Originally Posted by
John Forester
So far as I have observed, the only American cyclists who learned vehicular cycling as children are either immigrants from European nations where that was the national norm, or are the children of vehicular-cycling parents. It is possible that there are a few who learned it, as children, through some other route. However, none of the older published child-cyclist traffic-training literature shows vehicular cycling. They all show cyclist-inferiority cycling. Street Smarts is the modern publication that might be read by children that shows vehicular cycling, and I hope that it is producing a change.
Interesting.
I voted yes. I'm 51 years old. At some point in the early sixties my grandparents gave my brother and I pamphlets on bicycle safety. I certainly wouldn't claim that it taught vehicular cycling, but what the pamphlet taught was bike safety when riding on the roads. What I remember most was the insistence on acting like a car in the sense of stopping at stop signs and red lights, and signaling turns (and stops.).
By and large the only signaling change I've made since my childhood is to use an extended right arm for a right turn (as opposed to the car centric bent 90 degree left arm).
I can't claim that this was vehicular cycling, but it was in the neighborhood. I didn't grow up with the sense that it was my responsibility to cower at the curb line.
I should note that I was considered to be a dork by my peers for signaling my turns!
Speedo