From: benedict@chaos.utexas.edu (Thomas Benedict)
Newsgroups: austin.talk
Subject: Bicycles
Date: 14 Apr 92 00:47:31 GMT
Distribution: austin
Organization: Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin

Now here's one that I'm sure will stir up lots of angry flames.  If
there's one thing I can't stand, it's the lack of understanding
between automotive drivers and bicycle riders.

I've ridden a bicycle for well over 17 years, and it was my primary
mode of transportation in Austin for over four.  Early on I rode my
bike on the sidewalk (as any six-year-old who didn't want his mother
to have a heart-attack would!), but when I started riding in the
street I took on several responsibilities.

When I ride in the street, I expect the same respect that any other
vehicle gets.  I expect people to respect my right of way (by Texas
law, bicycles get right of way just like a car), I expect people to
use their turn signals around me, and not to ram me off the road, and
I expect other drivers not to purposefully put me in situations where
I'll be killed or seriously injured.

In return I offer automobile drivers the same respect.  They're
vehicles sharing my road, so I don't swerve out in front of them.
They're vehicles interacting under the same traffic laws, so I don't
try to cross at a red light.  And they're also vehicles moving a
helluva lot faster than I am with a lot more mass, so I don't push my
luck.

A lot of drivers and bicycle riders alike move around in a world of
ignorant bliss.  Very few drivers REALLY have a grasp on the concept
of momentum.  I know a lot of bicycle riders are completely clueless,
or you wouldn't see them tearing through red lights and stopsigns like
there's no tomorrow.  Don't take me literally (though maybe you
should), but I think that a part of every driver's ed. class should be
a lab where the student gets hit by a car.  It's one thing to read
about momentum transfer and elastic collisions, but it's quite another
to be slowing down to make a turn and suddenly find yourself moving
about twice as fast as you were, about four feet off the ground,
toward oncoming traffic because some guy in a Camaro wasn't watching
the road when you slowed down and made the hand-sign that you're about
to make a turn.

With that experience tucked away in the mind of every driver, perhaps
some (I'd never hope for many, or all) would think twice before they
tear through a red, since, "it was green only a couple of seconds
ago."  Maybe they'd remember it and not swerve in and out of traffic
on the lower deck.  Maybe they'd leave one more pedestrian or cyclist
unharmed at the end of the year.

And with that little experience tucked away in the mind of every
cyclist, maybe the urge to blow past the cars at a stoplight wouldn't
be quite so strong.  Maybe when getting ready to take their rightful
place in traffic at night on an unlit street, they'd remember that car
drivers are blind to cyclists, and that having the right of way
doesn't keep you alive.

Still Alive,

Tom Benedict

P.S. My last gripe for the night is bicycle thieves, by whose efforts
I no longer ride a bike.  If anyone remembers the comic by Moreno in
the Texan just before Christmas entitled, "No mo' faith in humanity,"
that about sums it up for my feelings on bike thieves.  A man may have
a couple of horses, but I had one bike.  This is Texas, folks, and
horse theft is a hangin' crime.

Drive and ride safe.