share the road
Just got the following announcement from the Town of Chapel Hill:
![[sharrow]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Sharedlanemarking.png)
The Town of Chapel Hill is installing a pilot sharrow project today (Tuesday, Aug. 19) through the week on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from Estes Drive to North Street.
The sharrow, or shared-use pavement markings, is an experimental road treatment being evaluated as an accommodation for bicyclists under certain roadway conditions. A sharrow is a road marking to identify the shared use of a travel lane by bicyclists and passing motorists, indicating the legal and appropriate bicyclist line of travel; it cues motorists to pass bicyclists with sufficient clearance.
Didn't find the Town's press release very explanatory, so I looked it up and found the photo above.
I am pretty amazed at how lax state and local governments are when it comes to the bicycle laws of North Carolina.Walking down Frankiln Street I saw numerous cyclists running red lights, not using hand signals, passing waiting cars, and riding on the sidewalk. All this was happening in plain view of Chapel Hill Police. There was even on man who was decked out in racing clothes who rode in the middle of the two lanes and cut in front of the car in the right lane and made a right on red without stopping.If you want to know the laws you can read them here:http://www.ncdot.org/transit/bicycle/laws/laws_bikelaws.htmlEither enforce the laws or get rid of them. I plan on bringing this up with the Carrboro police department.
We reduce Deer Populations during the hunting season but there seems no solution for the Cyclist….there’s no declared season on bike riders.....we’re lost! Just yesterday, I watched 50-100 cyclist riding north on US 15-501. I thought I had stumbled on Tour De Orange, but I couldn’t help but wonder about the riders lack of common sense. Now,... I’m not trying to be mean, but when these riders dash onto the roads with no protection from passing vehicles other than a pretty little helmet they must have a death wish! Driving from bright sunshine into shady areas of country roads you can’t see while your eyes adjust to the shade! If a driver encounters a deer, cow, or cyclist in such a condition, we just might drive into a dreadful accident or frighten ourselves into a heart attack!
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