I assume that everyone is distracted and not paying attention to what they're doing, and that informs my "riding rules": Try to make eye contact, don't assume you've been seen. Never be in the blind spot. Never pass on the right. Cross on a red light to get ahead of the pack of cars.
If it's a close enough call with another vehicle, my voice has been enough of a 'horn' to alert drives. If there's a less close conflict, then there's probably positioning/visibility change that should have happened upstream.
For me, horns are a too frequent, rude disruption in the world.
I agree that horns can be rude and disruptive, and perhaps most honks are. But I stand by every time I've used mine. I don't use it frivolously. Whereas drivers seem to use their horns frequently because they are impatient, I use it only because I'm in danger.
- it's impossible to effectively use horn and brakes in emergencies;
- one starts to rely on the horn clearing the way instead of slowing down, which is suicidally dumb;
- horn is used after-the-fact, which needlessly raises the temperature.
The only sensible use is to alert far-away pedestrians that are obviously going to do something stupid.
I never had the second or third problems. I don't use the horn on pedestrians unless strictly necessary, nor do I honk at people as revenge.
The first point was a challenge at the beginning, but I think I've done fine using both the brakes and the horn at the same time. I can think of any least one instance where both were necessary to avoid a crash. I'm certain my worst case stopping time has increased at least a small amount, but it's a worthwhile trade-off in my view.
A) excuse me/I'm here/the light has changed
B) you are a fucking idiot
It's all the times you anticipated a problem and used it preemptively that are keeping you from getting a ride in my ambulance.
Perhaps. I try my best, and think I avoid the vast majority of potential conflicts that come my way. But I can't avoid them all. I can prepare for the common problems, e.g., drivers turning into the bike lane without looking or doing a right turn on red that hits me or goes directly into my path. But those don't cover all possibilities, and I'm continually surprised by the diversity of bad driving that I've seen.
You'll fit right at home biking in NYC since constant car honking is par for the course, although pedestrians will probably be pretty shocked when you let loose the Zound from the bike lane.
The one time I horned a pedestrian that comes to mind was like that. This guy was walking distracted and he decided to come off the sidewalk and directly into the bike lane without looking perhaps 20-30 feet in front of me. I was traveling around 15 to 20 mph. I hit the brakes hard but immediately knew I would still hit him unless he jumped out of the way. That's where the air horn came in. He jumped out of the way. No harm to him aside from perhaps some temporary tinnitus. Horn use was unavoidable in my view.
(Context: I bicycle in Boston, so I know what the roads are like, although I'm sure it's somewhat different for motorcycles.)
There's enough power to assert high speeds, and take the lead with quick acceleration, but due to the amount of surface area in contact with the ground, motorcycles have lower agility than bicycles, based on the weight that gets thrown around.
With most motorcycles weighing well over 200 pounds, depending on speeds, the usual turning radius cuts a pretty wide arc (not very maneuverable, ultimately), and stopping too short will throw you off the bike. You just lock up the tires, or peel out if you don't finesse the amount of force in play.
They can do more than a car, in terms of turning and stopping, but it requires agility, dexterity and practice. Whereas with a car you can just slam the brakes, and toss it in any gear, do whatever, and not even think about balance.
So, in a situation where you gain a feel for the attitude of some random car, and the driver is radiating the demeanor of a total dickwad, there are three choices. A. Stop, reroute, and go anywhere that fucker isn't. (the best, and most common decision, more than you might ever know) B. Clutch the transmission and rev loudly, to see if they know you exist, which often doesn't work because people listen to music and mostly try to ignore the world around them. C. When they inevitably don't respond to options A & B, release the clutch, and rev the engine to launch in front of that prick and blast off. Fuck the world.
People just really don't like to give other people choices, so you wind up doing a burnout in front of them, because they keep stepping on your toes. Hurts me more than it hurts them. Such is life.
Ultimately, though, on a city street my gut says that motorcycles are in pretty much the same situation as bicycles, or better. Not sure how the stopping distance compares, but what a motorcycle lacks in being able to swerve, it should make up for in power. (Different benefits in different situations.) I believe part of why drivers don't see bicycles is that bicycles are usually ridden on the right side of the right lane. But I have never ridden a motorcycle, so my gut could well be wrong. :-)
(Highway, that's a different beast. I care less about how loud motorcycles are out there.)
So I guess here's a question: Should bicycles be equipped with constant noisemaking devices?
I ride and don't like relying on annoyance for survival: it only makes things worse. Better idea: assume you're invisible and ride with always at least 1 escape route.
It’s one of the clearest signs of selfishly telling others “fuck you” that I know.
Also I wish that road vehicles had radios so drivers and riders could communicate intention like we do when flying. All you have for communication in a car is turn signals, high beams, and a horn, and many drivers take severe umbrage if you use them because they willfully or accidentally misunderstand what you're trying to say.
