Your Manners. Everyone's Safety

Since it's March, I use my bike a lot more: the grocery store, running stuff over to Goodwill, getting my favorite drink at Lorca - you name it. I even ride my bike to Exhale in Harbor Point; even though cycling to the gym is a little like eating snacks just before going to a nice restaurant. 

At some point or another, I have to ride home. Each time I do, I am presented with four options:

A) Arrive safely at home

B) A serious injury

C) An open-casket funeral

D) A closed-casket funeral

I am particularly fond of option 'A.' 

Granted, Connecticut could do a lot more to make that easier, and the reason I took a bike ride with Stamford's mayoral candidates through downtown last summer was to show them how simple it would be for bike lanes to make city streets safer and better for everybody - even the motorists. When I ride my bike, drivers get another parking space to choose from and one less car that could 'block the box' (I hope the Board of Reps, the Board of Finance and Mayor Martin remember those things the next time any of them are stuck in traffic or looking for a place to park). 

So without bike lanes for almost my entire route home - no matter where I start from - it's up to me to do what I can to reach option 'A': At dusk or at night, I wear one of those yellow highlighter-style vests, and sometimes matching gloves. I have no fewer than three lights on my bicycle. I've even placed cut-up pieces of white and red reflectors - the same found around the perimeters of semi trucks - around my bike and along the back of my helmet, which features a small but effective rearview mirror.

I also try to always ride predictably, use hand signals and follow the rules of the road. 

Sadly, a lot of my cycling brothers and sisters do not do the same. Some don't use lights, reflectors, helmets, common sense and other safety measures when cycling. Most visibly: some run red lights.  I've heard the excuse that red lights are pedaled through in order for the cyclist's own safety/to get a head start on the swarm of cars heading through the intersection. But the driver sitting in traffic watching a cyclist do this won't see it that way, and is probably going to be less sympathetic to that cyclist (and other cyclists) when he or she does drive past. 

You can bet they will also be less likely to listen at a city budget meeting should bike infrastructure be brought up for discussion. So cyclists: use your manners.

That said, I am absolutely not going to let motorists off the hook - some of them can be rude and unsafe lawbreakers themselves. Here's what I've seen just in the city of Stamford:

• A Volvo with a 'Baby on Board' sticker running a red light. 

• A guy giving a finger-based gesture while driving a jeep with a 'Life is Good' spare tire cover on the back. 

• A man in a white pickup using a solar-powered calculator while driving (and I knew it was solar powered because I could see him tilting it in his hand so the sun would hit the little panels at the proper angle).

Those are all rude and dangerous things - not to mention that the stakes are a lot different when a 150 pound cyclist shares a road with a 2,500+ pound motor vehicle. So drivers: please - for the love of apple pie, motherhood, playgrounds, and all Star Wars movies made before 1984 - drive slower. 

I mean it. 

The slower you go, the safer you (and everyone around you) will be. Driving slower also means you can hit the brakes in time to avoid hitting pedestrians, cyclists, deer, or other cars. When I researched reaction and brake distances for DIYBIKING.COM's Riding Safely at Night series, I was amazed and horrified how far a car will travel in the time it takes a driver to take his or her foot off the gas and hit the brake. 

Really, driving slower is the best and easiest thing you can do to both have better manners and be safer. How many times have you seen news footage of, say, a Kia wrapped around a tree on the Merritt Parkway and hear the words "Speed was absolutely not a factor in the collision" spoken by an attractive newscaster? 

Exactly. 

Also, my guess is you don't want to send any cyclist or pedestrian to the hospital or the morgue. If that tragedy should happen, do you want to tell the police you were looking at pictures of cats wearing tutus at the time? 

No, you don't. So stay off your phone. Completely off the phone.

Really, you don't need to tell anyone you are 'on the way' - keep the element of surprise in your life and in theirs and just show up. What is going on at work or at home can wait until you get there. Nobody on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site will miss you if you're absent for an hour or two - but they might if you're doing time for vehicular manslaughter. And this is not a problem limited to millennials: plenty of AARP members engage in this dangerous stupidity, too. 

And as long as we're on the subject of manners: if you drive and smoke cigarettes: do not treat the world - especially my city - like it is your personal ashtray. I understand smoking is an addiction, but keep your butts in your motor vehicles. It is litter, pollutes the water supply and makes the roads look nasty. I am one bad day away from picking your burning cigarette up off the road, catching up with you at the next red light, and putting the cigarette back in your car before the light goes green. So use an ashtray or, better still, give the nicotine patch another shot. 

In closing, if you are a motorist and you do any of those things, please try not to do them and tell your fellow drivers to do the same. In turn, I will continue to remind cyclists to obey the rules of the road whenever possible, ride more predictably and dress more visibly. 

Those four options I have as a bicycle commuter? You have those same options when you're driving a car. You look out for me. I'll look out for you. And let's both work on ways to make our streets safer for all of us. 

Like a Vulnerable User law. 

Mike Norris is the founder of DIYBIKING.COM, a site dedicated to casual cycling, random builds, and bike travel. He is a member of the Connecticut Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Board who owns one 3,300 lb. SUV and 13 7/8 bicycles. He lives and works in Stamford and can be reached at connecticutmike@gmail.com