Cycling Safety Forum ... continuing the discussion

As a cyclist who has had my fair share of accidents I'm very well aware of my own mortaility and the risks we take. It is good to see an increased amount of attention to cycling safety and I think we as a group have a duty to ourselves, our fellow group cyclist, other cyclists and the cycling movement in general to contribute to improving cycling safety.

In regards to Mark Esvelt's earlier message on the same subject...

Of the highlighted points there are two (points 2 & 3) that have been on my mind recently.

must not be more than two bicycles abreast on a road. When riding abreast, the two bicycles must be no more than 1.5 metres apart.

There are times when, even if we are riding two abreast, we must look like a dog's breakfast to cars following us because we don't sit in a straight line (or two parallel straight lines). This in itself isn't so much of an issue until we have cars wanting to pass. I'm of the opinion that we might want to think about how we can contribute positively to motorist / cyclist harmony by adopting modified behaviour when there are cars behind us. Perhaps on the call of "car back" we should drop to single file where safe and allow cars to pass. Riding as two neater parallel lines might also help...but can add to the risk.

Riders must only travel in single file on all paths, though they can travel two abreast on a road.

I think we should for the purpose of safety adopt this