Originally Posted by
Maelochs
It is a stupid law which endangers cyclists, which you know, as a cyclist. So ... whatever. Do you have a full complement of reflectors on your bike and use a bell?
Yes. Lights too.
But you know from experience as a cyclist that you already know the car is there and passing you.
Not necessarily. In the parkway near my house, I can end up driving behind a large group of cyclists for a mile or more on a weekend because of heavy car traffic in both directions. If there's a large group, cyclists in the back certainly know I'm there, but they can't see when the road is clear and that a car (or cars) will start passing.
Decades ago, I was riding with a group in Sandusky Ohio. We had about 20-25 in our group on a pretty crowded road near the shore of Lake Erie. A guy (who happened to be in a pickup truck) passed us and honked the horn probably a dozen times on the way past. Friendly guy . . . He had his window down and told us to have a nice day as he came past the front of the group. For me, as one of the riders, it was a big help -- not startling at all -- on a noisy street to know this guy was coming around us.
It is certainly NOT the case that every time a horn is honked that the driver of the car is automatically stupid. That's all really.