Monday, June 28, 2010
Transportation Road Share: Tips for Drivers and Cyclists
Posted by Mary Cashiola on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 10:29 AM
Sometimes I hear complaints that Memphis drivers don't know how to share the road with cyclists.
Or maybe it's more of a don't want to share the road with cyclists. (When you hear about things being thrown at people on bicycles, that doesn't seem like something you should have to teach people not to do.)
But for my purposes, I'm going to assume that it's a knowledge issue, which I'm sure it is for a majority of the driving population.
A friend of mine posted "How to Drive Around Cyclists" from Bicycling magazine on Facebook recently and, though I'm not completely sure when it was written, it still seems like a good primer.
Drivers and cyclists: If there's even been an oil-and-water combination, this is it. We both use roads; we'd both prefer to do so without the other in the way. But the juxtaposition puts cyclists in far greater peril than drivers. For that reason, nearly every rider would like nonpedaling motorists to know how vulnerable they are. And, yes, riders also need to take responsibility for their own safety, but a few simple tips for drivers will make the roads safer for everyone.
Most of it seems to boil down to drivers should give bicycles a 3 ft. berth, go slow, and pay particular attention at intersections. The piece also gives riders tips to be safer around crazy drivers. And everybody knows we have a few of those around here.
Comments (1)
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Mary: the link you gave to the Bicycling article is dead. Try this one instead: http://www.bicycling.com/news/advocacy/sha…
The cyclist/motorist conflict is, I'm afraid, a bit like the Israeli/Palestinian one. In case you think the cities that are supposedly more hospitable to cyclists are nirvana, my experience with one of the most highly rated cities might be instructive.
Riding in Boulder, Colorado some years ago, which has had dedicated (and enforced) bike lanes for years, and is reputed to have more bikes than cars, I made the mistake of straying outside the marked lane for no more than a few seconds. Well, the horns and abuse I got for that brief transgression would have made you think I had defecated in the middle of the road. So much for motorist/cyclist tolerance, eh?
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