How do you signal?

[witeowl]

When I learned to ride my bike many moons ago I was taught to signal using the left hand straight out for left turns, bent up for right and pointing down for slow down or stop, the same as a car signal if your blinker isn't working.

That's what I learned as well, and when I went for my first ride with the LBC, another rider told me not to signal for a right turn with my left hand because a lot of drivers would think I'm waving, not signalling.

Made enough sense to me that I'm now signalling with my right hand.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I am signaling left turn with left arm, right turn with right arm. But instead of just sticking my arm out for a second with a flat hand, I make a rather "big" whole arm pointing motion, and I then raise my hand up by bending my elbow and make the big point motion again. I figure they will spot all the arm motion better than just a motionless arm, and two point gestures are better than one.

[Nanci]

Point right or left, keeping the signal out there until I have to brake. For stopping, I put my right hand up behind my back. Point at anything bad, vigorously. Make scratchy motions for sand or gravel. Yell out hole, tracks, bump, etc. Yelling stopping, slowing, is kind of annoying to me.

[li10up]

I signal a left turn with my left arm and right turn with my right arm. I signal all changes in my line. Ex: If I'm to the right in a lane and plan to move over to the middle or left portion of the lane I signal my line of travel change. Then I signal again for the left turn if I'm turning left. The drivers actually get this and don't try to pull around me.

Also, I find it helps if you don't coast in traffic. The drivers seem to think they can beat you no matter what if you are coasting. If you are pedaling they seem to be more patient because it seems like you are at least trying to get out of their way quickly. Make sense?

[Geonz]

I agree about coasting. I think it registers somewhere in the brain as "not moving" in that automatic-response mode that driving is done it. And when somebody's being nice enough to sit behind me before their right turn or heading over an overpass, I feel like I should do 'em a favor and haul buns (yea, it's doing *them* a favor to kick it in ) . If I'm feeling sluggish I just keep it in a low gear so it *looks* like I'm kickin' it in...