What Are They Trying To Say--And To Whom?

Unless you do all of your cycling on unpaved surfaces, you are bound to see road signs during your rides.

We don't notice, or think about, most of them because we see them so often.  Others simply don't apply to us.

But some are really strange. For example, there was the one that said, "Graffiti is a crime camera enforced".   Was that sign trying to tell us that graffiti is camera-enforced?  Or that graffiti is a camera-enforced crime?

Then there was the one that warned us, "Use of cameras prohibited and strictly enforced".  Now, perhaps I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I can't, for the life of me, understand how something can be prohibited and strictly enforced.

Some signs leave you wondering who is their intended audience and what, exactly, they are trying to tell said audience.  I saw an example today not far from my apartment.

About a kilometer from my place, next to the East River (which isn't actually a river), there's a Con Ed power plant.  It's located on Vernon Boulevard, which rims the river, just south of the bridge to Roosevelt Island.

(Interestingly, there's a Moishe's storage facility across Vernon Boulevard that used to be a factory that made Loft candy.  Now I wonder how much I--and members of my family ate!  Well, I guess I shouldn't worry yet:  Nobody's glowing in the dark!)

Anyway, a bike lane now runs along the western edge of Vernon.  As it happens, the lane directly crosses the path of the Con Ed plant's driveway, through which trucks enter and exit.

The traffic lane that borders the bike lane handles southbound traffic.  A driver headed in that direction would not be able to read the sign, except perhaps in a rearview mirror.  The northbound traffic is so far to the right that most drivers probably wouldn't see the sign.  Even if they did, it probably wouldn't matter, as neither the driveway nor the bike lane enter, or intersect with, the northbound traffic lane.

The bike lane is sub-divided into a northbound and southbound lane.  As with the auto traffic, southbound riders wouldn't see this sign.  Even if they glanced back to look at it, the sign would be useless to them, as they would have already crossed the driveway.

So, I have to wonder:  For whom was this sign intended? (Or, in market-research speak:  Who is the intended audience?)  And what was the sign's creator trying to tell the intended audience?

You have to wonder what some people are thinking when they make and post signs.

Autumn Twilight In New York

Is the spectacle of day turning into evening the most autumnal part of the day?  Or is Fall the twilight of the seasons?

During my short but exhilirating late-day ride today, the time of day seemed to mirror, perfectly, the time of year.  Day was turning to dusk; leaves were falling and spreading a shawl of deepening hues across the aging, wizening ground just as the setting sun cast its glow across the deepening cold of the river and sky.

Some have said that cycling sharpens our awareness of our surroundings.  I agree that it does, in part because it opens our internal vistas in much the same way skies and trees open before us.

On my way back, I stopped in Queensbridge Park.  The bike path along Vernon Boulevard, which wends its way along the Queens side of the East River, detours into the park and brings cyclists, runners, skateboarders and dog-walkers within the shadow of the bridge for which the park is named.  The park is named for the bridge.  But, while people use the name in reference to the park (and a nearby housing project and subway station that share the name), they never use it to refer to the bridge, which is more widely known as the Queensborough or 59th Street Bridge.

Anyway, the park--about two kilometers from my apartment--is wonderful and interesting in all sorts of ways. One, of course, is the views of the river, harbor, skyline and, of course the bridge--especially when the lights are turned on.  Another is the way that it seems to stand, almost defiantly, against its surroundings.  

As I mentioned, there is the housing project across Vernon Boulevard from its eastern side.  There are also small factories and warehouses.  The bridge looms over park's southern side. But to the north is a Con Ed power plant:

During the summer, the leaves on the trees at least partially obscure those smokestacks, depending on the spot from which you're viewing.  Now, of course, the trees offer no such cover.  However, they seem to be as inseparable in this autumnal vista as this season and time of day.

If Speed Doesn't Kill

Today I'm going to talk about one of those topics about which none of us wants to think:  accidents.

Specifically, I'm thinking about motorists hitting or, worse, running down cyclists.

One reason it's on my mind is that last night, I had one of the closest calls I've had in a while.  

I had just traversed the Pulaski Bridge from McGuiness Boulevard in Greeenpoint, Brooklyn to Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, Queens--a crossing I've made hundreds of times.  On Jackson, I turned left and followed it to 50th Avenue.  Then I turned right on Vernon Boulevard, which skirts the East River and takes me within a few blocks of my apartment.

Daylight, such as it was, fell into night.  Showers were turning into a downpour.  Even that, in itself, is not so unusual, especially at this time of year.  I exercised my usual caution:  I rode a little bit slower and gave myself extra time and distance to brake.  I expected nothing more inconvenient than wet clothes (I was riding Vera, which has full fenders and a flap, but I had not brought any rain gear.) on the rest of my trip home.  

But as I approached the "Y" shaped intersection of Vernon with 45th Avenue and 10th Street, a car shot out from behind me and seemed to miss my front wheel by inches.  A quick turn of my handlebars saved me.

The intersection was well-lit, so my "blinky" lights and reflective vest should have been sufficient for the driver to see me.  There was no light or "stop" sign in the intersection, and I proceeded as far to the right as I could without making a turn.  

However, that driver had to be going at least twice the speed limit for that street.  And, given that it was early on Saturday night, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that his blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit.

In thinking about the incident, I realize that in every one of my close encounters with automobiles in which road conditions or inadequate signals or signage weren't the cause, the driver was speeding.  And, I would suspect that there was a better-than-even chance that the driver was drinking.

Then, just a little while ago, in doing some research (i.e., surfing the web), I came across this account of a 70-year-old cyclist in India who was mowed down by a speeding mini-bus. As it turns out, the driver has a record of speeding and recklessness.

That got me to wondering whether speeding is the main cause of accidents between cars and bikes in which the motorist is at fault.