Originally Posted by
Iride01
So far you are about the only one that seems to partly understand my post. Essentially all I posted was that I don't use mirrors and gave a few of my reasons. Yet some want to criticise and other's seem to feel additional need to justify their choice. I didn't attack anyone for making their choice. So why do other's attack me for my choice?
Seems to me that we should want to talk about the safety part of my post and address the few cyclist that seem to use their mirrors to either brake check other cyclist's that are overtaking them to pass. Or those with mirrors that do unpredictable things that the cyclist or motorist overtaking them can't predict.
I feel that I do have plenty of situational awareness. Few ever sneak up on me. I know when there is someone behind me. I generally know that a car is coming well before my Varia radar alerts me. Perhaps the 55 years of riding without them has tuned my senses so I pick up on clues others don't.
But it's not my intention to try and change the mind of those that use mirrors or wish to get them. I just want to make them aware of bad behavior from some that do use mirrors and ask them not to ever do that.
Fora are interesting places to exchange ideas and information. But unlike discussions in person, they entirely rely on our written words, absent the intonation, body language, and other subtle hints of intentions. It is entirely possible that some of you can accurately present your intentions, but some of us, in final analysis do realize that there might be miscommunication. This probably also because a reader is free to assign a tone to your post depending on his or her temperament and mood at the time.
I have been riding bicycles for a decade longer than you, but I still cannot always rely on my general sense of surrounding without occasionally glancing - be it through a mirror on my helmet, on my bike or turning my head slightly to look back before passing another bicyclist or a pedestrian. Not all of my bicycles or helmets have mirrors but I remember to account for my limitations, and this includes my reduced hearing higher frequencies. Not so long ago a young man (in latex suit) passed me and quipped “you can’t hear can you!”. Apparently, he had new beep/tone thing on his bike to alert others, which wasn’t too loud and/or a bit beyond my hearing limit. Although, I was not going in the middle of the bike path, he had plenty of room to pass me, which he did. But he seemed very annoyed that I didn’t hear his beep thingy and moved over. I ended up saying to him that he was absolutely correct, but it still shouldn’t have prevented him from being civil.
It takes all kinds… the beauty of freedom is that everyone is perfectly entitled to theirs, unless yours begins to infringe on others.