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Monday, May 12, 2008
Cyclists and motorists can share the road
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A lot of us have been venting our spleen lately over the way cyclists and motorists share our roads. From reading some of the comments there’s a lot of bad blood doing a slow boil.
The cyclists think the drivers could be more aware of how to share the road. The drivers think cyclists ignore basic road rules and courtesy. There doesn’t seem to be a good common ground.
I don’t have a dog in this specific fight. I do jog through town and have had some close calls with motorists, but 90 percent of the time I’m on the sidewalks. And thankful we have sidewalks.
Our son Zach is a cyclist, up in Indiana where he’s in school. Cycling is a way of life in Bloomington, so people are used to sharing the road. But that didn’t keep him from being hit a couple of years ago.
According to him, the driver made an honest mistake on a misty day. There was no aggressive driving involved, but any time a bike and a car tangle the car always wins. Thankfully, the worst Zach took was some severe road rash. He said the driver was more shaken.
I bring this up because I read some of the comments of drivers and feel like they are a degree away from letting their emotions override their good sense and let their fender do the talking. And that’s not a car vs. bike issue - that’s a dangerous mindset to have when piloting a couple of thousand pounds of steel.
It should come as no surprised that I think the driving manners of Sandy Springs, on average, is dreadful. We zoom through yellow lights, we clog intersections, we tailgate school buses, we roll through stop signs, we don’t surrender the road to emergency vehicles and the list goes on and on.
There are several in our little burg who drive as though there is an expectation that other traffic will part like the Red Sea to let them get where they are going. We seem to forget that the roads are public.
What is it going to take for us to collectively learn to truly share the road, to slow down?
Why do Sandy Springs drivers have such lousy reputations?
And can anything change that?
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