A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads • Hacker News Board

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#131

Post by godelski » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

mveety wrote: post #112

btrettel wrote: post #81

Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn. 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 someon…

I'm not a cyclist, but I'm a huge fan of having these on bikes. They've become more popular in my area and because of that you notice the bicycles earlier so you have a much smaller chance of accidentally hitting them because you don't see them. After I started seeing these, I've become quite baffled why more cyclists don't use them. Also I wish that road vehicles had radios so drivers and riders could communicate in…

> Also I wish that road vehicles had radios so drivers and riders could communicate intention like we do when flying

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.

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#132

Post by athenot » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

polaritron wrote: post #102

btrettel wrote: post #81

Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn. 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 someon…

A lot of people keep their motorcycles extra loud for this reason. It pisses people off, to hear an extremely loud motorcycle engine, but a subset of riders don't do it to be cool, but really to gain attention as a survival mechanism. An overlapping group do it for both reasons.

Unfortunately it's near useless since the bulk of the sound is directed towards the back of the bike; and it's the front that would make the most use of it (left turn in front of you, run-over merge, etc).

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.

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#133

Post by btbuildem » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

btrettel wrote: post #81

Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn. 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 someon…

As a fellow commuting cyclist, I find that the most effective "tool", by far, is constant awareness, and a significantly reduced faith in humanity.

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.

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#134

Post by celticninja » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #99

btrettel wrote: post #81

Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn. 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 someon…

"see horn use as hostility" Of course they do. When people in cars honk at other people in cars, the majority of time it is a sign of hostility. They've been conditioned to perceive the use of a horn as a sign of hostility.

Cars need to 2 horns:

A) excuse me/I'm here/the light has changed

B) you are a fucking idiot

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#135

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #64

dvdcxn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We blame the drivers of cars without headlights on for night time collisions, why would cyclists be any different?

We don't blame drivers of dark-colored cars. Cyclists everywhere I know of have to have lights up to an appropriate standard.

[deleted]

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#136

Post by a3n » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

nsnick wrote: post #42

mitko wrote: post #3

This was eye opening (pun not intended) and make me a bit worried as a recreational cyclist - many of my clothes are dark and it seems worth investing in brighter ones. As a driver, I found that using BGE setting of the side mirrors (it's wider out, slightly overlapping with rearview mirror), coupled with keeping an eye on the road gives me a much better situational awareness, and prevents the need to turn my head in…

Saying cyclists should wear bright clothing is blaming the victims of vehicle violence. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/stop-victim-blaming-cy...

Defense in depth.

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#137

Post by craftyguy » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:44 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #129

craftyguy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN's article submissions/promoting algorithm is shit. If I had to guess, they give priority to articles submitted by certain users (either based on fake internet points or ??).

well I submitted it - and i have not noticed any favouritism in the past :-) I suspect it's probably some mix of re-submitting affecting timestamps - I am not sure, which was why I asked. it's not terribly important. I think the problem to be solved however is hard, and i don't know of any obvious solutions, so perhaps "shit" is probably too harsh.

It is shit. Duplicate stories are arbitrarily allowed to be submitted (exact same article/url), while sometimes it actually works and prevents duplicates.

Oftentimes you see submissions for an interesting article languish in the 'new' section, but then a user re-submits the exact same thing ('duplicate detection' algo at work, lol) and it's on the front page in minutes. Whether that user is a 'power user', besties with dang, lucky, or ???..

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#138

Post by gpm » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #59

mitko wrote: post #3

This was eye opening (pun not intended) and make me a bit worried as a recreational cyclist - many of my clothes are dark and it seems worth investing in brighter ones. As a driver, I found that using BGE setting of the side mirrors (it's wider out, slightly overlapping with rearview mirror), coupled with keeping an eye on the road gives me a much better situational awareness, and prevents the need to turn my head in…

None of those cyclists are riding in a particularly sensible position, it's patently unclear where they are going, are they in lane 1 or lane 2, or moving from one to another?

They are riding at the left side of the usable road.

Note the park cars ahead (and probably also behind) make the lane to their left unusable.

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#139

Post by spike021 » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

btrettel wrote: post #81

Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn. 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 someon…

>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.

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.

Re: A Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Surviving on the Roads

#140

Post by otoburb » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

btrettel wrote: post #81

Transportation cyclist here. This is a great article, but it only indirectly touches upon one of the most effective tools a cyclist could have: an air horn. 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 someon…

>>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.

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.