CYCLING ACCIDENTS.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your article on " Cycling Accidents" in the Spectator of October 2nd is indeed excellent and very timely. Cyclists generally will agree with the belief expressed that the answer to the enigma, "How on earth do cyclists manage to come to grief so freely?" is to be found in the fact that most cyclists do not know how to ride. But are you not speaking of the riders' control and management of the machine ? May I as a cyclist of many years' experience offer an extended opinion that the reason cyclists are perpetually hurling themselves against or under cart-wheels and horses' heads, or courting death and destruction in the various forms recorded daily, is primarily because they simply do not know and have not learned the first rudimentary rule of the road.—to keep to the left? I know of any number Df serious cases and narrow escapes which are due to ignorance of this rule. Mr. Chappell, ex-holder of the North Road championship, riding in the country, was met by a rider who persisted in keeping to his right band. Mr. Chappell, of course, keeping his proper side, was run down, sustaining a severe shaking and a ruined machine. In relating his mishap Hr. Chappell told me it was impossible to convince the rider that the left hand was the correct side upon which cyclists should ride. Last July, while I was being driven along Norwood Road, S.W., a lady riding down a road on our left crossed on her right-hand side instead of circuiting around on her left. She lost her bead and dropped off, leaving her cycle under the horse, to be pawed and trampled into a contortions shape, and but for the splendid control of the coachman the fiery mare which he brought to a stand would have bolted in the first instance, being in no wise responsible for the death or maiming of this ignorant rider, whose only plea to the policeman who picked her up was " I rang my bell Next day near the same place, a young lady wishing to turn down a road on her right, instead of sweeping around on her left, ran full tilt into a baker's baud-cart which stood on her right-hand aide, dislocating her brake. Screwing it up for ber with a sixpence, for of course she was without tools, and warn- ing her not to rely upon her brake, she glibly replied : " Thanks, but I never use my brake ! " Under such circumstances of utter and gross carelessness, how is it possible for such foolhardy riders to avoid disaster ? If cyclists would read the instructions in Part I. " Cycling Touring Club Handbook," they would learn to keep to the left, and pass cycles and conveyances which are in front on the .right—a rule which, if understood and carried out, would relieve the list of casualities of a great proportion—and if the authorities would add to the signs on the lamp-posts, "Pedestrians keep to the right, conveyances and cycles keep to the left," no doubt this simple rule would find its way into the heads of this class of careless riders.—I am, Sir, &c.,
P.S.—This incident came under my notice, and is not in the slightest exaggerated. A gentleman in perfect cycling garb, and in all the glory of a new machine, was met in a thoroughfare in Sheffield by a traction-engine. The street was not at all busy at the time, but somehow the rider lost his wits, and took fright at the approaching monster, only just escaping himself, and leaving the cycle a prey to the steam-roller. The poor fellow, spirit-broken, made off amid the jeers of a cruel crowd, leaving an unrecognisable mass of wire-tubing and rubber behind.—A. S.
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