John E

I blame steadily growing traffic congestion for the deterioration in motorists' attitudes towards bicyclists and pedestrians. To me, sitting in a car in heavy traffic is one of life's more miserable day-to-day experiences, which I fortunately manage to avoid pretty well.

cooker

You've probably learned it by experience and common sense, but there are a lot of bad and confused riders out there who need didactic instruction to ride safely. I saw a young woman recently try to pass a bus on the right as it was slowing approaching a stop where people were waiting. Obviously the driver is going to pull into the curb and squeeze her....maybe crush her. I admit I was a bit sarcastic in offering help...I yelled "Hey! Do you have a death wish?" There's (yet another) debate going on in another forum on the merits of riding against the flow of traffic, ie. "the wrong way". Every day I see people riding in the dark with no lights, and not cautiously either, oblivious to their own invisibility, or else riding full tilt off the sidewalk into a busy intersection (one of the most common causes of collisions). Forrester wrote his book for many audiences, including new and experienced cyclists, politicians, civil engineers, police, etc. etc., so it is a tome, and not everyone is expected to read a book that size before they ride, but (as Grissom would say) the evidence tells us that they need something.

Helmet Head

I'm shocked.

Cycliste

Reading Forester's EC is not in fact the most recommended way to learn effective cycling or VC but instead taking a Bicycling Skills class such as LAB's BikeEd Road1 or similar course offered by your local bicycling coalition, advocacy group, some clubs and LBS are beginning to offer them also.

The course does not go as in depth as Forester's book but gives you the essentials and usually covers local rules and situations specific to your state or community, and what you don't get with the book: hands-on and on the road practice!

Highly recommended!

LittleBigMan

O/T, imagine my feeling yesterday pedaling past gas station after gas station congested with long lines of panicking motorists, crowding in to get their tankfuls of fuel (at inflated prices) before shortages could shut down supplies. Let's just say I felt partially vindicated, at least until I got home and learned my wife put $30 into our little Toyota Corolla. Yikes! Oh, well, as long as I ride everyday, I pay zilch for my trouble.

genec

Sadly it should be just the opposite... drivers should be required to study all the laws pertaining to them and other vehicles with which they share the road. They should have to prove they have the skills to actually handle the multi-ton vehicle they will be using. But instead our system gives a "license" to minimally skilled amateurs in the hope that they will eventually learn.

Meanwhile cyclists have to burden to learn all the rules, and do everything possible to protect themselves while zipping about on their 25-35 pound vehicles. Cyclists are also expected to learn all the same skills a motorist should have and then some... through some form of osmosis I suppose... as our society does not train cyclists in an form or manner.

Of course some benevolent groups have recognized this dichotomy and are trying to at least get some basic skills taught to the cyclists.

nick burns

I agree with you completely. If a person has even the most basic understanding of the rules of the road, they should have no problem operating a bicycle safely on the streets. Unless, of course, they choose to cycle in a dangerous fashion, which I believe some do.

When people approach me and tell me about stupid things they've seen people on bicycles do in traffic, I tell them there are bad bicyclists just as there are bad drivers. Obviously the process of obtaining driver's licenses didn't instill good driving habits in every motorist, some people will just never be good drivers no matter how much education they have received. The same goes for people riding bicycles. I'm sure many of the wrong way riders have been told that the correct way is to ride with traffic, however they take it upon themselves to do just the opposite.

Operating any vehicle safely is not rocket science. If more people just obeyed the traffic laws and used common courtesy, there would no doubt be far less stress on the roadways.

Just my opinion, of course.

Helmet Head

There is a huge difference between cycling, and cycling in traffic, a difference most people, including most cyclists, even most "experienced" cyclists, do not recognize.

It's a difference I did not recognize, or at least did not fully appreciate, even after almost thirty years of cycling in traffic, without major incident (was never hit), until I read Forester's book.

With all due respect, after reading your posts over many months, they lead me to believe that you too have not developed a full appreciation of la difference between cycling, and cycling in traffic.

