Advocacy & Safety - Bike Safety Presentation - Thursday

Alright, I'm in a PRT Interpretative class. I'm scheduled to give a presentation lasting 5 minutes on any subject of my choosing. I chose bike safety simply because I know a little bit about it. My previous subject was hijacked by someone else just about as creative as I (sarcastic tone) and neither he nor I could come up with something like dandelion recipes or some wierd ass **** like that. Since he went before me he gets to keep the idea. Doh! So here is my question(s), I would like to hear from the biking masses their take on bike safety and what you feel is fair, unfair, ect. Add any concerns that you might have about current bike safety laws or principles. I could go through all the threads and stuff but that is extremely time consuming and time is not on my side. Also, please state the bike safety tip in which you are refering as well. I know a few of them but not all so that could be helpful. I know this sounds a little forward and that I demand that you give me answers but like I said time is of essence. The more detailed the more helpful. Thanks for any suggestions and comments and such that you might have because they are greatly appreciated. -Jeri

If you've got time, browse through this forum. If you read between the lines, you will find the topics of interest to us. Some of these conversations have been going on for months between various threads and would be really difficult to condense for you.

Just introduce the concept that cyclists have the same rights to the road as motorists... then prove it by citing laws. Follow up with examples of where a cyclist may take and hold the lane, where motorists should "give way" to that cyclist and simply accept this as the way things are.

The subject is very controversial... from a motorists' perspective... and who knows... you might just educate a few folks.

What's a PRT Interpretive class?

If you have only 5 minutes, Michael Bluejay's bicyclesafe.com (http://www.bicyclesafe.com) should provide you with more than enough material. I could probably talk for an hour on each situation...

5 minutes, that's pretty crazy. The best you can do is a brief intro, so you probably want to focus on a particular message more than the nuts and bolts of anything. The message I would try to convey is that cycling safety - the risk of getting hurt, hit or killed - is much more within the hands of the cyclist than most people realize. Your not a sitting duck out there. The basic principle of defensive driving is that practically all collisions could be avoided by any party involved. Applied to cycling, that means that practically all bike-car collisions could be avoided by the cyclist (of course, it also means that they could all be avoided by the car driver - but who wants to wait until the day ALL car drivers he will encounter adopt defensive driving when, for a given cyclist, just the cyclist adopting defensive driving will practically achieve the same results). For examples of how a cyclist could avoid the various types of collisions, see bicyclesafe.com.