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A confusing hand signal

08.24.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 11 Comments

I see that hand signals continue to be a topic of interest on some biking blogs.  We all know the basic signals (As in the diagrams on the linked page, I signal a right turn by pointing my right arm straight out — I think there’s less chance of confusion).

But this discussion got me wondering about a motion I see on some group rides. Cyclists will put their (usually) left hand down when signaling slow or stop, and waggle the hand if they’re pointing out road debris.

"Bad stop" from Conejo Valley Cyclists (cvcbike.org)
"Bad stop" from Conejo Valley Cyclists (cvcbike.org)

But sometimes, they’ll move the left hand to the small of their back. And sometimes, they’ll hold it there stationary but other times, they’ll move it back and forth, as though they’re pointing to the right with their left hand — behind their back. To make matters more confusing, sometimes they’ll do the same signal with their right hand.

I’ve read that this can be considered an alternate sign for stop, but I don’t think so. I think it’s to indicate that bikers should move over to avoid an upcoming obstacle — for example, if a car is parked in a bike lane and we have to move left into the traffic lane to get around it, the signal would be made with the right hand.

But I’m just guessing. I haven’t come across any explanation of this signal in biking books or online.  Because it’s a non-standard signal, it can cause confusion. And confusion can cause problems. What do you think? Is this a hand signal worth keeping around and promoting, or is it one best done away with?

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Categories // Safety Tags // hand signals, Safety

Police crackdown

08.19.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 29 Comments

I missed our Sunday ride two weekends in a row while on vacation, and it turned out that the first weekend  was much more eventful than usual.

The B ride took a loop route that included some moderately challenging hills. Everything was going well, until the group reached an intersection just two miles from the finish. It’s a stoplighted intersection, with a right turn to a southbound road with a bike lane at that point.

The light was red for the bikers. They rode up to the intersection, and turned right without coming to a complete stop at the light. Next thing you know, an Austin Police car was pulling them over.

TicketPenny gets her ticket while two other club members stand by in disbelief.

The officer issued tickets to four riders for failing to come to a complete stop. Each ticket carries a fine of $217. Meanwhile, one of the riders saw three cars roll through the same red light while making a right turn onto the same street, and wondered why the officer wasn’t ticketing them, since a two-ton automobile is a greater hazard than a 20-pound bike.

The officer told the group he was issuing citations because of the grief the Austin Police Department has been getting over cyclists breaking traffic laws. Letters to the editor in the newspaper seem to be getting more vociferous lately over cyclists, but I don’t think it’s any different here than in any other city.

The recipients of the tickets agree that they did not follow the letter of the law — they did not come to a complete stop — but they also think that since no safety issue was involved, the officer should have let them off with warnings instead. Now, they’re faced with paying a large fine. Pippa, the ride leader for the week, said, “I shall go to Court just because I’m British and like a good argument.” The others are still debating whether to join her.

One benefit of the incident has been increased discussion within the club about obeying traffic laws more strictly. The B ride this past weekend was led by a club member who is a League Certified Instructor, and required stops at all lights and signs. He said there was not a single instance of a rider rolling through a stop sign, and called it an “impressive” sight.

In the end, I suppose the ticket episode will be beneficial (although those who got the tickets will have a bad taste in their mouths for some time to come) because of the new emphasis on obeying laws within the club. It seems like a tough way to learn the lesson, though. Have any readers run into similar police enforcement crackdowns in your areas?

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Categories // Safety Tags // police, traffic laws

Helmets — not as safe as they’re cracked up to be?

07.14.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 18 Comments

The most interesting comment to come in after the “Most Common Noob Mistakes” post was one by Dr. Richard Keatinge, a general practitioner from Wales, in the United Kingdom. Although failing to wear a helmet was fourth on our little informal list, Dr. Keatinge says helmets don’t do the job they’re supposed to do. He is a member of the editorial board of the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation, an organization whose purpose is “to undertake, encourage, and spread the scientific study of the use of bicycle helmets, in the context of risk compensation and sustainable transport.” It appears to be a largely European group. I’ll let Dr. Keatinge take it from here, then add some thoughts of my own.

—

FurioThe trouble with bike helmets is that the figures don’t show that they work – helmet laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see Robinson DL. No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets. BMJ 2006;332: 722-5. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a. (Robinson’s work is the best scientifically because she uses the best scientific methods, all available control groups and so on.) It appears that helmets break easily, but don’t absorb the impact, see the engineers quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet. A broken helmet has simply failed, and the widespread anecdotes on the theme of “a helmet saved my life” seem to owe more to wishful thinking than to science. As for “a car ran over my head”, see the pro-helmet site http://www.helmets.org/smush.htm; if a car goes over your head, I’m sorry to say you won’t be sitting up and praising your helmet. The only known connection is that helmets have strangled a few young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles.

I no longer wear a helmet and haven’t pressed them on my children. I do check that their brakes work, their saddles are the right height, their lights are bright at night, and that they have a good idea of the rules of the road.

At my moderately advanced age it’s far too dangerous not to cycle – regular cycling, Danish style, not too far, not too fast, nearly halves the death rate, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1621 All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work. Andersen et al, Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1621-1628. Bicycling is good for health, but helmets don’t seem to be.

—

Dr. Keatinge makes an interesting case, and supports his claims with scientific evidence. I’ve seen arguments like this in the past. Even the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute agrees that there are conflicting results to scientific studies on bicycle helmet effectiveness.

The “smush” test Dr. Keatinge links to is hyperbole; no one claims that a helmet will keep your head from being crushed if a car rolls over it. What a helmet is supposed to do, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is “reduce force to the rider’s head when the helmet hits a hard surface.”

The CPSC standard is the one in use in the United States. Testers put a helmet on a headform and drop it a distance of two meters onto an anvil. That’s about the distance a bike rider would fall from a seated position on a bike, and a speed of about 14 miles per hour. A helmet must register less than 300 g’s to pass.

Let’s say you’re traveling at more than 14 mph, as blogger GT in LA was last week. He touched the wheel of the bike ahead of him, and went down hard. His bike slowed instantly, and his head’s speed when he hit the ground was probably less than 20 mph, and maybe less than 14 mph.

Although GT was banged up pretty badly, he had no head injuries. Take a look at the damage his helmet sustained. GT’s experience is anecdotal evidence, and not part of a scientific study, so I’ll cite this one: the Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson article in the New England Journal of Medicine from 1989 that showed riders wearing helmets had an 85 percent reduction in risk of head injury, and an 88 percent reduction in risk of brain injury (Dr. Keatinge’s organization takes issue with these findings).

I’ve fallen three times in the last nine months. No serious injuries, but all three crashes were my fault. That’s a pretty good indicator that I’m likely to fall again. A helmet won’t save me from my own stupidity, carelessness, or inattention while riding, but it will improve the odds that my noggin won’t be damaged if I do go down.

Riding “not too far, not too fast” might be good for overall health, but we’re bike riders, and I for one am going to strap on my $35 CPSC-certified helmet and keep riding.

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