To the editor:

Old Westport roads, two-lanes, usually wind between stone walls, under shade when white oaks aren’t blighted.  I have read many books while walking, including Milton’s Paradise Lost, which I finished in a month, five pages a day. I walk with my ears to the traffic; I step off onto the grassy verge if it’s not poison ivy.  However, when I happen to be on the righthand side, because of shade or the birds I listen to, I encounter an added danger.  My ears, good enough to have spoken 80 times on Birdtalk (twice in the UK, once in Italy), are not good enough to know when bicycles approach at 25 mph.  If I stepped into their path—to avoid a turtle or poison ivy— I could be injured as many have been.

This week I learned, from an MIT professor that bicyclists have a duty to warn me.  It’s the law in Massachusetts.  Did you know this?   Surely bicyclists don’t.  Of the hundred fund-raising, charitable bicyclists I saw this morning, I didn’t notice one bell.

They’re forbidden to use a whistle, though they could simply shout.  But have you ever heard an overtaking bicyclist shout?

Here’s the statute, Massachusetts Title XIV, Chapter 85, Section 11B, (3):

“The operator shall give an audible warning whenever necessary to insure safe operation of the bicycle; provided, however, the use of a siren or whistle is prohibited.”  Under Boston Laws, I found additional advice from Mayor Walsh: “Always yield to pedestrians. When you pass a person walking, you need to ring a bell or give another polite, audible signal … not a siren or whistle.”

If I expected to see a police crackdown on this law, I might invest in

bicycle bells, maybe some new, delightful ones.  Of course, there are so many more offenses I hope to see enforced, like passing on the right at 90 mph on Route 24. That should be against the law, but may not be, according to Title XIV, Chapter 89, Section 2:

The driver may overtake and pass on the right if a) the other vehicle is about to make a left turn..or “(c) upon any roadway on which traffic is restricted to one direction of movement.”  Hmm.  Arguably, superhighways are unidirectional. 

So currently, between the 90 mph right lane passer and the bicyclist giving an audible warning, the bicycle bell is more legally required, and neglected.

Alan Powers

Westport