She says. . .

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 22

She says. . .

Riding a bicycle around Christchurch, as I did for most of a recent Friday, can be quite a revelation. It’s years since I’ve done any cycling in the city, and once I’d got over the initial feeling of vulnerability, I found that as long as I gave signals, other road-users treated me with respect. True, I did have to watch out for people flinging open the doors of cars without checking first — • but very often you have to do that when you’re driving, too. It’s a wonder to me that more folk don’t get their car doors ripped off in this way, let alone arms and

legs. The two biggest problems, I found, were the lack of rear vision and the appalling stench of fumes on a hot, still day. Driving (rather than riding) for so long, one becomes used to having rear-vision mirrors always within view. The danger of the quick glance over the shoulder when on a cycle, of course, is that you always tend to pull the handlebars around as you turn your head. So if you glance over your right shoulder, you tend to swerve slightly out into the road at th same time.

Experienced cyclists, of course, quickly learn to counteract this. But just watch the younssters on cycles around the town: you’ll find they nearly always swerve when they turn to look. It’s something to remember when you’re driving — if a “new” cyclist turns to look back at you. they’re likely to swerve in front of you too.

Anyway, after the greater part of a day amongst the traffic, I’d had enough of exhaust fumes to do me for a long, long time — and more sympathy for the clean-air brigade than I’ve had before too.

Badly-tuned cars, buses and trucks were the worst culprits, as far as I could d ;termine. The clouds of foul-smelling blackness put out by so many of the city’s trucks and buses is a scandal, and if you’re talking about the waste of petrol, it’s plain that Christchurch’s badly-tuned “bangers” (not all of them old, by any means) must surely waste more than their share. You’d think that with petrol at today’s prices, and likely to go even higher, owners would realise that it doesn’t take much wasted petrol to make up the cost of a tune-up. In the average car, a 10 per cent rise in

fuel consumption costs you the price of a tune-up every 4000 km. — Barbara Petre.