India, A quick Google search on "bicycle turn signals" will lead to a number of products. I'm not sure these would be better than hand signals, however, except maybe at night. In any case, from a crash reduction / avoidance perspective, there is no evidence from any crash study I have ever seen that failure to use hand signals leads to crashes, and I have never seen anything that indicates that using hand signals leads to a reduction of crashes. As you pointed out, it is more important for the bicyclist to ride in a consistent manner, be in the correct position on the roadway, and to be looking for other traffic (especially behind them) before changing position on the road or turning.
Arthur Arthur Ross, Pedestrian-Bicycle Coordinator City of Madison Traffic Engineering Division 215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Suite 100 PO Box 2986 Madison, WI 53701-2986 608/266-6225 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of India Rose Viola Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 3:29 PM To: John Martin Cc: bikies Subject: Re: [Bikies] Signaling a right turn with the right hand I also use my right hand to signal a right-hand turn on a bike, but I think either way is fine. It is more important to be safe and seen than anything as far as I'm concerned. If you are signaling a turn on a bike the motion should be clear and sustained (but of course common sense dictates how long you should have one hand removed from a handlebar). For less confident cyclists, I think it's more important to be in control of the bicycle and to cycle in a consistent (rather than making sudden darts in between parked cars or turning left from the far right side of the road etc.) manner than to use hand signals. I don't think it would be a bad idea to have turn signals coming off of the seat post that are hand-actuated (similar to a motorbike signal)... anyone seen these? -india _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
