Fun Sustainable Transport
Cycling Safety
With the critical mass, the races and other events more folks seem to be taking up cycling as a means to commute, which is great news. Sure it gives one a sense of freedom and in our own interest we need to pay attention to safety in traffic. It’s not uncommon to come across cyclists annoying you on the road. Here are some tips:
Maintain your bicycle in decent working condition
Use the ABC quick check to make sure your bike is okay. You don’t want your brakes not working in an emergency or your jesus nuts quick release coming loose when you’re riding.
Clothing and visibility
Make yourself visible. Wear a helmet. Avoid loose fitting apparel if possible. If you’re riding when its dark use a white front light and a red rear light. Reflective clothing will also help. When cars in the opposite direction have lights glaring into your eyes you can hardly tell what’s on the left. I’ve seen a cyclist on my route wearing elbow guards, knee guards, a massive helmet and socks pulled to his knees with a backpack to feed a family of five. Now, that kind of visibility will attract a lot of wrong attention too.
Develop your biking skills
We have plenty of Schumachers and Rossis out there slicing through traffic, not to mention the auto rickshaws who’ve developed an uncanny ability to spot and squeeze into the smallest of spaces. If you do happen to encounter any of these specimens or any unexpected incident on the road you may have to come to a sudden stop/swerve/make an instant turn etc., and sometimes need to accelerate hard to avoid an accident. Here’s where your skills and control will come handy.
When you’re out there riding
Be predictable – avoid jumping lanes or braking suddenly. Try and stay on the left as far as possible. Use hand signals (in my opinion it does not mean showing a middle finger while dealing with your situation as suggested in some threads on BBC. It has backfired for me :P). Think ahead. Turn around and look behind now and then to be aware of what’s happening behind you. Know and obey the rules as far as possible. Ride defensively but don’t endanger other road users. Phew! sorry people, that was too much of advice.
Some resources:
Use tips from the video as applicable to conditions in Bangalore.
http://www.massbike.org/skills/traffic.htm
http://bicyclesafe.com/
And don’t forget to enjoy your ride!
Comments
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I like the "Develop your biking skills" part - that is far more important than the other things in our kind of traffic IMO. But many of the other things are for the western(american/UK) folks and needs to be tailored for our conditions. For example, we are used to dark cows(and elephants if you are in Kerala:) in pitch dark and cyclists without any reflectors on them unlike the motorists in the west(US especially) where they look out only for cars and need to see a board "Animal Crossing" to look out for something else. While it helps to make yourself visible, that is not a major factor IMO. And the traffic pattern in the country is also significantly different from the auto-pilot kind of traffic in the US which makes many of the other usual US safety tips not so useful for us. It is far more adaptive(but chaotic one) where motorists are used to the unexpected turns of others. And people have been cycling in this country pretty safely(otherwise you wouldn't see any cyclists on the road by now) without helmets and it isn't a practical thing for many of the cyclists on the road to invest in a helmet either except for the new age cyclists who can splash on gadgets as well. Not questioning the intent, but we need to adapt the safety tips to our conditions, which are far more safer than it is perceived it to be!
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Thanks for the comment Jayadeep. If you're driving a car at night in Bangalore obviously someone with reflectors/LEDs on their bike is visible but hard to even see spot otherwise. As for the helmet, I never wore one on my commute until - I was returning home one evening when it was dark and there was a pit dug on my usual route that wasn't there that morning (or the last one year, my front wheel went in and the bike flipped. I landed on my head with bad bruise. Now I prefer using the helmet. This was an adaptation to the local conditions :)
