<br>I agree, John, but only to an extent.<br><br>That is, better education of all motorists is an excellent idea, but I think the alleged "need" for it tends to be way overblown, particularly with respect to making cycling in traffic "safe". I have a particular distaste for the implication that riding in traffic is not safe, and will not be safe, until motorists are better educated, or cyclists are physically separated. That implication makes cycling seem much more dangerous than it actually is, and is hardly a boon to making cycling be more popular.
<br><br>But as far as Gene's point about reaching all road users regarding the spreading of the knowledge that Dan wrote about, yes, training through existing channels is probably a good idea. But I don't know how we get that to happen. In the mean time, I would like to at least see the information spread within the cycling community through the existing channels that we have, like this one.
<br><br>While even the advocacy leaders like Monica Howe
don't know approaching a place where a right turn is authorized obviates our legal requirement to keep right, or understand why, and the "hardcore" 34 miles/day commuters like Michael Clarke choose lane position based on the premise that the cars own the road and his job is "to go in there and figure a way in and out of them", then I think we still have a lot of house cleaning to do within the cycling community, before we can do much consistently and effectively about the lack of knowledge and understanding by non-cyclists...
<br><br>Serge<br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/11/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">John Eldon
</b> <<a href="mailto:j.eldon@sbcglobal.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">j.eldon@sbcglobal.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Thank you, Gene. Spot-on. I read every day, and occasionally encounter, motorists who desperately need education on bicyclists' rights, not to mention on their own moral obligation to drive attentively and responsibly.
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<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">John E.<br><br></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">----- Original Message ----<br>From: Gene Carman <<a href="mailto:gcarman@san.rr.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
gcarman@san.rr.com</a>><br>To: serge Issakov <<a href="mailto:serge@issakov.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">serge@issakov.org</a>>; <a href="mailto:sdcbc@bikesandiego.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
sdcbc@bikesandiego.org</a><br>Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 5:57:27 PM<br>Subject: [SDCBC] Fwd: Re: FW: Bikes vs Cars. An NBC news story in L.A.<br><br>Here Dan points to the fundamental problem of lack of education... of users of the roadway. As long as all the users of the roadway are not familiar with each others rights and the rules involved... then the problem will continue to exist.
<br><br>You and Dan and even John Forester will continue to insist that cyclists must be trained in some separate manner from motorists and that motorists don't need any further training... but since there is very little infrastructure to reach cyclists, more new cyclists will hit the road than can ever be trained in a life time, by the current
methods. <br><br>The ideal way to reach <b>all users of the road</b> is to simply incorporate training in an already well established "path" of training... either into the current school system where "use of the roads" should be a subject as important as health classes and PE, or in a longer form of drivers ed that goes beyond the basics and teaches the ethics and responsibilities of all the road users.
<br><br>Until then, only a few cyclists will ever gain the knowledge of which Dan speaks. Apparently even Monica Howe, the outeach coordinator of the LA County Bicycle Coalition, who should be well familiar with this information... was not. How then do we expect college freshmen, just cycling to class, to ever gain this knowledge?
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