To add to a previous op-ed about bicycle usage and driver responses there are some areas of town I will not ride a bicycle through. Those would be downtown,Fairview Ave.,Pearl Street and basically anywhere on Main Street or East Wooster.
The previous poster mentioned people going left of center to pass a bicycle disregarding traffic coming in the oncoming lane this happens repeatedly on Fairview and is quite dangerous for cyclists. I’ve been driving my truck down Pearl Street and have vehicles pass me so showing courtesy for cyclists would be quite the stretch.The sharrows and signs just give cyclists a false sense of security that they are in the right to traverse these areas with confidence and that all drivers will yield for them which doesn’t happen.
I realize the city is doing all they can to provide a safe environment for bicycles but they can not regulate driver courtesy via signage and sharrows. The conclusion to this is the cyclists themselves, with the total weight of bicycle and rider being at best a few hundred pounds and your adversary is around 3,000 pounds it’s a battle that will result in serious injury or death.
I see cyclists all the time riding without mirrors or lights ignoring traffic laws. Oh they may signal a turn but blow through stop signs cut through parking lots, whip across crossings on sidewalks when they use them.
My point is not all vehicle misconduct can be placed on the personality of drivers when cyclists ignore laws that drivers are constrained by leading to some of the lack of courtesy for cyclists. The old saying two wrongs don’t make a right applies but it is what it is, so cyclists ride with your safety in mind because in a battle with a vehicle you’ll lose every time there is such a thing as dead right.
Do not depend on your safety being legislated as always in every endeavor your safety is ‘your’ responsibility not the sharrows and signs or the cities. BG cyclist.
