I think what my bike needs is a bell. Sometimes people on the path don't hear my bike behind them, so they don't move, so I can't pass them. But I see people riding along with a bell, and they just ring it once, one brief little ding, quietly, and the walkers and runners move out of the way.
When people on foot and people on moving vehicles share the road, the faster vehicles need some way to alert the slower movers that they are coming. This is why cars have horns. We don't use horns so much in this country. Somehow I have the impression that using a horn here is a little rude, that it's something of a last resort. But in countries where in addition to cars on the road there are goats and cows and kids and bikes and women with huge piles of wood on their heads, horns are vital. You just hoot once or twice, lightly, as you approach the relevant slow-mover. It would be rude to lean on the horn, or to be a big white Land Cruiser driving maniacally through, but a light little hoot with a wave and smile is just a "hi! I'm here!" If you don't use it, you never know when someone might dart out into the road.
(When I was driving around Liberia in 2006, I noticed how often people looked surprised - sometimes shocked - when I met their eye and waved if I had to interrupt their path. I asked a Liberian colleague about it, who said, "Most white people driving big cars never bother to actually look at the people on the road. Of course they are surprised." I don't know that I know any other way to drive in Liberia, though. Growing up, we would pick up friends and friends of friends on the side of the road. Our drives up into the bush would sometimes begin with just our family, my brother and I sitting in the back seat of the Peugeot station wagon, and end up with a full car, my brother and I squeezed in the back-back (way-back, far-back) with various other people. In 2000, with my dad driving a pickup, we ended up with the bed of the truck full of people whenever we left Buchanan. At one point, when it started raining, someone handed me a tiny baby through the sliding window at the back of the cab, and I held her in the dry cab until the sky cleared.)
The point is that I need a bell on my bike.
Unfortunately, a bike with a bell should be a cruiser. It should have a big plush seat, and handlebars higher than the seat, and maybe streamers dangling from the handgrips. It's going to take a lot of work to turn my bike into that.
When people on foot and people on moving vehicles share the road, the faster vehicles need some way to alert the slower movers that they are coming. This is why cars have horns. We don't use horns so much in this country. Somehow I have the impression that using a horn here is a little rude, that it's something of a last resort. But in countries where in addition to cars on the road there are goats and cows and kids and bikes and women with huge piles of wood on their heads, horns are vital. You just hoot once or twice, lightly, as you approach the relevant slow-mover. It would be rude to lean on the horn, or to be a big white Land Cruiser driving maniacally through, but a light little hoot with a wave and smile is just a "hi! I'm here!" If you don't use it, you never know when someone might dart out into the road.
(When I was driving around Liberia in 2006, I noticed how often people looked surprised - sometimes shocked - when I met their eye and waved if I had to interrupt their path. I asked a Liberian colleague about it, who said, "Most white people driving big cars never bother to actually look at the people on the road. Of course they are surprised." I don't know that I know any other way to drive in Liberia, though. Growing up, we would pick up friends and friends of friends on the side of the road. Our drives up into the bush would sometimes begin with just our family, my brother and I sitting in the back seat of the Peugeot station wagon, and end up with a full car, my brother and I squeezed in the back-back (way-back, far-back) with various other people. In 2000, with my dad driving a pickup, we ended up with the bed of the truck full of people whenever we left Buchanan. At one point, when it started raining, someone handed me a tiny baby through the sliding window at the back of the cab, and I held her in the dry cab until the sky cleared.)
The point is that I need a bell on my bike.
Unfortunately, a bike with a bell should be a cruiser. It should have a big plush seat, and handlebars higher than the seat, and maybe streamers dangling from the handgrips. It's going to take a lot of work to turn my bike into that.
1 comment:
"But in countries where in addition to cars on the road there are goats and cows and kids and bikes and women with huge piles of wood on their heads, horns are vital."
I know what you mean... and then sometimes you are the only person with a mechanical means of conveyance and you do not have to hoot as everyone just stops to stare!
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