Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
...
I agree that acting as if you're the only person out there is fairly characterized as prima donna cycling and is arguably illegal. Of course, that's not what I or anyone else is suggesting. I'm suggesting you were too far right (which you've admitted) because you did not have the ingrained habits, honed by learning and practicing best practices, to automatically look back and move left instinctively when approaching a junction with a blind alley to which your sight lines are obscured by parked cars.
What is this 'Look back and move left?' My default position in the absence of same direction traffic is way out in the middle of the street. There is no need to move left from that position, because I'm already there.
Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
If you had developed appropriate habits through learning and practicing vc best practices, you wouldn't have to be paying attention every moment (which is humanly impossible) to remember to do everything right for every possible situation.
Sure....whatever you say, HH. The cyclist who uses 'best practices' is still _dependent_ on situational awareness.
Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
Really? I've never seen an inexperienced cyclist take the lane where he or she obviously should, much less where there is a good reason not to do so. It would be a kick to see that, however. I rarely see cyclists take the lane at all.
I see quite a bit of unnecessary lane-taking from obviously inexperienced cyclists. It is emphatically not a kick to see that.
Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
...even you have admitted that advantageous lane position is part of making a cyclist safer).
What is this 'admitted' crap? 'Hurst admits he should have been further left!' Brilliant, geniuses. Riding left is of course a major theme in my book. Maintaining a stout buffer zone is one of just four principles of traffic cycling that I, not a big fan of principles, am willing to lay out, and my 'default position' is actually much further left than that suggested by VC fatwas. For instance, I suggest riding at least 10 feet from parked cars when traveling 20 mph. (p. 78) For a street with narrow lanes, that's right down the middle of the street. Personally I could be riding down the middle of a narrow street and still wish I had more space. I've never heard such a thing advocated by VCers, who tend to be such wide-eyed beginners that they see riding anywhere left of the right tire track as some extremely empowering hear-me-roar position. I urge cyclists to see the entire street surface as potentially open and available for their use, and to give more respect to the potential for hazards to nonetheless cross that space in a flash.
Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
As a successful messenger, you probably have a natural ability to pay attention better than most
What a load of crap-ola. The thing that keeps a successful messenger safe is the same thing that would keep any cyclist safe: Situational awareness, honed by experience. The thing that messengers get in mass quantities that other cyclists don't is experience. Exposure. That is the difference between messengers and other bicyclists, not natural ability, or supernatural ability, or ESP or 'ninja skills.' Experience. Hours in traffic, day after day, year after year.
The proof is in the pudding. The most experienced cyclists in the world are also the safest cyclists in the world. But they ain't VC adherents. VCists certainly have a problem with the 'successful' veteran messengers, who achieve accident rates far, far better than the best accident rates ever recorded for any group of cyclists, without following so-called 'best practices.' It is easy to see why some try to turn messengers into supernatural beings with 'ninja skills' in order to dispose of facts that might be fatal to their belief system.
Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
, including most of your readers, but you're still not infallible. When you figure how how people can learn to never get distracted, I suggest you write a book on that topic. You might get an honorary degree in cog sci to boot. In the mean time, I strongly suggest you learn and adopt some of these vc best practices, so that your riding doesn't rely so much on ideal vigilance, which is of course impossible to achieve.
You rely on vigilance, I rely on vigilance. Anyone who gets on a bike and rides into traffic will be dependent on vigilance. Of course, we all get distracted at some point. And at that point, best practice won't be much better than no practice. To believe otherwise is simple wishful thinking again, there is a lot of that around here. Without proper situational awareness, we are simply dependent on luck. No matter what our lane position happens to be. And luck, she is not reliable.
Am I making sense yet? Try pulling your head out and see if that works.
Robert