Share the Road signs and other ways to communicate

Our cycling community is getting a BIG hit from reckless motorists -- hurting and killing cyclists in the past month. Cyclists are speaking-out against a motorist killing a cyclists (no charges ever filed) and the motorist are reacting by either: Driving nice or Increased road rage and running cyclist off road. It is bad. I have not ridden my bike in a week because I am scared to ride.

So my questions: How do we get Share the Road signs and political backing to make the community safer for cyclists? So far, all we have gotten is NO's and run-a-round to our requests. We're missing SOMEthing .... what do we do?!!

If you have done something in your community, please let me know. You can PM me if you prefer. THANK YOU.

Do state laws support you? Perhaps you should check with your state representative instead of local and see if they can help?

I tried sending letters to local politicians and got a lame letter back.

Thanks for the boost. I planned and will work on it this week to send a letter to the DOT. One guy was a speaker at one of our club meetings and was real happy to hear I rented a bike locker at the railroad station. I will also include the article of me that was in the newspaper as I organized the RoS.

Maybe I should send a pic of me wearing my nifty Share the Road jersey also :) Thanks to Silver!!!

~ JoAnn

Our first three Share the Road signs were placed this last week. I can't wait to go out to see them. We had three placed at the site of the accident. These are the first three placed in our area and we are using them to jumpstart a much bigger campaign. It's actually been much easier to do than I ever would have imagined!

The Atlanta Bicycle Campaign has done great things around here to make the roads safer for cyclists, they might be able to give you some ideas http://www.atlantabike.org/
Check out the “Share the road” link in their “Programs” Section.

Congratulations Silver!!!!

When you say "we" was this done together with a club or just a group of fellow cyclists? Did you send a letter, petition? and I gather it was to the DOT as we have mentioned this before.

I thought before sending a letter I should mention it to our club board of which I am part of.

~ JoAnn

Are you in rural area or city? If you are in the City, start attending City Council meetings and stating your concerns. If you have a traffic commission, get a large group of cyclist to go in and start stating your concerns and needs. It starts with one person and some ground swell support from the cycling community. Start not only stating the negative that needs to be addressed but the positive, i.e. if they start building bike lanes/paths, etc., they will be perceived as a bike friendly area and people will begin to come to town for recreation. The town gets tax revenue, the motels get filled, the businessmen get business.

Start a non-profit bike organization for bicycle/pedestrian rights. Get grants for some money, do spots on tv for education of bikes and car drivers regarding cyclists rights. Education is the key!

The other key is the way the community sees bikes and pedestrians. If they are educated as to the laws, they usually start to realize that bikes have rights as well.

Patience is the other key!

Our cycling club does an annual ride where they try to promote cycling awareness. It's called the Ride of Silence or something like that. I haven't done it yet, but I guess they try to encourage as many cyclists to join them as possible and they ride a somewhat slow paced ride down a major street, to simply draw awareness to the mostorists that there ARE cyclists out there and to watch out for them. It's also a thing to honor those who have been hurt or killed cycling.

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Originally Posted by Jo-n-NY

Congratulations Silver!!!!

When you say "we" was this done together with a club or just a group of fellow cyclists? Did you send a letter, petition? and I gather it was to the DOT as we have mentioned this before.

I thought before sending a letter I should mention it to our club board of which I am part of.

~ JoAnn

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JoAnn, it's amazing how we got it done. The Bicycle club didn't seem to be very proactive. So three of us, (friends of Sam) called the county commission and asked to be put on the docket. We called a sign company and ordered the signs. (one of the others paid for them - about $300 for 4) We went to the county and asked to have them placed. they were approved contingent on the exact placement being approved by the County Highway commissioner. He told us to bring in the signs and show him the general placement and he would have his guys install them. They even provided the poles and hardware. We are still talking to the bicycle club and the state bicycle coalition who are still chugging the details through their committees about getting more placed, but bottom line is that very little red tape and a few bucks got it done! Start to finish about 6 weeks :D

Silver, that is very interesting.

I began writing the letter yesterday to the Long Island Transportation Mgmt, where the speaker that we had at our meeting actually came from and also owners of the Bike Lockers. They have put Bike Route signs on the North Shore of Long Island so this may be a good starting point.

I will update with any progress.

~ JoAnn