Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

You're not helping guys

haha Sorry- I wasn't really trying to!

I don't personally think most of the tips and advice posted here in the last few pages are likely to reduce the chances of being right hooked. But given the situation as it is today, people ought to cycle in a way that makes them feel safest and most comfortable.* Otherwise, they just won't do it. For a lot of people, that precludes taking the lane, for instance: I've been verbally abused and threatened for doing that, so I can understand why some people would avoid that in most cases.

*I guess the caveat to this is "as long as it's legal," but sometimes regulations are in conflict with common sense, and sometimes motorists get incensed when someone on a bike follows the regs to a 't'. So really...

I do not care one iota about the law when I'm cycling, I care only about my safety, much of the time, this lines up with the law, but I have enough experience to know now this is not always the case, and I have zero motivation to follow a law that endangers me because it's writers didn't know or care about me or my safety when it was written (or to be more generous, the law didn't envision the context in the real environment that we actually have).

And yes, I've been verbally abused for riding on the road in Victoria Park...I really don't think there's anything I can do on a bicycle that guarantees me no verbal abuse.