Monday, October 8, 2007

Posted in reply to: NJDOT Announces Safe Route to School Grants

This is all really good and I, for one, hopes it really makes a difference, but one thing that really needs to be addressed is bicycle awareness.

It's been my experience that when on foot a driver sees you and adjusts his own actions accordingly to avoid the pedestrian and give them a wide berth, but once that same pedestrian is on a bicycle and riding the same stretch of road that same driver will seem to make it his duty to pass as near to the cyclist as fast as possible.

To the point where I once saw a cyclist get blown over by the force of the wind caused by a truck passing him.

The vehicle never touched him but he wound up in the weeds just the same.

Now if someone tried to pass another vehicle or a pedestrian that closely he'd most likely wind up cited seven ways to sunday by the police but it seems to be acceptable to do such to a bicyclist.

Driver education is a good start but what we really need is to get the cops to enforce the laws already in place and not treat cyclist complaints as a joke.

Where I live most of the cops didn't even know the answer when I asked them about the age requirements for wearing a helmet or about taking the lane in traffic.

If the police don't even know these simple answers how can we expect regular drivers to know them?

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