A longtime, and now retired, Westporter writes:
I ride my early 1980s-vintage mountain bike for an average of 2 hours every day – year round.
But I never ride on any local roads. It’s always Sherwood Island State Park (the perimeter route).
Why? There are no cars.
Perfect path for bicyclists. (Photo/Pat S. Weist)
Still, I always wear a helmet. I have all the other recommended safety gear too: lights, bell, side mirror, etc.
I have a rear bike carrier mounted in a trailer hitch. It transports the bike wherever we’re going: Sherwood Island, to visit our son in Michigan, or Florida for the winter.
Click here for Michigan’s bike safety rules and guidelines. They have signs on numerous roads with graphics and words enforcing the 3-foot distance required by car drivers to yield when passing a bicyclist.
The signs on Cross Highway make no sense. I encourage signs like those used in Michigan.
I especially like the suggestion that drivers use the “Dutch reach” when going to open the driver’s-side door. Using the right hand instead of the left almost guarantees that the driver looks left to see if anyone is approaching on a bike, prior to opening their door.
If you open your door in the Netherlands and strike a passing bicyclist, you are given a traffic ticket with a rather steep fine. It is the most bike-friendly country I know.
(If it’s got wheels — cars, bikes, school buses, golf carts — “06880” covers it. And everything else in Westport too. If you appreciate our work, please support us by clicking here. Thank you!)
I spent time in the Netherlands. Bikes there obey traffic rules. They also have bells on them and warn pedestrians that they are coming up behind them! I can’t tell you how many bikes have passed me without warning me of their approach. Please get and use a bell on your bike !
I agree! I bring my bike to safe places to ride. I love Westport but I don’t want to die on the road. I would only ride in town in earliest hour on a Sunday on secondary roads.
Thank you for not riding on Westport streets. There are enough bike riders already riding outside of bike lines, riding side by side, running stop signs and stop lights, not using hand signals, and more. Sherwood island sounds like a great place to ride where ignoring the rules of the road won’t get you killed. Keep it up!
The public needs too be taught how to legally ride vehicles with wheels and walkers/runners need to be taught the proper way to walk/run on our streets and roads, not to even mention to SAVE LIVES.
I totally agree. The proper way to walk is to put one foot in front of the other. Be sure to alternate your sequence left to right or right to left to minimize balance issues. Equalizing the left/right sequencing will ensure the individual moves forward in the desired direction. We need to incorporate this into the PE curriculum preferably no later than the middle schools but in any case at the secondary school level.
PS. even walkers sometimes with their dogs closest to the cars, are walking two or three across on busy roads. Even right now with low sun which can be blinding. Be good pedestrians and be safe.
Westport needs to become a safe town. The way to do this is to restrict individual conveyances to self-propelled vehicles (bicycles, wheelchairs, walkers, roller skates, pogo sticks the options are endless) If you need to get there fast, use public transportation or walk more quickly. This will reduce the obesity rate and immediately save lives as well as lowering healthcare costs. The new Big Y has agreed to confine its inventory to healthy items. It has severed its supply chain relationships with evil companies such as Frito Lay, Coca Cola, Heineken and Budweiser. Acquarion has decided to cease the practice of fluoridating water. It suggests that Westporters concerned about tooth decay immediately start brushing with Crest, Colgate or Gleem after every meal.
I wish more drivers understood “shared roadway” as a concept; so many seem to think the roads exist only for them. As someone who takes long walks way up here in God’s country (Coleytown near Weston), I’d also love it if they stayed within 5 m.p.h. of the posted speed limits.
FYI Eric,the proper way to walk on our streets is facing the traffic so you can see what’s coming at you. Stop trying to be so cleaver.
Thanks Barbara 😸👍😘
I stopped riding when I moved to Westport 30 years ago.
The Westport drivers made it too dangerous. In Monroe CT I have seen illustrated signs: Car-3ft-Person. I only walk (against traffic)now and wave to each car that approaches,
I used to love riding my bike from my home off North Avenue to Burying Hill Beach and back. If courageous, I would take the steep Bayberry back. One time, I was, literally, standing up on the bike to get up that first steep hill and a Westport cop, going the other way, stopped, turned around, put his blinkers on and made sure I made it up with being run over by a car. Nice. Sadly, no more. Too old and too much traffic. P.S. A helmet saved my life in a Houston triathlon, don’t be a fool in not wearing one, please.