At 05:33 PM 11/2/03 -0000, Annette Gill wrote: >And if you're a cyclist, you ride on the pavement - or at least they do in >London. And speed through red lights... And go the wrong way down one-way >streets... Grrr!
Twas the other way 'round in the eighties: all the 'zines I found in hostels complained about cars getting cyclists' sleeves dirty. I did find a car parked in a bike path once, but mostly drivers were very considerate. One of our group came in very embarrassed to say she'd been riding down the middle of a quiet country lane, when suddenly she realized that a car had been patiently following her for a mile. At home, we didn't worry about inconveniencing drivers -- we worried about getting run over on purpose. For both problems the solution is a book by John Forrester, who was appalled to move here from Britain and discover that Americans didn't have a clue as to bike safety. (American parents tend to advise their children to ride into the teeth of traffic, so that they can see the drivers desperately trying not to collide with them.) The book is "Effective Cycling", published by MIT press. It used to be the textbook for a how-to-ride course taught by the League of American Wheelmen. About the time that the League changed its name to something forgettable, which I have forgotten, they dumbed EC down to the equivalent of the one-session first-aid course the Red Cross teaches -- the one where you spend most of your time learning how to yell for help -- but continued to call it "Effective Cycling" and give the certificate and patch -- rather as though the Red Cross called its bare-essentials course "Emergency Medicine", and gave graduates an EMT certificate. When I quit the League, the official course (many instructors did much better) didn't even tell the children that they had something to learn -- quite the opposite. (The elementary first-aid course at least leaves the students understanding that there is stuff that they need to know.) If every twelve-year-old took the six-lesson Effective Cycling course, we wouldn't have so many children throwing themselves in front of trucks, and teen-agers would have four years of on-road experience when they get their first driving permits, so they wouldn't go as hog-wild. Better yet would be to call it "pre-driving", and make them take it every year from twelve to sixteen. But I'd be happy if some of our children were vaguely aware that roads have rules, and suspected that the purpose of the rules is to make actions predictable. -- Joy Beeson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
