Ride bikes in same direction as traffic




Week after week, the apparent conflict between riders, runners and cars continues to grow. One person suggests bicycles ride against traffic. Bad idea: Witness the fellow killed in Oxnard a couple weeks ago doing just that.

I run and bike and am pretty safe and courteous at both. There are no natural enemies here: Share the road. That and the golden rule of looking both ways should be practiced by four wheels, two wheels and two legs alike.

While driving, I make sure I look at the sidewalk next to me and in back in my rear view mirror.

For cars, right turn on red is only legal when it’s safe, and not just for your 2,000-pound car, but the runner or bicyclist you’re too busy to look out for. Do you have to cut it so close behind my back wheel or leg while hurrying home? If you just solved global warming and are rushing home to tweet it, mea culpa for being in your way.

We read almost every week about a cyclist or runner getting hit or killed. Every day I run, someone drives up the sidewalk on me or nearly turns into me, or a peloton insinuates itself all across the bike lane. Share the road.

By the way, the state spent tens of thousands of dollars on the lamest safety campaign ever: Give Me 3. Does anyone know what that means really? They should have spent the money on more look both way signs, better marked bike lanes, and should have cleared some of the trees and bushes that the obscure the view of pedestrians and bicyclists.Trees growing across the bike lane on Agoura Road only get trimmed when an enormous truck smashes off the branches.

This isn’t the traffic dense Studio City corridor or Westside. Let’s not drive like we’re on the side streets of La Brea. Get the phone off your ear and look around—I’m probably running.
Randall Kennedy

Agoura Hills




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