Originally Posted by
hagen2456
You're stressing the "obeyance of rules" a lot. But other road users may be obeying the rules perfectly while still letting you know - by the signs I described somewhere above - that they may breach them in the near future.
We may agree, but I just can't get your way of describing these things to cover how I personally read traffic. Perhaps I'm just slow-witted. Perhaps it's not important.
I now understand, Hagen. Here is my side of the story. It is correct that I stress obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Not, as you suggest, "obeyance of rules", but obedience to a specific set of rules, those stated in American traffic law as applying to drivers of vehicles, ignoring those that apply only to drivers of streetcars or only to cyclists. I stress this because obedience by cyclists to those rules is quite rare. American is suffering the consequences of its seven-decade (or more) policy that cyclists should not obey those rules, but should obey those few laws that are based on staying out of the way of motorists for the purpose of making motoring more convenient. America has two sets of laws for cyclists, mutually incompatible. The first law gives cyclists the rights and duties of drivers of vehicles, the second set of laws denies cyclists most of those rights without decreasing the duties. This confused set of laws has produced three populations of cyclists. At one end are those who believe that their prime duty is to keep out of motorists' way, at the other end are those cyclists who have discovered the defects of such cycling and have become scofflaws, doing whatever they want in the belief that the traffic laws are not designed for cyclists. A third group are those who recognize the benefits of operating as traffic operates; that is, of obeying the rules for drivers of vehicles.
So, I emphasize the importance of learning how to obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, which is learning how traffic operates with the cyclist operating within it. But that learning is not "by the verbatim rules" but by acquiring the skill of learning how traffic operates with the cyclist operating within it. In the process of acquiring that skill, the cyclist learns not only how he should operate but how other drivers should, or mostly, operate with respect to those parts of traffic that are important to him. He has learned how traffic should look, and, therefore, has the best preparation for detecting when traffic is not working properly. When he quickly recognizes that, he has the best chance for taking whatever avoidance action would be appropriate.
Does this answer your concerns, Hagen?