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Professional Drivers

03.20.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

Since beginning biking way back in 2007, I have had a healthy respect for trucks and buses. Not because they’re big and are a threat, but because they are driven by pros. Pros know the rules of the road, and they’re sharp enough to anticipate moves other drivers and cyclists might make.

During the road part of my Traffic Skills 101 course, we were negotiating the streets of downtown Austin. I had a left turn coming up, and I was keeping my bike as far to the right as practicable, just as a good cyclist is supposed to do. But I had to move left, and a big city bus was approaching from behind.

I signaled my left, started  to move in that direction, and low and behold, the bus let me through. We were able to flow smoothly with no disruption of traffic. I got to make my left turn, and he got to pull up to the corner at his next stop.

I’ve had other encounters with professional drivers that have only increased my confidence in them.

And then, Friday morning came.

Pat and I were out on a ride in the neighborhood. She usually goes 12-15 miles, and I’ll tack on another 10 or so after she heads home. This time, we were coming up to a major intersection of two four-lane divided streets. Some time ago, I taught Pat to leave the bike lane just before it ends, and “take the lane.” That way, right-turning cars have to turn behind her, rather than cut her off and trap her in the right turn lane.

She was quite a way behind me. She signaled, moved left to take the lane, and the light went yellow. She pedaled hard to get across the right turn lane and pull back into the bike lane at the stop. Then she heard it. A truck owned by a well-known food distributor decided he wasn’t going to stop at the light and gunned it to get through the yellow. So here she was — in a traffic lane, braking for the light, and a truck right behind her was speeding up. She dove for the bike lane early and just got out of the way of the truck.

I always wait for her at the top of a hill about a half-mile up the road. When she caught up to me, she was pretty rattled. But I congratulated her for handling it well, and she put the incident behind her.

Until the next morning.

This time, we were climbing a hill on State Highway 45. The bike lane — shoulder really — narrows and disappears as an intersection approaches. If you turn right, a fire station sits nearby. A fire truck coming up the hill didn’t give Pat any room. It stayed in its lane instead of moving left for her (the other lane was clear) and squeezed her into the gutter just before the right turn lane for the intersection.

Two days, two trucks. Pat’s not excited about riding in traffic right now. And my regard for professional drivers is not as high as it once was.

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Categories // Safety Tags // trucks

Do You Adopt a “Car” Mentality Behind the Wheel?

03.08.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 12 Comments

I had just begun my Tuesday evening ride, one I hope will now become a regular occurrence, now that daylight lasts longer (Hey, DST begins this weekend, doesn’t it?).

I was on a gentle downhill leading past a strip mall to a stoplighted intersection. I was in the bike lane here. Just before the intersection, a right turn lane allows drivers to bypass the light. The light was red, and about a dozen vehicles were stopped for it. But one guy, anticipating that he would take the right turn lane at the corner, was as far to the right as he could go. So far right, in fact, that he blocked my bike lane.

I had no bailout. Both traffic lanes were blocked by stopped vehicles. There was no choice but to stop behind the big Chevy Tahoe (It’s always one of them, right?) and wait for the light to change.

Okay, it was just another routine car vs. bike incident in suburban America. I was headed to a more bike-friendly place: the Austin Veloway.

Now, to get onto the Veloway track, you have to cross a gravel parking lot. it’s the only tricky part of the ride. Bike tires carve small ruts in the soft gravel and dirt surface, and a gate blocks the entrance to the track, so riders have to negotiate an opening between the gate and a berm, marked by a post and a large rock. My wife hates it. She considers it to be dangerous.

In this shot from two summers ago, my wife (in orange top) crosses the parking lot toward the Veloway gate. The surface at the opening is quite rutted.

My tires are skinnier than hers, and I’m always careful crossing the lot. Usually, other bikers are leaving parked cars to start their rides, or are coming off the track into the lot. There’s always a chance the dirt will grab your slow-rolling wheels and cause a fall.

Sure enough, this evening that very situation happened — a biker was coming from the left after pulling his bike off his car rack, and a lady was coming through the opening into the lot. I slowed as much as I dared. And then, a car that had been parked on the right side started backing up.

Now surely, the driver could see that there was bike traffic in the lot — even looking through the bike on his rear bike rack. But he didn’t stop to let me and the other bikes pass. He kept backing. The biker on the left sped up quickly, and shot through the opening. The woman who had just come through the opening stopped. I swerved left, to give the backing car a wide berth.

When he’d backed up as far as he needed to be able to turn his wheels and pull out toward the lot entrance, he stopped and made his turn.

Unbelievable. Just minutes ago, this guy had been on his bike riding the Veloway — presumably one of we band of brothers on two wheels. But now that he was driving a car, he was more of a mind with the Tahoe driver I had encountered earlier.

What is it about getting behind the wheel that causes some people to leave their cyclist selves behind?

Is it just me — or have you run into similar situations? Vent in comments.

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Categories // Safety Tags // cars, Veloway

Triggering Green Lights

02.08.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

When I wrote my last post about getting stuck at red lights, a couple of commenters noted that the bike should be able to trip the green light.  The problem is, a lot of us don’t seem to know exactly how to do it – and I guess I’ll have to count myself as part of that group, since I’ve never been able to trip a green light while on my bike.

Andrew in New Hampshire says bikes just don’t have the weight required to trip the signal.  That’s true, Andrew, and it’s too bad if that’s the way they work in New Hampshire.  In Austin, Texas, they’re supposed to be tripped by metal – the metal on a car, and even the metal on a bike.  But some of us Austinites can ‘t make that work, either.  Steve says he sat through a red light cycle three times before finally waving a car ahead to trip the sensor.

Alice in Louisville has the solution – at least in her town.  “The sensor plates under the pavement show a “T” shaped seam in the road,” she writes. “By placing your front bike wheel at the top part of the T, that’s supposed to trigger the sensor as I understand it. Seems to work most of the time, although there are some intersections where it just doesn’t work.”

Yeah, that’s the way it’s supposed to work here, too.  In fact, Nadia Barrera, the project coordinator for the city’s pedestrian and bicycle program, posted an item on the Austin Cycling Association’s web site explaining how to trip the light:

“To trigger a traffic signal, simply place your bicycle over or within three inches of the ‘saw cut’ of thedetector loop (pictured). The signal detects metal, so your pedal or even the metal in your shoes should trigger the signal. Once you have situated yourself over the loop, stay put. The signal works in such a way that if you leave, it thinks that you were a right-turning vehicle, and the trigger process to change the light is aborted.”

I’ve tried. Lord knows, I’ve tried. An intersection I cross on three out of four bike rides stymies me. I think I can figure out where the cut is that she refers to, and I park the bike right over it. I have never triggered the light. I assume I’m doing something wrong.

And looking at the diagram supplied with her information … uh, I don’t know what it’s supposed to show. What’s that diagonal off to the upper right? Part of the loop? I assume the T at the top center of the top diagram is the part that Alice uses to get her green light. I will continue to try for the magic solution.

In the meantime, I’ll just inch forward into the pedestrian crosswalk so that cars behind me in the left turn lane will be able to get far enough forward that their metal content will trigger the green and get us going.

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Categories // Safety Tags // red light

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