Comment by eckmLJE | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eckmLJE | Hacker News Reader

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I respect that you feel safe in taking the lane and following the law. I agree with what you say about riding on the sidewalk.

One of my greatest fears when riding a lot in the city was being run over from behind. This is more common on country roads, where I believe it's the leading cause of cyclist fatalities in collisions, but I still saw it as a constant threat in the city. Especially when vehicles would intentionally tailgate me in the lane, rev their engine to speed toward me, slow down and repeat, etc.

In _Zodiac_, by Neal Stephenson, the author describes two opposing frames of mind that a cyclist must maintain simultaneously in traffic: 1) I'm invisible, no car can see me and no matter what I do to make myself visible a car will ignore my presence and drive through me, and 2) I am extremely visible and have a target on my back, and every car is intentionally trying to run me over. Only by riding in a way that is defensive to both cases can I approach a guarantee of safety.

I do not trust drivers to respect my presence on the road. This is a perspective I have learned repeatedly through experience.

With pedestrians, I ride such that no matter what they suddenly decide to do, to respond weirdly to my presence, it doesn't matter. They can start running, they can stop on a dime and turn around, they can fall over, and I will have positioned myself not to be in their way.

I'll also say I don't really have a proposal. I'm not saying everyone should follow the way I ride. Just that I had to invent a way to ride that felt safe for me and others because the law makes no sense for me.

> 1) I'm invisible, no car can see me and no matter what I do to make myself visible a car will ignore my presence and drive through me

If you try to ride in a way that you're not noticed (off to the side, behind parked cars, using the sidewalk, then motorists will not see you until it's too late to avoid a collision. That's not because they're purposefully ignoring you. It's because their attention is focused on traffic, traffic control devices and where they expect traffic or pedestrians to cross. They're not focused on you because you're not where they expect.

> I am extremely visible and have a target on my back, and every car is intentionally trying to run me over.

This is demonstratably false. There are many cyclists who ride and motorists aren't intentionally targeting them. The motorist who doesn't notice the cyclist is the greatest risk because the motorist won't take actions to avoid a collision until it's too late to do so. Therefore, the safest option is to ride where motorists are looking, which is in the center of the lane.

> Just that I had to invent a way to ride that felt safe for me and others because the law makes no sense for me.

The problem is that different cyclists will come up with different ways to deal with the situation at hand. This makes them hard to predict or know where to check for motorists and drivers of other vehicles. One time, there was a cyclist riding down the sidewalk the same speed I was going on the road. The cyclist suddenly decided to cut across the road right in front of me and I barely avoided a collision with him. I had a trailer and one of my kids in the rear child seat with me and had there been a collision, we would have suffered serious injuries. A cyclist riding in the road directly in front of me is more predictable and won't cause a situation that could lead to a crash with injuries.

I think that eduacation programs that focus on how to safely ride in traffic is the best option. Cycling Savvy[1] is one program that I've found very useful.

[1] https://cyclingsavvy.org/

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