...And the guy with the helmet mounted camera is the craziest one of the lot.
frank theriault wrote: > On 2/1/07, David Mann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> This has to be about the scariest video I've ever seen. These guys >> wouldn't last 5 minutes in my city. >> >> http://youtube.com/watch?v=nR2ygFn-yR8 >> >> - Dave > > As the only (former) bike courier on this list (that I know of), I > feel equiped to comment with some knowledge. > > First, what these guys are doing looks really dangerous, but believe > it or not, they're in control. Their biggest concern would be the > "door prize" - ie: someone jumping out of a taxi and throwing open a > door without warning. > > I've ridden in New York, and surprisingly, the drivers there are > predictable, keep to their lanes, signal lane changes, and are quite > polite to bike couriers (compared to Toronto, anyway). I think that's > in large part due to a fairly recent law that taxis' licences are > suspended pending any investigation of any complaint. Due to that, > they drive pretty much perfectly. > > The other thing about New York, is that bikes go the same speed as > motor traffic, and that's a pretty safe situation for bikes. It means > we can take the middle of the lane and not worry of being squeezed out > by passing cars. > > All that being said, the guys in the video do give bike messengers a > bad name, especially buzzing pedestrians like that. The going through > lights, the squeezing between gridlocked cars (as I said, that's the > riskiest thing they did), the going the wrong way down one-way streets > look much more dangerous than they are. But pedestrians are pretty > helpless and unprotected; I always tried to be nice to them. > > cheers, > frank > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