Karldar

I wholeheartedly agree. Too bad there's no magic potion to make people safer and more courteous, currently. Many would refuse to drink, I'm sure....

Helmet Head

There is a quite a bit more to cycling safely in traffic than simply obeying the traffic laws and using common courtesy, not the least of which is learning how to quickly determine the appropriate lateral position within a lane for a given situation and set of circumstances.

It's one thing to be able to analyze a certain situation, consider all the options, and determine the best option. It's another to do it in real-time while you're riding a bicycle in busy and fast-moving traffic, while the factors that determine the best position are constantly changing.

Treespeed

Dang Serge and you wonder why folks find Forrester and his followers insufferable.

Helmet Head

Sorry Treespeed, but anyone who dismisses the subtleties of learning to ride safely in traffic by stating the she does not understand why a book would be useful in learning how to do it, obviously does not have a full appreciation for what it is.

Be safe.

Totoro

Hey, when you're finished with it, I'd love to have it. It's one of my favorites, but I've only read the library copy. A copy of my own would be nice.

drezdn

I thought Hurst's book was very well down and choose a sort of middle of the road approach to addressing cycling on the street.

Treespeed

I just find it hard to believe that you believe Diane does not have an appreciaton for the difference between cycling and cycling in traffic. That seems like kind of a low blow. Forrester is so dang pedantic and a cliff notes version of his tome would suffice for most situations and certainly be read by more beginning cyclists. A book is helpful, but it's not the only path to enlightenment.

Helmet Head

Hurst's book has a lot of bad advice and instills fear of traffic to the point where he makes learning to ride effectively and safely in traffic very difficult. I don't have the book in front of me, but as I recall, the final paragraph and/or the back cover provide good examples of this (but there are many more inside the book).

Unlike some other posters in this thread, I only comment on books I have actually read...

Treespeed

Well I've read both, but Forrester was snooozzz, so boring. But hey that's me, I'm glad it worked for some folks. I just don't think it's the only way to gain the knowledge, obviously Forrester had to come by his knowledge in some other way than reading his own book.

Helmet Head

The impression I have of Diane (sbhikes), based on reading hundreds of her posts, is that she does not have full appreciation of the difference between cycling and cycling in traffic. Her admittance that she is unlikely to ever read Forester's book speaks volumes about how closed her mind is on this issue.

Something much like a Cliff Notes version of Forester's book exists, and it's called Street Smarts by John S. Allen. It's available in PDF form for free downloading on the internet.

But, again, it's one thing to be able to analyze a certain situation, consider all the options, and determine the best option. It's another to do it in real-time while you're riding a bicycle in busy and fast-moving traffic, while the factors that determine the best position are constantly changing. The difference is what I call, for lack of a better term, the VC attitude. To develop the VC attitude, you really have to come to believe that you have the same right to the road as do all other vehicle drivers. That's what it takes to develop an almost instinctive ability to quickly evaluate a given traffic situation and choose the appropriate action in real-time. It's easier said than done, especially in our culture, and reading a nuts and bolts Cliff Notes booklet like Street Smarts is unlikely to get one there. Forester's book, on the other hand, with the narratives and theoretical explanations necessarily lacking in a pamphlet, when studied, and carefully considered, provides the material to help make the necessary transformation, over time.

Hurst's book, by the way, despite being full of some really great stuff, in the end probably makes it more difficult to make the transformation (due to the bad advice and fear mongering laced throughout the book).

Serge

genec

Actually her statement was more along the lines of Why does CYCLING need the big thick manual and yet MV DRIVING does not.

Certainly cycling is more complicated than "just a pamphlet" can cover... but then so is motor vehicle driving... and therein lies the real problem. Motorists are not effectively trained nor tested for the skills they should have to pilot their vehicles.

