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

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

#121

Post by btrettel » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

burkemw3 wrote: post #116

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 am a US transportation cyclist. I mostly dislike vehicle (including bicycle) horns. 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.

In my experience a horn is far superior to a voice. For one, it's much louder. And as rude as a horn might seem to some, I've had much worse experience from shouting at drivers. It doesn't matter how polite you try to be. The volume of your voice is going to make you seem like a jerk. In contrast, most drivers respond fine to my air horn.

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.

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

#122

Post by isostatic » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:14 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…

> The horn is also great for giving bad drivers feedback

How many times per trip do you have to recharge it?

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

#123

Post by adrianN » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #96

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…

If they're angry at you then they see you!

Unfortunately that is not enough to prevent murderous behavior. For example this angry gentleman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBwk0tvLCxA

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

#124

Post by tqi » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:18 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.

Are you also stopping at the intersection?

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

#125

Post by btrettel » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #122

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…

> The horn is also great for giving bad drivers feedback How many times per trip do you have to recharge it?

I recharge it roughly weekly. The air tank is good for probably about 20 honks.

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

#126

Post by dsfyu404ed » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

polaritron wrote: post #60

baud147258 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>many of my clothes are dark I've taken so many risks like this when I was using a bike: dark grey coat: check, black pants: check, dark grey backpack: check, black shoes: check. And usually my light (only in the back) is barely visible because of using old batteries and forgetting to change them.

Partly, the instinct is about feeling trashy, and having to replace worn-out old junk as it accumulates stains, scuff marks, battle damage. It feels wasteful to have to discard perfectly useful items, because they look worn out. We all know that black, dark items tend show the least amount of wear, and in the interest of efficient frugality, some of us gravitate toward that instinct. You look at a white t-shirt, and…

Everything costs money. Everything has tradeoffs.

Safety is no exception. It's all about management of risk. If you seek to mitigate all risk you'll find yourself with even more risk because your bank account is now empty. The internet is great at telling other people how to spend their money so of course everyone will tell you you need the "best" helmet and the "most" reflective jacket, etc, etc.

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

#127

Post by btrettel » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

tqi wrote: post #124

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. Are you also stopping at the intersection?

Should I stop at intersections where I have right of way and a driver on the cross street might be turning right on red? (I can't tell precisely because far too many people don't signal.) Because that's the most frequent reason I'll give a few toots of the horn.

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

#128

Post by LambdaComplex » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #113

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…

The air horn is such a 100+ year old technology. I hope an electronic proximity based system with a bigger vocabulary than "HONK!" appears in the next decade.

I don't think you're going to find an electric horn that can get as loud as an air horn.

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

#129

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #89

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #52

To mods: A complete aside, but I posted this yesterday (say 30 hours ago) not today. is this some reset for labour day or other deeply cunning ranking algorithm? Or maybe i fat fingered it ...

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.

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

#130

Post by c0nsumer » Tue, Sep 04, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

icc97 wrote: post #21

ruddct wrote: post #5

Interesting read, up until this point. “[As a cyclist], look at the head of the driver that is approaching or has stopped. The head of the driver will naturally stop and centre upon you if you have been seen.“ Please, please do not rely on this. Correlation is not causation, a driver’s head might face your direction for lots of reasons (focusing on something behind/in front of you, spacing out, looking at their phone…

It's not just the face, I always aim for eye contact. But also as they say in the article it's about judging risk. If the face is towards you you're very unlikely to be in the peripheral vision, so there is a good chance the driver saw you.

I've added a friendly nod to this as well. If I get a nod back, odds are MUCH better that I've been seen. If I don't, lots of caution is used.