Cars and bikes can be a dangerous mix

The terrible torture of riding a bicycle, Mark Richardson, Aug. 22

Your story is a very important one to be told: not how you have gotten into riding, but how dangerous it can be.

You write about those Ottawa cyclists and it makes me angry. They were following the rules, doing something they loved and now look at their lives!

I was part of a group accident on Aug. 14, 2004 in which 18 cyclists were hit by a car and a van in Pickering (everyone survived). We were standing at an intersection waiting for traffic to clear when a van decided to "try to make it" (his exact words).

The thing that gets me so angry is that people in their cars have no idea that they are handling a deadly weapon.

How many guns kill people in Toronto in a year? Now, how many cars kill people in Toronto?

This story needs to be told. Not just in the Wheels section: it needs to be told in the front section.

Mark Gilligan, Toronto

Mark Richardson laments that he was tortured riding a bicycle for 20 kilometres. He does a disservice to the sport with this whining.

My 6-year-old grandson completed a ride with me this Sunday of 20 km without any complaining – and this was after two 10-km rides the day before.

Dinsmore Roach, Toronto

Car drivers do not want to share the road. I find they really don't like to cross the yellow line or even a white line when there are two or more lanes going in each direction. They simply squeeze through and "hope" everything is okay.

There was an article a while ago that mentioned that the space a car gives a cyclist is affected by the perception of the car driver: a female cyclist with no helmet gets the most space, followed by anyone with no helmet, with the least space given to someone with a helmet.

I always ride with a helmet and can say I don't get a lot of space.

My friends and I are faced with crazy drivers all the time. Just two weekends ago a friend and I were riding outside of the GTA single-file when a car was overtaking another car and coming straight at us. My friend went onto the soft shoulder and managed to stay upright and I just hugged the edge of the road hoping not to be hit.

I have participated in the Friends For Life Bike Rally for the last seven years. This is a charity bike ride for the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation event, riding 600 km from Toronto to Montreal and has run for 11 years now. While most of the participants are people with some riding experience, a lot have only inner-city experience and it is a rude awakening for some when we start our training from Kennedy, Kipling, or Finch subway stations in the spring.

There were two weeks when I commuted between Burlington and downtown Toronto via Lakeshore and that was scary. With all my experience, it is still scaryBy the way, there is a charity ride organized by the wife of the off-duty OPP officer who was killed. This year's ride is on Sept. 20 and you can find more information here: www.sharetheroad.ca/gregs-ride-s11709.

I wish you luck in your cycling endeavours. May I suggest you photocopy your health card, drivers licence, and add "in case of emergency, please contact ..." to the form.

Glenn Gundermann, Thornhill

My wife and I are riders ourselves. We don't do many kilometres a year, but we do enough to know what you are talking about.

We just would love for you to also get the word out to the riders themselves that do hog the road.

We see this over and over again where riders will be riding two to three beside each other going up a long hill and they will not get out of the way.

If you honk the horn they give you the finger. They are also taking their life and ours in their hands. Why do these guys think they own the road?

My wife and I do ride beside each other all the time, when we can, but as soon as we know that a car is coming, we get out of the way.

I wish all cyclists would do the same thing.

Erwin Schandelmeier, Creemore

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