Neat idea

Safety in Numbers

For years cyclists have thought that there was safety in numbers. Well, here is proof!

Prose taken from fixmemphis.blogspot.com:

From 1998-2008, daily ridership in NYC slightly more than doubled (rising to 180k from 80k). In that same period the number of annual cycling casualties fell by nearly half from 5000 to 2700. The more people ride, the safer riding becomes for everyone. The average cyclist in NYC is now four times less likely to be injured while riding than they were ten years ago.

Think about this. Every person you convince to ride their bike as often as you, makes you four times as safe.

Put the word out, save some lives.

Graphic from: http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/06/05/safety-in-numbers-its-happening-in-nyc/

Some neat things

While riding around Baton Rouge the last several months, I have had several incidents with drivers cutting me off, yelling indecent things at me, waving at me with one finger, telling me to get on the f*ing sidewalk (of which there are none most of the time,) and other rude, inconsiderate, and mean things. These have been vastly outnumbered by good rides where people just give me my space, respect my choice to ride, and leave me alone.



One incident has stuck with me, though. I was riding at night on a two lane road and was signaling that I would be turning left into the parking lot of my apartment complex. A guy behind me in a BMW apparently thought I was signaling him to go around me or something, and as I was about to turn into my destination, he went screaming by me. I had adequate lighting on my bicycle, and was most likely visible. However, I wonder what may have happened if I had a better set of lights on my bicycle. I recently stumbled upon a light set manufactured by http://www.rockthebike.com/ called the Down Low Glow.

I think this product has a pretty creative and ingenius design. It has a rechargable NiMh battery and comes in six colors. You can choose one tube or two tubes of light. As you can see in the top photo, you could even outfit the red bar across a rack as a defacto tail light. I am seriously considering purchasing a set of the two bar lights so that when I ride at night I am easily seen. The system they developed to tie the lights to the bike (removable!) is similar to the removable fenders I have from Planet Bike that are amazing and very easy to use. I am highly debating purchasing a set of these...