|
| I can understand your logic and I don't fault you for choosing to ride that way if you were to ride on a highway. I also should not have posted that comment on this thread. I should have started a new one. However, since we're already here, I'll explain my reasoning.
I spent some time riding a bicycle to class when I was in college. I also rode to work some. Honestly, I didn't last long because it seemed far too dangerous to me. Many of the shortest routes I took did not have sidewalks. There was also a curb on many of those places which slowed your escape. The traffic was also very busy and it just flat out was not possible to look ahead and look behind all the time.
I found that when you went with traffic, many people were really surprised at how things turned out, and I was surprised many times as well. When I went against traffic, car drivers were still surprised, but I was not ever surprised. I hugged the edge of the road and if someone didn't make room for me, I had plenty of time for an escape, even if it was 10 seconds vs 20 seconds. An extra 10 seconds means nothing if you're distracted by traffic or obstacles in front of you. If you're going with traffic, you're depending on others to see you. If you're going against traffic, you take your life out of their hands and keep it in your own.
All of that, I already knew from experience. What I hadn't thought of was riding with traffic on a 2-lane and having someone pull out to pass just as they were meeting me. Yet another reason to ignore stupid laws in my mind.
It's just like driving in the city. The speed limit may be 50 but the flow of traffic is 70. Do you go 50 because it's legal? Not if you you want to be safe. You go 70 when you're not changing lanes and you go 75 when you're changing lanes. It's a lot easier to see obstacles you're overtaking vs obstacles that are overtaking you. | |
|
Fatal truck/bicycle accident
