How you bike that

So I rode my bike into Paris today for lunch.  I remember the first time I tried to cross the périphérique on my bike. I turned around simply because I didn’t have any id on me. If a car hit me, I reasoned, they wouldn’t be able to identify my body.  

Since then I have slowly ventured further and further away from home by bike.  It started by googling the rules of the road for bicycles.  In the end, it’s just one simple rule:  Make sure cars see you. Advice: Get a bell. I did. 

It’s not for the cars/vans/buses I share the road with (they’re not going to hear my bell - ding, ding!) it’s for the fellow bicyclists, electronic scooters, motorbikes, pedestrians, joggers, and the homeless that, in addition to cars/vans/buses, at any given time, come from any given direction.  

It’s madness, yet a testament to people’s faith in other people not to run them over.  That the priority is human life.