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Just the other day I was out for a ride and as I was pulling into my parents driveway my mom was outside and she says to me, “Aren’t you supposed to ride on the other side of the road?” meaning shouldn’t I be riding against traffic on the left hand side. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard of doing. But she was serious. I asked her why she thought I should be doing that and she said that’s what she was taught in school. When bicycle and pedestrian safety was taught when she was in school (it wasn’t that long ago…my mom will appreciate that) they said it was safer to see the cars coming instead of riding with the flow.

I have occasionally seen individuals doing this and most of the time they are either older or part of the immigrant population. I have also noticed that drivers don’t really know what to do when they encounter someone doing this. Some times they swerve or slam on the breaks and that makes the drivers angry. The worst example of this I have seen is a guy I saw riding against traffic and then when a car got close he switched lanes so the car can go by on his left. He did this with every car he met head on. I saw him do it about 4 times.

I had always just assumed it was a cultural difference or some old guy that didn’t care and was going to ride where and how he wanted. So my mother telling me that she had been told to do this in school and not just by some cockamamie teacher but with handouts that were provided to the school seems unbelievable but it’s the truth.

Then today I was perusing some of the other bicycle blogs on the net and found that BikePortland actually has an article relating to this very subject. In fact it’s related to how some one was killed because they were biking the wrong way down a city street. I don’t know of anyone in our area that has been injured or killed because they were bicycling down the wrong side of the street but I hope to never know anyone that gets killed in a bicycle vs. car related accident. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODoT) actually has posters to inform people of this hazard. Of course ODoT is way more bike friendly than the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODoT). So by and large it’s up to the cycling community in Central Missouri to make sure we inform our selves and others. So ride with the flow and make sure others do to.