NO! Dear god no! Most people suck at communicating and could you imagine to road rage? Even though as a pilot you aren't supposed to chit chat on the radio I'm positive you've heard it.
Also you couldn't realistically set up something like ATC so you could have flight following. Not only would tracking that many vehicles be extremely difficult, but setting up all the transponders and receivers would be near impossible. You may notice you have a hard time talking to ATC below 1kft AGL. Plus everyone is in such close proximity at all times what are they going to do? "November 1234 Whisky, you have a Chevy incoming from your 6 oh clock passing on the left. Stay course." Or (in general channel) "Traffic at 6th and main, there is a cyclist approaching from the East on 6th, please use caution" and everyone that isn't at 6th and main tunes out, learning to tune things out.
Flight works because even at a busy airport the communication is still relatively small.
I find the sentiment in your first paragraph to be baffling, though common. The problem isn't that horns (or high viz, helmets, or flashing lights) are a bad idea, or that you're wishing that more people would use them - I agree that more should use them. My issue is that the sentiment displaces responsibility on to the cyclist, from the person operating the dangerous machine. It's up to the cyclist to decide what gear works for them, and the burden of responsibility is firmly on the driver to not hit other people using the road.
It seems like every couple weeks, our local paper runs an article on another driver running in to a cyclist, and it nearly always frames the event as "cyclist hit by car" (notice we're already biased - "other-class-of-person hit by machine"), then proceeds to answer the "was the cyclist wearing high viz?". This creates a situation where it's more acceptable to drive carelessly, so long as the victim isn't following your locale's particular safety checklist.
Remember that there are a bunch of reasons people bike, and a lot of them are counter to some of these recommended safety products; people don't want to mess up their hair for work, have to wear a dark school uniform, can't afford lights, haven't considered any of this stuff, don't have a safe cycle lane to use...
I find yelling effective, but this might just be of my location where music is played at a reasonable level. Don't need to move my hands to activate and easy to modulate from "passing through" to "I'm here, don't back into me!".
Another effective item is a 1,400 lumen lamp. Set to strobe as needed.
You know, I would pay for something that integrates a two stage horn (announce or loud) and push to strobe lamp; remotely switched by buttons in the handlebar wrap on the brifter. (think electronic shifting buttons and remote shifting buttons).
When are you doing this? When you go through a green light?
Or is this when there's a chance for cross-traffic, say going through a yellow or red light?
The only reason I ask is because whenever I'm in SF, at least half the bicyclists I see, if not more, run all the lights and stop signs.
I never run red lights or stop signs, and don't appreciate being associated with bad cyclists any more than you would probably appreciate being associated with bad drivers.
Sorry you got that impression, but I was simply asking. Nothing wrong with getting more context, is there?
In principle, no. But you didn't need to add the part about cyclists breaking the law. Many if not most cyclists would find that offensive.
Over the years I've heard many drivers suggest that the reason I don't get respect on the road is that I probably break the law. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be suggesting that I might be using my air horn so frequently because I run red lights and stop signs and want to stop traffic that has the right of way. When stated that way, the suggestion seems ridiculous. If a driver said that they needed to use their horn frequently, I wouldn't suggest that they might be road raging at everyone or something similar, even if I thought that were likely or true. I'd just ask for context without any assumptions.
I hope an electronic proximity based system with a bigger vocabulary than "HONK!" appears in the next decade.
How many times per trip do you have to recharge it?
Are you also stopping at the intersection?
Meh, I say your life and safety is of higher priority. but do not be surprised if somebody snaps, I've watched too many /r/publicfreakouts to know what the emotional threshold of an adult commuter is these days.
Fortunately, people like you seem to be fairly rare in my experience. After hundreds of horn uses (more than 500, easily), I might be able to count the number of times that people got noticeably angry at me for honking on one hand. I'm actually struggling to think of examples, but it has happened.
Also, horn use is not assault. It causes no harm to the typical recipient as they are in a sealed box, reducing the sound pressure appreciably. That's why I only ever use the air horn on a pedestrian or cyclist if it's absolutely unavoidable. I can only think of one instance where I honked at a pedestrian off the top of my head, and that probably saved the distracted pedestrian from serious injury.
I have an Air Zound air horn and I feel much less safe riding without it. I'll often give a few toots before approaching an intersection to increase the chance that I am seen. And it has probably saved me from some major crashes when I lay down the horn on someone. Many drivers seem to automatically brake when I honk.
The horn is also great for giving bad drivers feedback. Most people who drive poorly around cyclists seem oblivious.
Some drivers unfortunately see horn use as hostility. I have dealt with a few road raging drivers who were very angry that I honked at them. I am pretty certain most of these drivers would be angry with or without the horn, so it doesn't much matter to me. The safety benefits also are far too large even if these folks would not tend to be angry either way.