So the other day I was biking down Moorhead in the bike lane, of course. There was a fully-spandexed dude in front of me and we were both hauling it. Suddenly, a car appeared from a street just behind us. The spandex-man glanced over his shoulder, and then proceeded to stick random combinations of elbows and hands in the air, fist-pumping and generally making a commotion. The car behind us began to creep along more slowly, and spandex-man hung a sharp right to disappear down the next street. Suddenly, it hit me: spandex-man, with his Hokey Pokey, was totally and helplessly confused about his hand signals.
Then it hit me again: even if he had gotten them right, I (as well as the driver of the car behind us) would probably have not really known what he was up to anyway! I mean seriously...who really uses traditional hand signals for cycling anymore? The guesture for stop and the one for turning right are so similar...and everything's done with the left hand, to make things even more confusing. Actually I'm not even sure about that one...I promised myself I wouldn't look anything up.
Let's get to the point: JUST POINT!
Seriously...it'd be much, much safer if all of you oldies (but still goodies) would adapt to the less-traditional, yet highly effective system of pointing in the direction that you're turning, with the corresponding arm to the turn when possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment