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Because the hand signal for braking in both countries (which, admittedly, I've never seen a cyclist bother doing) relies on the traffic facing arm and if doing
by petercooper 12y ago
Because the hand signal for braking in both countries (which, admittedly, I've never seen a cyclist bother doing) relies on the traffic facing arm and if doing controlled braking, you want to focus on the rear brakes, so the non traffic facing side is the rear brake.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoAh, ok makes sense. I don' cycle much so I didn't think of the hand signals.
- kaybe 12y agoI've never even heard of a hand signal for braking, and we were taught the rules by the police in grade school. Maybe it's very country-specific.
- petercooper 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_signals#Stopping.2Fbraking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_signals#Stopping.2Fbraking Which, intriguingly, has a section saying how these signals interrupt with people using the front brake :-) In UK law, these cycling hand signals are considered a "should" rather than a "must" (terms with legal weight in the Highway Code) which is probably why they're rarely used.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago>> "In UK law, these cycling hand signals are considered a "should" rather than a "must" (terms with legal weight in the Highway Code) which is probably why they're rarely used." I rarely saw people use them when cycling in the small town I used to live in. Now that I'm in a city where I see hundreds of cyclists commuting they all use hand signals. I'm in my mid-twenties and we actually had to do a class in school when we were about 10 years old about cycling on the road, signally, safety etc. I can't remember the name of it but it was an official government thing I believe and we got some sort of certificate for completing it.