Helmet Head

It is your spin that both MV driving and cycling need big thick manuals ("cycling is more complicated than 'just a pamphlet' can cover... but then so is motor vehicle driving"), or some equivalent, not hers. Her statement implied that it was probably not needed for either, and, in any case, certainly not needed for cycling: "I can't see why on earth cycling can be considered so complicated you need to study a bible, I mean book, to understand how to do it." Those were her exact words, and I stand by my characterization of her as someone who falls into the category of "anyone who dismisses the subtleties of learning to ride safely in traffic by stating that she does not understand why a book would be useful in learning how to do it, obviously does not have a full appreciation for what it is."

But now that you mention it, I wonder if there is a book on the theory of defensive driving that can effect a paradigm shift the way EC can. After all, learning to drive a MV defensively is as much about attitude shift as is learning to cycle in traffic vehicularly, and something a pamphlet is as equally unlikely to bring about.

For the record, the part of Effective Cycling that covers traffic cycling is probably 10-20% of the whole book. I would really like to see a book on just that, which would be something close to John Franklin's Cyclecraft.

jfmckenna

The difference between cycling and cycling in traffic is what? Riding along a quiet mountain trail on your mountain bike vs riding a bike on the road. I don't get it when ever I ride weather it be to work or out for fun I am in traffic. I can't help but think that if you need some book to tell you how to ride a bike then you aint never gonna know how to ride.... Approaches stop light, "Oh wait what did it say to do... ummm ok yea apply brakes but then... um oh crap"... digging out book from panniers and flipping to page 45... "Ah here it is ok it says go when the light turns green ok I got it now"

LOL

Helmet Head

I bet you have never read Effective Cycling or Cyclecraft. True?

I say that based on the premise that anyone who had ever read either of those books would probably never ask this question.

By the way, what, if anything, does, "learning how to quickly determine the appropriate lateral position within a lane for a given situation and set of circumstances" mean to you?

Have you ever been hit by a car? Any close calls?

Cycliste

Wrong answer, sorry, before you apply brakes, there are a couple of things you should be doing. Like checking what's behind you, and signaling your intention to stop, and of course making sure you are positioned in the rightmost lane that leads to your destination but you have done this long before you approach the intersection. Not mentioning taking control of the lane if too narrow for a vehicle to pass you safely. Did I forget to mention shifting to a lower gear for a smoother start when the light is green?
Then before the light turns green, check the driver behind you and make sure s/he still sees you by making good eye contacts.
No offense! This are skills based on knowledge that make cyclists more effective in trafic and safer and as I mentioned earlier don't need the whole EC book to be acquired.

Treespeed

It means that you are mired in jargon and that there are plenty of experienced and accomplished cyclists who would tell you to get blown when asking such a question. Some time ago you wrote that you would never quote from EC as if it was the bible and here you are doing it. As if you speak some secret language and hold the key to some special knowledge obtainable only by reading EC. And you never addressed my contention that it is completely possible to become an excellent traffic cyclist without reading any of these books. Your dismissal of other cyclist's comments and speculation on their cycling abilities based on wether or not they've read a particular book is ridiculous. Yes, you've had great success with the knowledge that YOU'VE gained from EC, but many people, Forrester included came by their cycling knowledge through experience.

noisebeam

HH, I agree that it takes an certain attitude and level of skill to ride in dense fast traffic. But what I always get from you posts almost seems like an attempt at posturing that attitude in your language, showing that you are that tough guy, that street hardened cyclist, uniquely experienced and skilled based on your many years of cycling suddenly enlightened by your reading Forrester's EC. Unfortunately it comes across as condescending to many. Lots of folks on this forum have experience in traffic, ride vehiculalry, know how to negotiate with drivers, know where to position themselves in a lane for best safety and to get appropriate driver response. Unfortunately that attitude seems to go beyond the road and some folks find it a turn off and don't want to be associated with it, which often means they distance themselves from EC and VC or at least being proponents of it. Most troubling is that pushing for the need for the attitude, the skills, the quick wits, experience also provides a significant hurdle for someone who wants to ride in the road- with implications its only for an elite group. How does one transition from a residential rider and busy road sidewalk rider to an experienced street cyclist or what have you. Or can only some folks VC?

Al