

[[email protected]]

Brucie, I'd cross the yellow line to run you down.

Are you as obnoxious on this forum as yuo are everywhere else? As
usual, you disagree with someone here.

I love your alias --- it goes along with swiftsurfer, swiftsailor,
swiftprofitmaker, swiftskier, swiftmouth. How 'bout swiftidiot and
swiftmoron as your next two aliases?



swiftcycler wrote:
> I disagree with that observation totally. I find as a motorists that
> Americans drive too close to the center line. I think that mainly
> there are a lot of lonely people out there who both think that they own
> the road and also want to let anyone coming against them that they are
> willing to assert their claims. However, this would be an indication
> that the driver would be male. I have also observed that many women
> won't cross the yellow line even when they are endangering a pedestrian
> coming against the traffic. They have this asnine view of toeing the
> line, strictly adhering to the law, which can be rather annoying. I
> find on these narrow country roads I ride that men in their pick-ups
> will not only speed but cross the yellow lines when passing. Women
> will speed but rarely cross the yellow lines even with a clear view of
> the empty road ahead. However, of course there are exceptions.
> Marlene Blanshay wrote:
> > Wayne Pein wrote:
> > > He rode between 0.25 meters (10 inches; a real "gutter bunny") and 1.25
> > > meters (4 feet 1 inch; about the location of a typical US bike lane
> > > stripe) from road edge. This is not sufficient distance to effect
> > > positive change in motorists. He merely used up some of the passing
> > > clearance that UK motorists typically afford a bicyclist riding such
> > > distance from the side. I also would like to see his data cross
> > > tabulated for distance from edge, passing distance, and lane width. It
> > > would be interesting to see if his data are skewed.
> > >
> > > I surmise that there is a tipping point at which a bicyclist uses enough
> > > of available lane width that it compels motorists to give considerably
> > > more clearance. That is my experience here in the US anyway.
> > >
> > > Wayne
> > >
> > i have noticed in the last few weeks that american drivers have a
> > tendency to drive VERY CLOSE to the curb. A few times I've been
> > practically grazed by cars passing me and noticed they were from the US.
> > This on a designated shared road that has millions of signs saying, "in
> > a hurry? Take the highway!"
> >
> > it's like they have no concept of a shared road or simply begrudge
> > yielding any space. Other people have noticed this as well, and I've
> > seen it in american cities. Cars drive by like 2 inches from the
> > sidewalk. No wonder i hear so many horror stories from cyclists... as
> > bad as drivers here are, they at least give you some leeway even if they
> > honk or yell at you.

 

[Bill Sornson]

[email protected] wrote:

> Brucie, I'd cross the yellow line to run you down.
>
> Are you as obnoxious on this forum as yuo are everywhere else? As
> usual, you disagree with someone here.
>
> I love your alias --- it goes along with swiftsurfer, swiftsailor,
> swiftprofitmaker, swiftskier, swiftmouth. How 'bout swiftidiot and
> swiftmoron as your next two aliases?
>

Top-posting anonymous moron makes threats while exhibiting hypocrisy at its
most ironic.

Doesn't get much better than that...

*******

> swiftcycler wrote:

{who cares}

 

[Wayne Pein]

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

> RIght. A sample size of ONE rider. That's right, ONE rider, who emulated
> male & female by using a wig or not. This is not good science. It's not even
> a good story.
>
> It makes the case of over 1000 cars, which is fine, reasonable sample size.
> But it draws conclusions based upon an unobserved single participant (who
> just happens to be the author of the study, and who just happens to have
> been hit TWICE during the study after having been passed by 2500 motorists.
>
> Think about what that's saying. Let's assume he worse the helmet half the
> time, and both times he was hit he was wearing the helmet. If that's the
> case, then his rate of being physically hit by a passing car is ONCE EVERY
> 625 CARS!!! If this were typical, most of us wouldn't live long enough to
> figure out the next version of Windows, Linux, or Apple OS-X.
>
> Complete & total nonsense. It could be that the premise actually is true...
> that cars may in fact actually pass closer to a helmeted cyclist than a
> non-helmeted cyclist... but there is nothing in that experiment to support
> that, due to the absurd flaws in how it was run. Other than to suggest that
> the author is a terribly unskilled cyclist, that is. That conclusion is
> inescapable.
>

Good observation.

He was able to be very precise in his passing distance measurement due
to using ultrasound, plotting increments of 5 cm, about 2 inches. But
his lateral position was in increments of .25 meters (25 cm) 5 times as
much, and there was no mention of how his lateral position was measured.
It seems to me any variation in passing distance was likely overwhelmed
by variation in lateral position.

Wayne