A Safety Tip

I must be suffering from post-event let-down after having to work through Ski to Sea weekend.  I missed the Highland Games for the same reason, so no strawberries and cream this year.  Now that Bike Month is over, though, I have a belated bicycle-safety anecdote.

Several years ago when I worked in a print shop with a couple of guys who were hearing-impaired I learned a little bit of sign-language.  I've forgotten pretty much all of it now, except one sign that had to do with telephoning - the guys used a TTY and didn't have enough hearing or speech to use a regular phone but they had some interesting expressions related to telephone use.  To signify talking on the phone you fold your two middle fingers toward your thumb, hold your hand up to your face with the index finger toward your ear and little finger toward your mouth.  Raising or lowering your hand would mean "answer the phone" or "hang up the phone" or "get off the phone."

Sometimes when our supervisor was mysteriously absent from the shop for extended periods, we'd start to wonder where he was, and they'd sign "he's on the phone," meaning "he's in the bathroom."  Or possibly something more like "he's constipated" or "he's full of $#it."  So the "get off the phone" sign could also mean "get off the can."

This was way back in the days before cell phones, and before I took up bicycling, but I recalled this sign when phone use in cars began to be a hazard, and thought it might be a clever, friendly way to remind drivers to hang up and drive.

The one time I tried it, though, I discovered it works about as well as any attempt at a good-humored assertion of the rights of a bicyclist versus a car driver.  I was riding on an arterial freeway underpass at rush hour, on the sidewalk because of fast, heavy traffic and dangerous conditions, when a guy in a 4x4 truck pulled out of a parking lot in front of me, talking on a cell phone.  I saw him coming and stopped before the driveway, then smiled and tried the "hang up the phone" sign.  I don't know if he understood all the nuances of the gesture, but he smiled back at me, rolled forward slowly until he was completely blocking my way, and continued with his conversation.  All I could do was wait by his door, smiling blandly, until he finished talking and pulled out of the driveway.