[SDCBC] FW: Mayor Improves Efficiency for Police and Fire

[JonIsaacs at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/20/2008 10:18:33 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
trevorspoke at cox.net writes:

Bumping  the chip off the shoulder is the first step to happiness.
I want to see  them ticketing motorists who are NOT using the bike lane.
Nobody seems to  know how to merge into a bike lane and turn from the bike 
lane (as close to  the right edge of the roadway as practicable), let alone use 
a turn indicator  100 feet BEFORE moving from one lane position to another.

--  Trevor
------------
 
Trevor:  Indeed... I think a key problem here is that many/most  cyclists are 
not aware of proper lane positioning technique, often they believe  that the 
bike lane "belongs" to bicycles only so that they are free to ride to  the 
right of right turning cars.  
 
I believe the first step is to educate cyclists so that they understand how  
to merge properly, if all cyclists behaved consistently then motorists who 
were  not cyclists would learn by example and things would operate smoothly and 
as the  law intends.  One only has to look at what happens at most 
intersections,  few motorists are willing to believe that a cyclist is actually going to 
stop so  even though the motorist has the right of way by clear prior arrival, 
most are  conditioned to believe that someone on a bicycle will run a stop  
sign. 
 
It's a dream to be sure but one that SDCBC has been working on with all  
their might and it has reaped some changes, 20 years ago when I started riding  on 
a daily basis, I had many misconceptions about lane positioning and obeying  
signage.  These days, I think I have a much better understanding, some  
knowledge gained the hard way, some the easy way, education...
 
Yesterday as I was riding to work I hooked up with a fellow who had dropped  
off his car in PB for repair and was riding home.  As we talked, he was  quite 
surprised at how confident I was at riding in traffic, he and his friends  
have special routes they ride in order to avoid all traffic.  He was  genuinely 
interested in acquiring the necessary skills as I think he was  actually quite 
afraid, I mentioned SDCBC and the Road 1, Road 2 classes and I am  hopefully 
we have a new student...
 
Rather than ticketing motorists, I would like to see cyclists getting  
tickets for riding without lights, for running stop signs, for running stop  lights 
(that are functional), for riding the wrong way.  I suspect that all  too 
often the police just turn their heads when they see these things, figuring  that 
the offending cyclist will get his due.  In reality it is all of us  who pay 
the price...
 
Charity begins at home and so does awareness and consistency, rather than  
pointing the finger at the other guys (and gals), i.e. the motorists,  
motorcyclists, truckers, pedestrians, let concentrate on our own brethren.   As Lance 
said during his treatment when he was unable to even keep up with a  mother 
with a child on mountain bike:
 
"First the mothers of the neighborhood, then the fathers of the  
neighborhood, and then the world..."
 
The impossible does happen...   
 
Jon



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